Zepbound and Wegovy Self-Pay Prices by Dose, and What the Lowest Dose Costs

Without insurance, Zepbound costs $299 a month at 2.5 mg, $399 at 5 mg and $449 at 7.5 to 15 mg on LillyDirect, if you refill within 45 days. Wegovy pens cost $199 for a new patient's first two low-dose fills, then $349 at every strength up to 2.4 mg and $399 at 7.2 mg. The Wegovy pill starts at $149 ^1,2.

Those are the manufacturers' own self-pay prices, read on October 2, 2026. The pattern inside them is the useful part for anyone who wants a low dose: Lilly prices Zepbound by strength, so the bottom of the ladder is the cheapest brand tirzepatide you can buy. Novo prices the Wegovy pill by strength too, but charges one price across almost every Wegovy pen dose once the introductory fills end.

What does each brand cost at each dose?

Three things in the fine print change the real number. A Lilly "month" is 28 days, four single-dose vials or one four-dose KwikPen, so a year of weekly Zepbound is 13 fills, not 12 ¹. The $449 rate for 7.5 mg and up depends on Lilly's refill program: miss the 45-day refill window and the regular price applies, $499 for 7.5 mg and $699 for 10, 12.5 and 15 mg ¹. And Novo's $199 Wegovy pen price covers only two monthly fills of 0.25 or 0.5 mg, only for people new to the offer, and only through December 31, 2026 ².

What is TrumpRx, and does it sell the drug?

TrumpRx is a federal website that lists discounted cash prices from manufacturers that agreed to most-favored-nation pricing. It does not sell, dispense or prescribe anything. In its own words, it "displays discounted drug pricing offers but does not sell or dispense drugs," the prices are "only available for cash-paying patients," and you still need a prescription from a clinician ³.

Its headline list, read the same day, showed the Wegovy pill at $149 a month, the Wegovy pen at $199, Ozempic at $199 and Zepbound at $299, against original prices of $1,349, $1,349, $1,028 and $1,087 ³. Each of those headline numbers is the bottom rung of a ladder. Open the Zepbound listing and it is the vial, ordered through LillyDirect; open the Wegovy pen listing and the terms are the same two-fill $199 offer, then $349, that NovoCare publishes ^3,2. For these products TrumpRx is a second door into the manufacturer's own offer, not a cheaper price.

Vial, KwikPen or pen: what a low-dose buyer actually gets

None of the brand formats is built to deliver less than a labeled dose, and the labels say so.

• •Zepbound single-dose vial. One dose per vial, four vials to a 28-day fill. The label tells you to throw away an opened vial after use even if medicine is left ⁴.
• •Zepbound KwikPen. A multi-dose pen holding four fixed weekly doses. The instructions say to discard it 30 days after first use or after four doses, and not to transfer medicine from the pen into a syringe ⁴. Lilly prices it the same as the vial at every strength ¹.
• •Wegovy pen. Single-dose pens sold as a box of four, one per week ⁵.
• •Wegovy pill. A 30-tablet bottle, taken whole; the label says not to split, crush or chew it ⁵.

So the lowest brand dose you can buy is the lowest labeled strength. If you are wondering how people get below it, and why the pens make that harder than it looks, we cover the arithmetic in microdosing tirzepatide pens by the unit and microdosing Ozempic and Wegovy pens by the unit.

Brand starting dose vs a compounded microdose: a year of it

A starting dose is meant to last a month, not a year, so treat the first column below as what the cheapest brand rung costs if a prescriber keeps you there, not as a recommendation to stay. Zepbound's label says 2.5 mg "is not approved as a maintenance dosage" ⁴, and the Wegovy pill label moves you from 1.5 mg to 4 mg after 30 days ⁵.

Our cost guide puts compounded GLP-1 plans at roughly $155 to $500 a month, which brackets every brand price in the table. The overlap is the story. Many compounded plans charge the same at every dose, so a small dose pays the full-dose rate, and at that point a brand starting dose can cost about the same or less. Before you compare, put the plan you are looking at through the true-cost calculator, which counts the membership, the introductory month and the billing cycle, and see what a tirzepatide microdose actually costs for the compounded spread by provider.

Lilly's ladder is also the test to hold compounded sellers to: does a smaller dose cost less? Our low-dose tirzepatide price comparison asks that of every seller it lists. If you would rather start on a brand product, Sesame Care prescribes Zepbound, Wegovy and the Wegovy pill and bills the medication separately from its care subscription.

Medicare GLP-1 Bridge: the $50 option

The self-pay offers above exclude people with Medicare and other government coverage ³. For them, CMS started a short-term demonstration on July 1, 2026, the Medicare GLP-1 Bridge, which runs through December 31, 2027. Eligible Part D beneficiaries pay a $50 copay; the Part D deductible does not apply, the copay does not count toward out-of-pocket totals, and there is no low-income subsidy on top ⁶. Lilly lists Zepbound KwikPen for weight management as available through the Bridge, and NovoCare tells Medicare patients they may be able to pay $50 a month for Wegovy ^1,2. Not everyone on Part D qualifies, and CMS runs the program through prior authorization, so the prescriber starts the process.