GLP-1 Cost Calculator

The monthly price is the number everyone quotes. The numbers that actually matter are cost per pound and what maintenance costs after you hit your goal — because for most people this is not a course of treatment, it's a subscription.

What you pay

Your monthly cost

What leaves your account — insurance copay, manufacturer self-pay price, or full cash. See the price table below.

Months until your goal weight

The weight-loss projector will give you this.

Pounds you expect to lose

Maintenance cost per month

Often lower — many people maintain on a smaller dose, and the low-dose tiers are cheaper.

Years you plan to stay on it

Other monthly costs

Telehealth subscription, labs, sharps container, protein supplements, replacement clothes.

Monthly food you stop buying

Groceries, takeout, alcohol. Real and often large — but be honest, not optimistic.

What it costs

Cost per pound lost

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Gross per month

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Net of food savings

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Total to reach goal

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Net cost per pound

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Maintenance per year

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First 12 months

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US prices, checked July 2026

Deliberately not hard-coded into the calculator — GLP-1 pricing changed four separate times in 2025–2026 and any table baked into a tool would be wrong within a quarter. Check the manufacturer site before you trust these:

Zepbound (tirzepatide), LillyDirect self-pay vials — around $299/mo at 2.5 mg, $399 at 5 mg, $449 at 7.5–15 mg.
Wegovy (semaglutide), NovoCare self-pay — around $349/mo for the injection.
Oral Wegovy (semaglutide 25 mg) — launched at a $149/mo promotional price on the starting doses; $349 after.
With insurance that covers obesity drugs — typically a $25–$100 specialty copay, but coverage is the exception: most commercial plans and traditional Medicare Part D still exclude weight-loss indications.
Full list price, no discount program — roughly $1,000–$1,350/mo. Almost nobody should be paying this; if you are, the manufacturer self-pay channels are the first call.

The formula

cost per lb = (monthly price + other costs) × months ÷ pounds lost

Net cost per pound subtracts the food you stop buying from the monthly figure first. Maintenance is priced separately because it's open-ended: maintenance total = (maintenance price + other costs) × 12 × years.

Worked example

$449/mo plus $40 of ancillaries, 16 months to lose 50 lb. That's $489 × 16 = $7,824 to reach goal, or $156 per pound. Knock off $150/mo of groceries and takeout you genuinely stop buying and the net is $339 × 16 = $5,424, or $108 per pound. Then maintenance at $349 + $40 runs $4,668 a year — so five years of holding the loss costs $23,340, three times what the losing phase cost. That asymmetry is the whole point of this calculator.

What this deliberately leaves out

No discounting to present value, no attempt to price the health outcomes on the other side of the ledger. The SELECT trial found semaglutide cut major cardiovascular events by 20% in people with existing heart disease, and there are real downstream savings in avoided diabetes, sleep apnea equipment, and joint surgery — none of which this tool tries to quantify, because doing it credibly requires your actual risk profile. This is the cash-flow side only.

FAQ

Why does maintenance cost more than losing the weight?

Because losing takes 12–18 months and maintaining takes the rest of your life. In the STEP 1 trial extension, people who stopped regained two-thirds of their loss within a year. That makes the honest financial question not "what does it cost to lose 50 lb" but "what does it cost per year, indefinitely" — and at $4,000–5,000 a year that's a car payment. Run it out over the years you actually plan to be on it.

Can I use my HSA or FSA?

Yes, when the drug is prescribed for a diagnosed condition — obesity counts, and so does the accompanying telehealth visit and lab work. That effectively cuts the cost by your marginal tax rate, often 25–35% all-in. It's the single biggest lever most people have and it's routinely missed. See HSA vs FSA.

Are the food savings real?

Directionally yes — reduced appetite is the mechanism, so grocery and restaurant spending genuinely drops, and alcohol spending often drops sharply. But people overestimate it. If you want a defensible number, pull three months of card statements from before you started rather than guessing. Set this field to zero if you'd rather see the unoffset cost.

What about compounded semaglutide?

The cheap compounded market largely closed in 2025 when the FDA declared the shortages resolved, which removed the legal basis for mass compounding of copies. What remains is thinner, legally contested, and not subject to the same manufacturing oversight — dosing errors from mL-versus-unit confusion on compounded vials were a documented source of harm. If you're pricing it against the manufacturer self-pay tiers, the gap is much smaller than it was.

Is a lower cost per pound the better deal?

Only if you'd keep the weight off either way, and mostly you wouldn't. A drug that costs $200/lb and that you tolerate well enough to stay on beats one at $120/lb that you quit at month four because of the nausea. Cost per pound is a useful comparison between options you'd realistically stick with — not a ranking on its own.

Estimate — not medical advice

This is an estimate, not medical advice, and not a diagnosis. It doesn't know your history, your medications, or your other results, and it should never be used to start, stop, or change treatment. If a number here concerns you, take it to a doctor or pharmacist rather than acting on it.