Answers that end in a number.
What these drugs do, what dose you end up on, and what it costs when you get there. Every clinical fact is quoted from the label with its source; every price is read off the seller’s own page and dated.
55 guides · 35 programs tracked · cheapest today $69/mo, checked Sep 13
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What it costsMounjaro costLilly puts Mounjaro's list price at $1,112.16 per fill, which is what a pharmacy bills without coverage. With commercial insurance that covers it for type 2 diabetes, the Mounjaro Savings Program brings it to as little as $25 for up to three months. What Lilly does not publish is a self-pay price: unlike Zepbound, the same tirzepatide in a weight-loss box sold direct at $299 to $699, Mounjaro has no direct-to-patient programme. So the cash answer for Mounjaro is usually a different box or a different route.What it costsRo vs Hims vs Noom vs WeightWatchers GLP-1 cost, pricedThe big-name programs price two things separately, the membership and the medication, and the headline you see is usually one of them. Ro charges a $74 membership plus $149 to $299 for branded drugs. WeightWatchers Clinic is $74 a month (currently $25 for two months) plus medication from $149. Calibrate is $199 a month on a three-month commitment, medication separate. Found starts compounded GLP-1s at $99 a month with no fee. Hims and Noom do not publish a price on a page we can read.Side effectsGLP-1 constipation, nausea, diarrheaThe four gut effects are the four most common side effects of every GLP-1, and the labels put numbers on them. On Wegovy 2.4 mg: nausea 44%, diarrhoea 30%, constipation 24%, vomiting 24%, fatigue 11%, against 16%, 16%, 11%, 6% and 5% on placebo. On Zepbound at 15 mg: nausea 28%, diarrhoea 23%, constipation 11%, vomiting 13%, fatigue 7%. They cluster around dose increases, they are the reason 6.8% of Wegovy patients and up to 6.7% of Zepbound patients stopped, and both labels prescribe the same fix: climb slower.
What it costs
Prices, coupons, insurance and the arithmetic of paying cash, checked against the seller's own page.
What it costsMounjaro costLilly puts Mounjaro's list price at $1,112.16 per fill, which is what a pharmacy bills without coverage. With commercial insurance that covers it for type 2 diabetes, the Mounjaro Savings Program brings it to as little as $25 for up to three months. What Lilly does not publish is a self-pay price: unlike Zepbound, the same tirzepatide in a weight-loss box sold direct at $299 to $699, Mounjaro has no direct-to-patient programme. So the cash answer for Mounjaro is usually a different box or a different route.What it costsRo vs Hims vs Noom vs WeightWatchers GLP-1 cost, pricedThe big-name programs price two things separately, the membership and the medication, and the headline you see is usually one of them. Ro charges a $74 membership plus $149 to $299 for branded drugs. WeightWatchers Clinic is $74 a month (currently $25 for two months) plus medication from $149. Calibrate is $199 a month on a three-month commitment, medication separate. Found starts compounded GLP-1s at $99 a month with no fee. Hims and Noom do not publish a price on a page we can read.What it costsZepbound cost without insuranceWithout insurance, Zepbound costs $299 a month at the 2.5 mg starting dose and climbs with you: $399 at 5 mg, $499 at 7.5 mg and $699 from 10 mg up, bought direct from Lilly as a vial or KwikPen. That replaces a list price Lilly itself puts at $499 to $1,086.37 per fill. The catch is the ladder: the doses that produced Zepbound's headline results are the $699 tier, so a year at maintenance is closer to $8,400 than to $3,600. Compounded tirzepatide, which is not FDA-approved, starts at $119 a month on our board.
Side effects
What these drugs do to your body, what the label says, and what to do about it.
Side effectsGLP-1 constipation, nausea, diarrheaThe four gut effects are the four most common side effects of every GLP-1, and the labels put numbers on them. On Wegovy 2.4 mg: nausea 44%, diarrhoea 30%, constipation 24%, vomiting 24%, fatigue 11%, against 16%, 16%, 11%, 6% and 5% on placebo. On Zepbound at 15 mg: nausea 28%, diarrhoea 23%, constipation 11%, vomiting 13%, fatigue 7%. They cluster around dose increases, they are the reason 6.8% of Wegovy patients and up to 6.7% of Zepbound patients stopped, and both labels prescribe the same fix: climb slower.Side effectsZepbound (tirzepatide) side effects by dose, from the labelZepbound's label puts a number on every common side effect at each of its three maintenance doses. Nausea runs 25 to 29 percent against 8 on placebo, diarrhoea 19 to 23, vomiting 8 to 13, constipation 11 to 17. Across the two approval trials, 4.8 to 6.7 percent of people stopped the drug because of side effects, against 3.4 percent on placebo, and most of those who quit did so in the first months, from gut effects during dose escalation. Below that table are the rarer things the label warns about, with the trial rates where it gives them, and the honest comparison to Ozempic's table.Side effectsOzempic face“Ozempic face” is not a side effect of Ozempic. It is the hollowed, older look a face takes on after fast, substantial weight loss, and it happens the same way after bariatric surgery or a hard diet. Facial fat pads shrink along with fat everywhere else, and skin that has lost volume quickly does not always retract to match. It is not listed in the prescribing information for semaglutide, because the drug is not doing anything to your face that losing the weight another way would not. What you can influence is how fast you lose and whether you can stay on a steady maintenance dose instead of stopping and rebounding.
Doses and injecting
The manufacturer's own ladder, week by week, and what each step costs.
Doses and injectingWegovy 7.2 mg (HD)Wegovy HD is semaglutide at 7.2 mg, three times the standard 2.4 mg dose, in its own pen. In the STEP UP trial it took 18.7% off body weight at 72 weeks against 15.6% for 2.4 mg and 3.9% for placebo, in 1,407 adults with obesity. That puts it within 1.5 points of tirzepatide's head-to-head result and makes it the strongest semaglutide there is. Novo sells it direct for $399 a month, $50 above the standard pen, and it sits above the normal ladder rather than replacing it.Doses and injectingStopping GLP-1sTwo trials have measured what happens when you stop. On semaglutide, people who lost 17.3% over 68 weeks regained two-thirds of it in the year after stopping, ending 5.6% below where they started. On tirzepatide, people who lost 20.9% in 36 weeks regained 14% over the next year on placebo while those who continued lost a further 5.5%. Both labels are explicit that these drugs are for maintaining weight reduction long term, which is a different claim from finishing a course. A maintenance dose is simply the dose you stay on; the labels do not define a lower one.Doses and injectingZepbound (tirzepatide) dosage chartZepbound has six doses, 2.5 to 15 mg, taken once a week. The label's rule is four weeks at 2.5 mg, then 2.5 mg steps with at least four weeks on each, to a maintenance dose of 5, 10 or 15 mg. In SURMOUNT-1 those three doses lost 15.0, 19.5 and 20.9 percent of body weight over 72 weeks. Direct from Lilly each rung has a price, $299 at 2.5 mg rising to $699 at 10 mg and above, so the chart below carries the dose, the rule, the trial result and the bill in one place, plus the vial and KwikPen concentrations for anyone measuring in units.
The drugs
What each one is, who it is approved for, and how it differs from the one next to it.
The drugsBest GLP-1 for weight lossBy weight lost, the order is settled: tirzepatide (Zepbound) first at 20.2% in the only head-to-head, then semaglutide 7.2 mg (Wegovy HD) at 18.7%, then semaglutide 2.4 mg (Wegovy) at 13.7% to 15.6%, then the pills. By what you pay, the order nearly inverts: compounded semaglutide from $69 a month, the Wegovy tablet from $149, Wegovy pen $349, Zepbound $299 to $699 by dose. The best one is where those two lists meet for your budget and your plan.The drugsTirzepatide vs semaglutideThey were finally tested against each other. In SURMOUNT-5, 751 adults with obesity took the maximum tolerated dose of one or the other for 72 weeks: tirzepatide lost 20.2% of body weight, semaglutide 13.7%. That gap is real and it is the whole argument for tirzepatide. The other half of the decision is the bill: compounded tirzepatide runs from $119 a month on our board against $69 for semaglutide, and the branded gap is wider still.The drugsZepbound vs WegovyZepbound is tirzepatide and Wegovy is semaglutide, and in the one trial that ran them head-to-head, tirzepatide's molecule lost 20.2% of body weight against 13.7% over 72 weeks. That settles which is stronger. What it does not settle is which you can afford: Zepbound self-pay runs $299 to $699 a month by dose, Wegovy's pen is $349 flat and its new tablet starts at $149, and with a commercial plan that covers either, both fall to $25.
Buying safely
How to tell a licensed program from a bad one before you hand over a card.
Buying safelyHow to get ZepboundZepbound is a prescription drug approved for adults with obesity, or overweight with at least one weight-related condition, which the trials defined as a BMI of 30, or 27 with a comorbidity. Any licensed prescriber can write it, including online. Then it is a payment question with four answers: a commercial plan that covers it brings it to $25 with Lilly's card; Lilly sells it direct for $299 to $699 a month by dose; a plan that refuses can be appealed; and compounded tirzepatide, the same molecule without FDA approval, starts at $119 on our board.Buying safelyHow to get WegovyWegovy is approved for adults with obesity or overweight plus a weight-related condition, and separately to cut heart-attack and stroke risk in adults with established heart disease. Any licensed prescriber can write it, in person or online, as a weekly pen or a daily tablet. Paying is the variable: a commercial plan that covers it brings it to $25 with Novo's card, Novo sells the pen direct for $349 a month ($199 for two fills if you are new, until 31 December 2026) and the tablet from $149, and compounded semaglutide starts at $69 on our board.Buying safelyHow to get MounjaroMounjaro is approved for type 2 diabetes in adults and children from 10, and Lilly's own site says it is not a weight-loss drug. With a diabetes diagnosis, any prescriber can write it and a commercial plan that covers it brings it to $25 with Lilly's card. Without diabetes, a prescriber can write it off-label, but no insurer will cover it and Lilly publishes no cash price for it, against a list price of $1,112.16 per fill. The same tirzepatide in the Zepbound box is approved for weight, plan-coverable, and sold direct for $299 to $699.
Why any of this is here
The board is the product. These exist so you know what you are buying.
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