# Zepbound vs Mounjaro Price: One Molecule, Two Price Lists
Source: https://www.trackpep.com/blog/zepbound-vs-mounjaro-price
> Educational information only. Not medical advice, and not a dosing recommendation. TrackPep records what you enter and converts a dose you were prescribed into a syringe reading; it never decides a dose for you. Talk to a licensed clinician.
Zepbound and Mounjaro are both tirzepatide, priced differently because they are approved for different conditions. Here is what Lilly publishes for each, and why your insurance treats them as separate drugs.
## Short answer
Zepbound and Mounjaro contain the same molecule, tirzepatide, but are approved for different conditions and priced separately. Lilly publishes a Zepbound self-pay ladder from $299 to $699 a month, while Mounjaro is advertised at as little as $25 with covering commercial insurance, or $499 without.
## Same molecule, two price lists
**Prices checked 2 September 2026; these change often.**
**TrackPep does not sell, recommend, or help you obtain any medication.** We build a logging app. Every figure below is quoted from Eli Lilly's own websites on the date shown, as reporting — not as an offer or a recommendation. Talk to your prescriber or pharmacist.
Zepbound and Mounjaro are both tirzepatide, made by the same company, at the same dose strengths (2.5, 5, 7.5, 10, 12.5 and 15 mg). They are not interchangeable on paper: they are two separately approved products, for two different conditions, with two entirely separate pricing programmes.
| | Zepbound | Mounjaro |
|---|---|---|
| Approved for | obesity; obstructive sleep apnoea | type 2 diabetes |
| Commercial plan that covers it | "as little as $25" per fill (annual cap up to $1,300) | "as little as $25" for a 1-, 2- or 3-month fill (annual cap up to $1,950) |
| Commercial plan that does not cover it | "as low as $499" for a 1-month single-dose pen fill | "as low as $499" for a 1-month single-dose pen fill |
| Self-pay, no insurance | $299 (2.5 mg), $399 (5 mg), $499 (7.5 mg), $699 (10 / 12.5 / 15 mg); $449 refill purchase offer at 7.5 mg and above | not published as a self-pay ladder on the pages we could reach |
| Eligible Medicare | "no more than $50/month" via the Medicare GLP-1 Bridge | not published on the savings page |
| Card expiry | 12/31/2026 | 12/31/2026 |
## Why the same molecule costs different amounts
The answer is not manufacturing. It is that a US formulary decision is made per product per indication.
Coverage for type 2 diabetes is close to standard across commercial plans. Coverage for obesity treatment is not — plenty of plans exclude it outright. So the same person, on the same molecule, faces a $25 copay under one brand and a cash price under the other, depending purely on which condition their prescription is written for. That is also why Lilly built a self-pay ladder for Zepbound and largely did not need one for Mounjaro: the Zepbound population is the one likeliest to be paying cash.
If you are uninsured or your plan excludes obesity treatment, the published Zepbound self-pay figures are the relevant ones and they start below the Mounjaro card floor. If your plan covers diabetes treatment, the Mounjaro copay route is the cheaper published option. Neither of those observations tells you which prescription you should have.
## Reading Lilly's fine print
Three clauses do most of the work in the tables above:
1. **The $449 offer is conditional.** Lilly's terms: "You will automatically receive the $449 purchase offer on your first purchase of the 7.5 mg, 10 mg, 12.5 mg, or 15 mg Zepbound single-patient-use KwikPen. To continue to be eligible… you must complete your refill purchase" within the window. Otherwise the regular $499/$699 tier applies.
2. **Annual caps end the $25.** The Zepbound card carries "a separate maximum annual savings of up to $1,300 per calendar year"; the Mounjaro card up to $1,950. A high-cost year can exhaust the card mid-year.
3. **Government beneficiaries are excluded** from the commercial savings cards. Medicare patients are routed to the separate Bridge programme instead.
## Also on LillyDirect
Lilly's direct pharmacy now lists a third tirzepatide-adjacent option in the same catalogue: **Foundayo (orforglipron)**, an oral, at strengths of 0.8, 2.5, 5.5, 9, 14.5 and 17.2 mg. Lilly did not publish a self-pay price for it on the pages we could reach on 2 September 2026, so we are not quoting one. LillyDirect also lists independent telehealth options with their own separate fees — $29 to $299 per visit or $39 to $149 per month depending on provider — and notes explicitly that "the cost for any prescribed medication is separate from the cost and coverage details shown here."
## What this means for your log
If you switch brands, your cost per dose changes even though nothing about the injection does. That is exactly the kind of change worth recording at the point it happens, rather than reconstructing from receipts a year later. See [how to track GLP-1 cost per dose](/blog/how-to-track-glp-1-cost-per-dose), or the [tirzepatide compound reference](/compounds/tirzepatide).
## Related reading
- [Tirzepatide cost in 2026](/blog/tirzepatide-cost-2026)
- [GLP-1 cost guide 2026](/blog/glp-1-cost-guide-2026)
- [Compounded vs brand GLP-1: what changed in 2026](/blog/compounded-vs-brand-glp-1-what-changed-2026)
## Frequently asked questions
### Are Zepbound and Mounjaro the same drug?
Both contain tirzepatide. They are separate FDA-approved products with different approved indications — Mounjaro for type 2 diabetes, Zepbound for obesity and obstructive sleep apnoea — which is why they have separate prices, separate savings programmes and separate coverage decisions.
### Which one is cheaper?
It depends entirely on your coverage, not on the molecule. With a commercial plan that covers the drug, both advertise as little as $25. Without coverage, Lilly's published Zepbound self-pay ladder starts at $299 a month, while the Mounjaro card floor is $499.
### Can I switch to whichever is cheaper?
That is a prescribing decision, not a shopping one. The two products are approved for different conditions and a prescriber writes for the indication you have. We report the published prices; what you are prescribed is between you and your clinician.
### Why does insurance cover one and not the other?
Many US commercial plans cover the diabetes indication while excluding obesity treatment, so the same molecule can be covered under one brand name and excluded under the other on the same plan.
## Sources
- [Zepbound: Coverage and Savings (Eli Lilly) — fetched 2 Sep 2026](https://zepbound.lilly.com/coverage-savings)
- [Mounjaro: Savings and Coverage (Eli Lilly) — fetched 2 Sep 2026](https://mounjaro.lilly.com/savings-coverage)
- [LillyDirect pharmacy and available medicines — fetched 2 Sep 2026](https://www.lilly.com/lillydirect)
By TrackPep Team.