GLP-1 cost calculator
Monthly and annual cost of treatment, and the number nobody publishes: what you spend per pound lost.
Read this first. The weight loss figures here are trial averages, and individual results ranged widely above and below them. This page is arithmetic on numbers you supply, to make a cost comparison legible. It is not a prediction of your results and it is not medical or financial advice.
Your copay, or the cash price if you are paying out of pocket.
The breakdown
Why cost per pound is the number that matters
Comparing a $1,349 brand list price against a $199 compounded price tells you almost nothing on its own, because the two are not necessarily buying the same result. Dividing what you actually spend by what you actually lose puts them on one axis.
It also reframes the question people usually ask. "Is this expensive" has no answer. "Is $38 a pound worth it to me" does.
Where the weight loss numbers come from
These are averages from the registration trials, not marketing figures.
Tirzepatide: SURMOUNT-1 reported about 20.9% of body weight lost at 72 weeks on the 15 mg dose.
Semaglutide: STEP 1 reported about 14.9% at 68 weeks on 2.4 mg.
Liraglutide: SCALE reported about 8% at 56 weeks.
Loss is front-loaded. Most of it happens in the first half of that period and the curve flattens, which is why a 6 month projection is not half of a 12 month one.
What this calculation leaves out
The cost of stopping
Trials that withdrew the medication saw a substantial share of the weight return. Whatever you calculate for 12 months, the honest question is what happens in month 13, and that is a conversation with your prescriber rather than a number on this page.
Everything that is not the drug
Appointments, labs, syringes and shipping are real costs and none of them are in this number. If you are comparing a telehealth subscription against a pharmacy fill, check what each price actually includes.
Insurance that changes mid-year
Coverage for weight management medications gets dropped and re-added frequently. A copay you calculate in January is not a commitment your plan has made for December.
Whether the compounded product is what it says
Compounded pricing is lower for reasons, some of them fine and some of them not. That is a pharmacy sourcing question, not an arithmetic one.
Common questions
- How much does Wegovy cost per month without insurance?
- List price is roughly $1,300 a month, though manufacturer direct programs and savings cards bring the effective price down substantially for people who qualify. Enter what you actually pay, not the list price.
- Is compounded semaglutide cheaper overall?
- Per month, almost always. Per pound lost, it depends entirely on whether you stay on it for the same duration, since the loss curve is what converts spend into result.
- What is a reasonable cost per pound?
- There is no benchmark, because the value depends on what the weight is costing you. The point of the number is to make your own trade-off visible, not to compare against a standard.
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