Guide

What you actually pay

Six pricing tricks that turn a $99 advert into a $298 statement, and how to check before you hand over a card.

Updated 2026-09-18 · Prices verified independently

Why you can trust this: we take payment from one company on this page — Coreage Rx — when a reader signs up through our link. It does not change the prices we print or the rubric we score against, both of which are published in full on how we rate. Read our full disclosure.

Nearly every complaint we receive about a GLP-1 programme comes down to the same thing: the price in month two was not the price in the advert. It is almost never a scam. It is structure.

Once you know the six shapes this takes, you can read any of these websites in about ninety seconds and work out what you will really be charged.

1. The membership that renews higher

The commonest one. A $39 introductory membership renews at $99. Eden advertises $99 semaglutide, and the membership behind it takes the real figure to about $198.

2. The medication price that excludes the fee

Two separate charges presented as one number. Hims & Hers quotes $199 for compounded injections; the $39 membership is billed alongside it.

3. The fee that buys no medication at all

Ro charges $149 a month for the membership and bills medication separately. That is stated plainly, and it still surprises people.

4. The cheapest tier that is a different product

"From $179" at Henry Meds is the sublingual tier; the weekly injection is about $297. "From $79" at Hims is an oral kit. Neither is the weekly injection most people are picturing.

5. The price that climbs with your dose

Many programmes charge more as you titrate up, so the month you reach a therapeutic dose is the month the bill jumps. Flat-rate programmes such as Coreage Rx hold the price across the dose range, which is worth more over a year than most headline discounts.

6. The insured price quoted to cash payers

The $25 a month figures in the advertising are what an insured patient pays after coverage is approved. If you are paying cash, that number has nothing to do with you.

The ninety-second check

Find the ongoing monthly price, not the first-month price.
Ask whether a membership or platform fee is billed separately, and what it renews at.
Confirm which format the advertised price refers to — injection, oral or sublingual.
Ask whether the price changes when your dose goes up.
Add it all together and multiply by twelve. Compare that number, and nothing else.

We have done that arithmetic for every provider we cover — the results are in the cheapest GLP-1 programmes.