How much is Zepbound at CVS without insurance?

CVS does not publish a cash price for it, and neither does Walgreens, Walmart or Costco. What you are quoted at the counter is set by the contract behind your prescription — your plan's negotiated rate, a discount-card network's rate, or the pharmacy's own cash price, which is a number it sets store by store and does not have to disclose in advance. The figures that are published are the list price, what the pharmacy itself paid, and what the manufacturer charges to sell direct, and all three are below.

Why can nobody tell me the price before I get there?

Because there is no single price to tell. The same prescription at the same counter is billed at a different amount depending on whether it goes through your insurance, a discount card, or neither, and the pharmacy is reimbursed under a contract it did not write and cannot discuss. This is not evasiveness by the staff; the number is generated when the claim is adjudicated.

Is a discount card cheaper than paying cash?

Often, and sometimes it is cheaper than using your own insurance — which is why asking for both prices is worth the thirty seconds. What a card cannot do is beat a manufacturer's direct price on a drug the manufacturer sells direct, because the card's rate still has a pharmacy and a middleman in it.

Why is the manufacturer's direct price lower than what the pharmacy paid?

Because they are two different channels. The list price a pharmacy buys against is the number rebates are negotiated off, privately, with pharmacy benefit managers, and the pharmacy's acquisition cost sits near the top of it. A direct-to-patient price has no intermediary to pay. That is how a manufacturer can sell the same drug for less than a pharmacy pays to stock it.

Where do these figures come from?

The acquisition cost is NADAC, the federal survey of what retail pharmacies actually paid, published weekly by CMS by NDC. The list price and the direct price are read from the manufacturer's own pages, each with the date it was read on the drug's page here. Nothing on this page is a store-level quote, because no store publishes one.

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What it costs at the pharmacy counter

How much is a GLP-1 at CVS, Walmart or Costco without insurance?

None of them publishes a cash price for these drugs, and a site that quotes you one has made it up. The price you are given at a counter is produced when the claim is adjudicated: it depends on whether the prescription goes through your plan, through a discount-card network, or through neither, and the pharmacy is reimbursed under contracts it did not write. Three figures are published, and together they bound the answer: the manufacturer's list price, what retail pharmacies actually paid for the drug — the federal NADAC survey — and what the manufacturer charges to sell direct to a patient. On 4 of these drugs the direct price is below what a pharmacy paid for it, which is the clearest answer there is to what a counter can do for you on cash.

List price, pharmacy acquisition cost and cheapest published cash price, by drug
Drug	List price a month	What the pharmacy paid	Cheapest published cash price
Wegovy	$1,349	$1,306four single-dose pens of 0.75 mL a month — 4 × 0.75 mL at $435.36 per mL	$349below acquisition costread 2026-09-12
Wegovy pill	$1,349	no NADAC row	$299read 2026-09-10
Saxenda	not published	$1,3073 mg a day is 0.5 mL, so 15 mL a month — 15 mL at $87.14 per mL	none verified
Mounjaro	$1,112	$1,077four single-dose pens of 0.5 mL a month — 4 × 0.5 mL at $538.48 per mL	$499below acquisition costread 2026-09-11
Zepbound	$1,086	$482four weekly doses a month — one 2.4 mL KwikPen holding four doses at $200.70 per mL	$449below acquisition costread 2026-08-19
Ozempic	$1,028	$996one 3 mL pen a month at the 0.25–0.5 mg doses — 3 mL at $331.97 per mL	$349below acquisition costread 2026-09-12
Rybelsus	$1,028	no NADAC row	none verified
Trulicity	$987	no NADAC row	$389read 2026-09-07
Foundayo	$649	no NADAC row	$299read 2026-09-12
Phentermine	not published	$2one 37.5 mg tablet a day — 30 × $0.0708	none verified

Acquisition cost is the federal NADAC survey, effective 2026-08-19 — what retail pharmacies reported paying, not a price anyone can walk in and pay. A pharmacy that bought at NADAC still has to dispense, stock and staff. The full arithmetic is on the markup page.

What actually decides your number

Which contract the claim runs through. Your plan's negotiated rate, a discount card's rate, or the pharmacy's own cash price are three different numbers for the same box. Ask for all three; staff can run them.
Your dose. These drugs are priced per pen or per fill, and a titration month is not a maintenance month. Every figure here is at maintenance.
Whether the manufacturer sells direct. Lilly and Novo both do, and on several doses the direct price is the lowest published cash price that exists — the programs and their conditions are set out with what each actually requires.
Whether a copay card applies. Those need commercial insurance and are barred from federal programs, which is a rule about who you are rather than where you shop.

What this page will not do

Quote you a store. Retail cash prices for these drugs are not published by any chain, vary by location, and change without notice; a figure attributed to “CVS” on a comparison site is either a discount-card rate for one ZIP code on one day or an invention. Where this site cannot read a number from the seller's own page, it leaves the cell empty — that rule is the reason the table above is shorter than a competitor's.

No clinician has reviewed this page. What it says the label or a trial says is quoted from the FDA label or the trial cited beside it, general guidance is marked as such, and every price carries the date it was verified — but that is sourcing, not medical review, and the two are not the same thing. What we do and do not check · Who checked the price

Questions

How much is Zepbound at CVS without insurance?: CVS does not publish a cash price for it, and neither does Walgreens, Walmart or Costco. What you are quoted at the counter is set by the contract behind your prescription — your plan's negotiated rate, a discount-card network's rate, or the pharmacy's own cash price, which is a number it sets store by store and does not have to disclose in advance. The figures that are published are the list price, what the pharmacy itself paid, and what the manufacturer charges to sell direct, and all three are below.
Why can nobody tell me the price before I get there?: Because there is no single price to tell. The same prescription at the same counter is billed at a different amount depending on whether it goes through your insurance, a discount card, or neither, and the pharmacy is reimbursed under a contract it did not write and cannot discuss. This is not evasiveness by the staff; the number is generated when the claim is adjudicated.
Is a discount card cheaper than paying cash?: Often, and sometimes it is cheaper than using your own insurance — which is why asking for both prices is worth the thirty seconds. What a card cannot do is beat a manufacturer's direct price on a drug the manufacturer sells direct, because the card's rate still has a pharmacy and a middleman in it.
Why is the manufacturer's direct price lower than what the pharmacy paid?: Because they are two different channels. The list price a pharmacy buys against is the number rebates are negotiated off, privately, with pharmacy benefit managers, and the pharmacy's acquisition cost sits near the top of it. A direct-to-patient price has no intermediary to pay. That is how a manufacturer can sell the same drug for less than a pharmacy pays to stock it.
Where do these figures come from?: The acquisition cost is NADAC, the federal survey of what retail pharmacies actually paid, published weekly by CMS by NDC. The list price and the direct price are read from the manufacturer's own pages, each with the date it was read on the drug's page here. Nothing on this page is a store-level quote, because no store publishes one.