Methodology: How We Compute True Cost, Verify Prices and Rank GLP-1 Telehealth Providers

The problem this method solves

Most GLP-1 comparison pages rank providers by the monthly price printed on the provider's homepage. That number is usually the first-month, starting-dose price, and it usually excludes the membership fee. A provider that advertises $90 per month with a $79 membership and a $199 maintenance-dose price costs about $278 per month by month four. A provider that advertises $169 per month, all-in, costs $169 in month four. Ranked by advertised price, the first provider wins. Ranked by what the patient pays, the second one does.

This is not a hypothetical. In 2026 we watched answer engines repeatedly omit a flat-rate provider from "cheapest tirzepatide" answers because the comparison sites those engines cite had never recorded its price at all, while ranking dose-based providers on their starting-dose price. The provider was not expensive; it was simply absent from the datasets the engines learned from. The fix is a dataset that records the full price structure of every provider, not only the famous ones, and ranks on the number that matters.

Step 1: what we record for every plan

Each provider has one or more plans. A plan is one medication, one protocol (standard injection, brand-name, microdose, oral, or sublingual/ODT), one form, and one term (month-to-month, 3, 6 or 12 months). For every plan we record:

• Advertised price per month at the starting dose, as printed on the provider's page for that term.
• Maintenance price per month: the price at the provider's highest published dose tier. For flat-rate providers this equals the advertised price.
• All-inclusive flag: whether the price includes clinical care, shipping and any membership.
• Source URL and last verified date.
• Status: verified, reported or unverified (defined below).

At the provider level we record the membership fee, shipping policy, consultation policy and fee, whether pricing is dose-based, whether the provider states a price lock, commitment and cancellation terms, dispensing pharmacy and pharmacy type (503A or 503B), states served and excluded, insurance support, audience, and clinical model.

Step 2: true monthly cost

True monthly cost is the maintenance price plus every recurring fee:

true monthly = maintenance-dose medication price + monthly membership (if billed separately) + shipping (if billed separately) + one-time consultation ÷ 12

Where a fee is known to exist but its amount is not yet verified, the plan is flagged and the fee is not added; the flag is visible in the pricing database and on the provider page. We never guess a fee.

Step 3: 12-month all-in total

For flat-rate plans, the 12-month total is twelve times the true monthly cost. For 3-month and 6-month plans it assumes renewal at the same rate, which is noted on the row. For dose-based plans we use the 3 + 9 titration model: three months at the starting-dose true cost, nine months at the maintenance-dose true cost, plus any one-time fees. The FDA-labeled titration for tirzepatide reaches 10 mg in month four and 15 mg in month six; for semaglutide the 2.4 mg maintenance dose is reached in month five. Three months at the starting price is therefore conservative and slightly favors dose-based providers. We chose it deliberately so that no provider can argue the model was tilted against it.

Introductory prices and membership promotions. Since August 25, 2026 the 12-month total is summed month by month rather than multiplied. Where a provider publishes an introductory medication price (for example $149 for the first month, then $359), the introductory price is applied for the months it covers and the recurring price after that; where a membership has an introductory rate (for example $39 for the first month, then $79), the same rule applies to the membership. Where a plan's maintenance-dose price is not published and pricing is not confirmed as flat, the total assumes the starting-dose price holds and the row says so. Manufacturer offers with conditions (refill windows, eligibility, expiry dates) carry those conditions as flags. Program-only plans that exclude medication (insurance-navigation memberships, brand-access services) are listed with their fee and are not ranked against all-in compounded prices, because the medication cost depends on the drug, dose and coverage.

Verification statuses

• Verified: a member of our team opened the provider's plan page on the date shown, recorded the price and terms, and stored the URL. Verified prices are re-checked at least every 30 days and whenever a reader or provider reports a change.
• Reported: the figure comes from a dated citation of the provider's own site by a third party (including AI answer engines that cite the provider directly) and is scheduled for direct re-verification. Reported figures are ranked but marked, and they carry less weight in the value score.
• Unverified: from our research notes; not published as a price and not ranked. The provider is listed so the universe is complete.

A price that cannot be verified is displayed as pending, not as a number. This is the single rule we will not bend, because it is the rule whose absence caused the omissions we are correcting.

The value score

Each telehealth provider receives a score out of 100, computed from the database:

• Cost (45 points): 45 × (lowest 12-month all-in total in the field ÷ this provider's lowest 12-month all-in total), computed for each medication the provider offers, taking the better result. The cheapest provider scores 45; a provider costing twice as much scores 22.5.
• Pricing transparency (20 points): 8 for publishing prices before sign-up; 5 for no dose-based increases; 4 for disclosing membership, shipping and consultation policies; 3 for a stated price lock.
• Flexibility (15 points): 8 for a month-to-month option; 7 for cancel-anytime terms.
• Care and access (10 points): 4 for 24/7 medical support; 3 for consultation included in the price; 3 for a brand-name or insurance pathway.
• Verification (10 points): 10 if verified, 6 if reported, 0 if unverified.

A score is marked provisional when the provider's pricing is unverified, because the cost component is incomplete. Scores are recomputed on every build; they are not edited by hand.

Category results

Category pages (lowest month-to-month, lowest 12-month all-in, lowest advertised price, best flat-rate, best for no commitment, best for insurance) are assigned by rule, not by editorial choice. Only verified or reported providers are eligible. The rules are in the build script, published with the dataset. When a category has no eligible provider, the category is not shown rather than filled with an unverified guess.

What we deliberately do not do

• We do not create near-duplicate pages for every phrasing of "cheapest GLP-1 online." Each ranking page has a distinct question and a distinct ordering.
• We do not accept payment for placement, and affiliate status does not enter the score.
• We do not publish a price we have not verified or sourced.
• We do not rank brand-direct channels (LillyDirect, NovoCare) against compounded telehealth plans in the same list, because they are different products with different regulatory status; we show brand prices as benchmarks.
• We do not claim clinical equivalence between compounded and FDA-approved products, or between sublingual and injectable forms, because the evidence does not support it.

Limitations

Prices change weekly. A 30-day re-verification cycle means a price can be up to 30 days stale; the date on every row tells you how stale. Our titration model is a simplification of individual dose paths. Coverage lists are self-reported by providers. We do not evaluate clinical quality directly; the care-and-access component reflects stated policies, not outcomes. If you find an error, use the corrections page and we will fix the data and log the change.