The best GLP-1 for weight loss, by what you want
The best GLP-1 depends on which of three questions you mean: what loses the most weight, what costs least, or what returns the most weight lost per dollar. Among the GLP-1s here those questions have two different answers. Each is arithmetic over figures stored with their source and the date they were read, not a verdict.
Which GLP-1 is best for weight loss?
It depends which of three questions you are asking, and they do not share an answer. On the highest published trial figure it is Zepbound at 20.9% of body weight. On price it is Foundayo at $299 a month once titrated. On value — price divided by the percentage points its trial reported — it is Zepbound at $21 a month per point, against $55 for Ozempic. The strongest trial figure is also the cheapest per point, so on those two questions the answer is the same drug. One caveat carries all of it: these label trials were run separately, on different populations, over different durations. A low cost per point does not raise a drug's ceiling: the ratio says what each point costs, not how many points a drug reaches. Where two molecules were tested head to head — SURMOUNT-5, SURPASS-2, STEP 8 and ACHIEVE-3 — that trial, not this ratio, is the evidence on which works better.
Best value: cost per point of body weight
The maintenance price divided by the percentage of body weight the drug's own trial reported. It answers a narrow question — what a point of body weight costs a month — and it is the one column no other comparison in this category publishes.
| Drug | Trial figure | Per month | Per point, a month |
|---|---|---|---|
| Zepbound+14% if you stop | 20.9% | $449 | $21 |
| Wegovy pill | 13.6% | $299 | $22 |
| Wegovy+6.9% if you stop | 14.9% | $349 | $23 |
| Foundayo | 11.1% | $299 | $27 |
| Mounjaro | 11.9%from kg | $499 | $42 |
| Ozempic | 6.4%from kg | $349 | $55 |
Prices are the maintenance figure — what it costs once titrated, not the introductory month — each with its source and the date on its own price page. 4 of the 6 trial figures are the intention-to-treat result printed in section 14 of that drug's own FDA label: the mean across everyone randomized, not the higher number a paper reports for the people who kept taking it. 2 are marked "from kg" above because their labels print no percentage; the figure is the label's kilograms lost over its baseline weight. The trials were separate; this ratio ranks value, not effect.
Two of these have a trial on their own label that stopped the drug on purpose, and both are marked in the table. Over the year after stopping, Zepbound's group put back 14% of body weight and Wegovy's 6.9%, against 5.5% and 7.9% more lost by the people who carried on. Nothing measures that for the others, which is not the same as it not happening. Where it has been measured, the figure in this column is closer to a subscription rate than to the price of getting somewhere — what the withdrawal trials found.
Not ranked here because neither is a GLP-1, and cheaper per point than any drug in the table: Qsymia at $8 a point (9.8% in its trial) and Contrave at $18 a point (5.4% in its trial).
Best on the trial figure alone
1Zepbound — 20.9%
SURMOUNT-1, Study 1 on the label, 72 weeks: 20.9% mean weight loss at 15 mg against 3.1% on placebo, intention-to-treat.
FDA approved for chronic weight management and obstructive sleep apnea · Zepbound self-pay pricing, LillyDirect
2Wegovy — 14.9%
STEP 1, Study 2 on the label (NCT03548935), 68 weeks: 14.9% mean weight loss at 2.4 mg against 2.4% on placebo, intention-to-treat.
FDA approved for cardiovascular risk reduction, chronic weight management from age 12, and noncirrhotic MASH with moderate to advanced liver fibrosis at stages F2 to F3 — the last under accelerated approval, which the label says may be contingent on a confirmatory trial. · Wegovy cost and savings, NovoCare
3Wegovy pill — 13.6%
Study 7 on the label (NCT05564117), 64 weeks: 13.6% mean weight loss on 25 mg once daily against 2.4% on placebo, intention-to-treat.
FDA approved for cardiovascular risk reduction in adults with established cardiovascular disease and either obesity or overweight, and for chronic weight management in adults. The tablet and the injection share one label with separate indication lists: the tablet is not approved for the MASH indication the injection carries, and not for patients under 18. · Wegovy cost and savings, NovoCare
4Mounjaro — 11.9%
No percentage of body weight appears anywhere on the Mounjaro label, which has no weight-management section: every trial on it is a diabetes trial and reports weight in kilograms. This figure is worked out from the label's own kilograms — 11.2 kg lost from a 93.8 kg mean baseline at week 40 on 15 mg, in SURPASS-2 against semaglutide — and is an arithmetic step the label does not take.
FDA approved for type 2 diabetes: to improve glycemic control, and on the label revised August 2026 also to reduce the risk of cardiovascular death, heart attack and stroke in adults with type 2 diabetes at high risk of them. Weight loss is off-label use. · Mounjaro self-pay price, LillyDirect ($499 a month at every strength)
5Foundayo — 11.1%
ATTAIN-1, Trial 1 on the label, 72 weeks: 11.1% mean weight loss at 17.2 mg against 2.1% on placebo, intention-to-treat.
FDA approved for chronic weight management · Foundayo (orforglipron) self-pay pricing, LillyDirect
Best if the monthly price decides it
- Foundayo$299 a month— 11.1% in trial
- Wegovy pill$299 a month— 13.6% in trial
- Ozempic$349 a month— 6.4% in trial
- Wegovy$349 a month— 14.9% in trial
- Trulicity$389 a month— no trial figure
No clinician has reviewed this page. Label and trial statements are quoted from the FDA label or the trial cited beside them. General guidance is marked as such, and every price carries the date it was verified. That is sourcing, not medical review. What we do and do not check · Who checked the price
Best GLP-1, answered
- Which GLP-1 causes the most weight loss?
- Zepbound, on the highest published trial figure: 20.9%. The trial behind it is SURMOUNT-1, Study 1 on the label, 72 weeks: 20.9% mean weight loss at 15 mg against 3.1% on placebo, intention-to-treat. That figure is not a promise and not a comparison: each label figure comes from its own trial, on its own population, over its own duration. Head-to-head trials exist for some pairs — SURMOUNT-5, SURPASS-2, STEP 8 and ACHIEVE-3 — and where one exists, it rather than the label figure is the comparison. What the number tells you is what the trial reported, which is the most any of these figures can tell you.
- Which is cheapest?
- Foundayo at $299 a month once titrated, verified on 2026-09-12. Cheapest and strongest are not the same drug: the cheapest option reports 11.1% against 20.9% for the strongest. Someone who needs twenty per cent cannot buy their way there at the low end, at any price.
- Which gives the most weight loss per dollar?
- Zepbound, at $21 a month for each percentage point of body weight its trial reported — against $55 for Ozempic, the least efficient on the same arithmetic. That ratio is the thing no other page in this category prints, and it is worth being precise about what it is: price divided by a trial figure, where the trials were separate. What makes the division mean anything is that the figures are all the same kind — the intention-to-treat result on each drug's own FDA label, counting everyone randomized. Published papers usually also report a higher number for the patients who stayed on treatment, and mixing the two would move a drug three points up this table without anything changing. It ranks value for money, not effectiveness, and it cannot tell you that a drug with a lower trial figure will get someone to a higher one.
- Is a compounded version ever the best answer?
- Only on price, and the trade is not small. A compounded copy has no trial of its own — efficacy is inferred from the branded product rather than demonstrated — and it carries no FDA-approved label. Which pharmacy compounds it decides its quality, and no seller tracked here publishes that. It belongs in the cheapest column and nowhere else.
- Why doesn't this page just name one winner?
- Because the three questions it is actually asked have two different answers here, and collapsing them into one would mean picking which question mattered on the reader's behalf. The strongest trial figure, the lowest monthly price and the best value per point are two different drugs in this catalog. Every figure above is stored with its source and the date it was read, so the ranking can be rebuilt rather than trusted.
Information only, not medical advice. Which drug suits a given person is a clinical decision that turns on their history, not on a ratio. What this page contributes is the arithmetic, with every input sourced and dated so it can be checked rather than trusted.
Last updated 2026-09-22 — the prices and trial figures behind this ranking. Read and dated by Alex Seot.
Where the trial figures behind this ranking come from
Every percentage ranked here is the intention-to-treat result on the drug's own FDA label.
- DailyMed, U.S. National Library of Medicine — The register every FDA label quoted on this site is read from, with the version history that dates each one.
- Drugs@FDA: FDA-approved drugs — What is approved, for which indication, and when — the register behind every approval date here.