Methodology

Every number on this site is one observation: a price recorded from a named source URL on a stated date, with a grade for how strong the evidence is. Pages are generated from the observation database; no editor types a price, a provider name or a “cheapest” claim into a paragraph. When the data changes, every affected page changes on the next build.

The all-in price

All-in per month = the medication price at the relevant dose + any mandatory membership fee + mandatory shipping + provider-care fees where billed separately. Optional add-ons are excluded. If a mandatory fee's amount is not published, the observation is capped at grade B and the gap is named in the row.

The 12-month model

12-month all-in = month-by-month sum on that plan: introductory prices for the months they cover; where pricing rises with dose, the starting-dose price for months one to three and the maintenance-dose price for months four to twelve (the labeled titration reaches 10–15 mg within months); plus every mandatory fee and any required upfront payment. Prepaid plans show the upfront amount separately — $125 per month that requires $1,500 on day one is not the same purchase as a monthly bill, and the tables never pretend it is.

Billing-cycle normalization

Programs billed every 28 days are shown with a calendar-month equivalent (price × 365.25 / 28 / 12, about +8.7%) alongside the advertised number, because there are 13.04 four-week periods in a year, not 12. The advertised number is never replaced.

Evidence grades and freshness

Grades run A (price and terms verified on the provider's page) to D (third-party report only) and U (no public price); the exact definitions are on every ranking page and in methodology.json. Price and grade are stored separately — confidence never alters a number. Freshness bands: Fresh ≤7 days, Recent 8–30, Stale 31–60, Expired >60; Expired prices leave the headline statistics.

Sorting

Default sort is the lowest verified purchasable all-in rate, with the price type visible on the row. Filtered pages (month-to-month, flat-dose, no-membership, under-$200) admit only rows that meet the filter on the provider's own wording. There is no composite “best” score and no editor's pick; columns are sortable and every input is downloadable. Affiliate status is a database field the sorting code never reads.

What is deliberately not done

No price is inferred, averaged from rumor, or copied from an AI answer. Third-party figures are shown as grade D with their source named, never blended into verified statistics. “Not publicly verified” is printed instead of an invented value.

Machine-readable version: /data/methodology.json. Verification workflow: how we verify prices.