How GLP-1 Telehealth Companies Make Money: A Plain-Language Whitepaper

We are the two co-founders of GoodLife Health. Kristin is the Medical Director and a nurse practitioner; Dev runs the technology. We wrote this together because the question patients ask us most — which GLP-1 telehealth company is best? — has a better answer than a ranking. The answer is where a company's money comes from — not how much it charges, but who pays it and for what. Once you can see that, the rest is easier to judge for yourself.

This paper is written to be understood by anyone. Every medical and business term is explained the first time it appears. Every number has a date and a source at the end. Where we are uncertain, we say so. Where GoodLife Health is not the right choice, we say that too. We have a stake in this — we built the company in the third model described below — so read it with that in mind.

Prices and regulatory facts are current as of September 2026 and will be revised when the sources move.

A note on method: competitor figures are publicly advertised self-pay rates as of September 2026, from each company's own pricing page or from our comparison chart, which was compiled from those pages in May 2026. Insurance figures are from the Kaiser Family Foundation 2025 Employer Health Benefits Survey. Trial results are from the published papers and, for retatrutide, from Eli Lilly's press release. Regulatory dates are from FDA statements. All are linked in the sources.

1. The words, in plain English

GLP-1. Short for glucagon-like peptide-1, a hormone your gut already makes after you eat. It tells your brain you are full and slows your stomach down. The medicines copy that signal and make it last all week. Semaglutide (sold as Wegovy for weight, Ozempic for diabetes) is a GLP-1. Tirzepatide (Zepbound for weight, Mounjaro for diabetes) copies GLP-1 and a second gut hormone, GIP, at the same time.

Branded. The version made by the company that invented the medicine, tested in large trials, and approved by the FDA. Wegovy and Zepbound are branded.

Compounded. A version mixed by a pharmacy from raw ingredients, not made by the inventor and not reviewed by the FDA for safety or effectiveness. More on this in section 3.

Telehealth. Seeing a clinician through your phone or computer instead of in an office.

Clinician. A licensed professional who can examine, diagnose, and prescribe — a physician, a nurse practitioner, or a physician assistant. This paper uses the word clinician because it is the honest word for who provides the care — at GoodLife Health, which is clinician-led, and at most telehealth companies.

Labs. A blood test. A biomarker is one number inside it — your blood sugar, your thyroid level, your cholesterol. A panel is a set of biomarkers drawn together.

Markup. The difference between what a company pays for something and what it charges you. Pass-through means there is no markup: you pay what the pharmacy charges, and the company in the middle adds nothing.

Direct primary care (DPC). A model where you pay the clinician a flat monthly fee, the clinician does not bill your insurance, and the fee covers the relationship. It is the model GoodLife Health uses.

2. What the medicines do, and what the studies showed

The two medicines most companies prescribe were tested in large, published trials.

Those numbers are averages. Some people lose more, some less, and the trials excluded many common conditions. What the numbers do show is that these are the most effective weight-loss medicines ever approved, which is why so many companies now sell access to them.

One caution. Retatrutide — a newer medicine from Eli Lilly that acts on three gut hormones — has strong Phase 3 results but is still investigational. Lilly has said it plans to file for FDA approval in the first quarter of 2027. As of this writing it is not approved and cannot legally be sold. Any company offering "retatrutide" today is offering something that has not been reviewed.

3. What happened to compounded copies, with dates

This changed more than anything else in the industry, and it is often described as something still to come. It has already happened.

When a medicine is on the FDA's official drug shortage list, federal law lets pharmacies make copies of it to fill the gap. Semaglutide and tirzepatide went on that list in 2022 because the manufacturers could not make enough. For roughly three years, hundreds of telehealth companies sold compounded copies — usually cheaper, usually shipped to your door, usually with a low monthly fee. Millions of people used them, legally, and did nothing wrong.

Then supply caught up.

The compounding industry's trade group sued to stop the shortage determinations. Federal courts declined to block them, and the deadlines held. Both manufacturers have also sued companies selling compounded versions.

What remains is narrow. A pharmacy may still compound a medicine for one specific patient who has a documented clinical need for a change the branded product cannot meet — an allergy to an ingredient, for example. Some companies continue on that basis. Whether a given company's use of that exception is appropriate is a legal and clinical question this paper does not try to answer. In plain terms: mass-market compounded GLP-1 has ended, and a business still built on it in 2026 rests on an exception rather than a rule.

GoodLife Health does not prescribe compounded GLP-1. That is a choice, not a virtue — it means our members pay the branded price, which is higher. The next section explains why we made it anyway.

4. The three ways a telehealth company gets paid

Every GLP-1 telehealth company you have heard of runs on one of these three models, or a mix. The model is rarely on the homepage. It is always in the pricing page, if you know what to look for.

Model A: the company earns a margin on the medicine

The membership fee looks small. The medicine costs more than it would at a pharmacy, and the difference is the company's profit.

This is how many of the largest platforms grew. Our comparison chart, compiled from public pricing pages in May 2026, found branded Zepbound or Mounjaro offered at up to $1,899 a month through legacy telehealth memberships. The same medicine, bought directly from the manufacturer, is $299 to $449 a month depending on dose — Lilly's own self-pay price for Zepbound vials, as published in September 2026. The gap is the margin.

The pressure this creates is simple. The company earns more when you take more medicine, at a higher dose, for longer. That does not mean its clinicians want that for you. It means the company is rewarded when it happens.

Model B: a cheap membership, and your insurance pays for everything else

The fee is low — $199 a year for Amazon One Medical, or $99 with Prime — because it only buys access. Every visit, every lab, every prescription is billed to your insurance. Your premium and your deductible are the real cost, and the membership sits on top.

Concierge practices are the same model at a higher fee: $1,800 to $5,000 a year at MDVIP, for a smaller patient list and longer visits, with the visits still billed to insurance.

The pressure here is volume. A $199 membership needs a great many members, which means large patient panels and short visits. It is a good product for a healthy person who wants same-day access to ordinary primary care. It is not designed around reading your labs every quarter.

One number worth knowing: the Kaiser Family Foundation's 2025 survey puts the average worker's share of a single-coverage premium at $1,440 a year, with an average deductible of $1,886. That is $3,326 before most care is covered. Primary care that feels free at the point of use is paid for in the premium and the deductible.

Model C: one flat fee, and the medicine is sold at the pharmacy's own price

The fee is higher because it has to carry everything: the clinician's time, the labs, the protocol. Nothing is billed to insurance and nothing is earned on the medicine.

This is direct primary care, and it is the model GoodLife Health uses. The pressure runs the other way: the fee is the only revenue, so the practice does well only if you stay because the care is worth it. If the right protocol is no medicine at all, nothing is lost by saying so.

The honest cost of this model is that it is expensive up front. $299 a month is $3,588 a year, which is more than a concierge retainer and eighteen times a One Medical membership. Section 6 is about who should not pay it.

A word about all three

None of these models is dishonest. Good clinicians work in every one of them, and the U.S. News ratings in section 7 show that companies in Model A and Model B can score well on clinical support. What the model decides is not the quality of the people. It is what the company is rewarded for — and over years, that pressure shapes what the care becomes.

5. What labs are for, and why the timing matters

A lab is a blood test. On a GLP-1, your body is changing quickly: your appetite, your weight, sometimes your blood sugar and your blood pressure, and sometimes your thyroid, your hormones, and your muscle. That last part is easy to miss.

A single test before you start tells a clinician where you began. It does not tell them what is happening now. That is why we draw a comprehensive panel every 90 days and include it in the fee: hormones, thyroid, insulin, metabolic markers, lipids, inflammation, and nutrient status. Four panels a year. Your clinician reads each one with you and adjusts the protocol against what it shows.

Why every 90 days and not once? Because dose changes, weight loss, and hormone shifts each move these numbers on roughly that timescale, and because a problem caught at month three is a small adjustment while the same problem at month twelve is a diagnosis. Your clinician decides what to order; the cadence is what the membership guarantees.

This is also where the three models differ most. In Model A and Model B, quarterly labs are usually not included, not ordered, or billed separately. A model that earns nothing on the medicine has every reason to look at the whole picture. A model that earns on the medicine has less.

6. How GoodLife Health is built, and who should not buy it

Here is the whole thing, stated plainly.

So the all-in cost is $299 a month plus whatever your pharmacy charges for any prescription your clinician writes. We cannot quote that second number, because we do not set it. For reference, the manufacturers publish their own self-pay prices, as of September 2026: through NovoCare, Wegovy pens are $199 a month for the first two fills — an introductory offer for new patients through December 2026 — and $349 a month after that, and the Wegovy pill starts at $149 a month at lower doses; through LillyDirect, Zepbound vials are $299 to $449 a month depending on dose. A pharmacy may charge more or less, and insurance may cover some or all of it.

What we chose, and what it costs us. We could have built this the faster way. Instead we made four choices, and each has a price that we pay rather than you. Branded, FDA-approved medicine only, when some companies still offer compounded copies for less — so our members pay the branded price. No margin on the medicine — so the fee is our only revenue, and we grow only as fast as the care earns it. A comprehensive panel every 90 days inside the fee — so our cost per member is higher than a platform that orders labs once, if at all. A named clinician who reads those labs with you — so each of our clinicians can care for fewer people than a chat queue can. We believe these are the right choices for the kind of care we want to be responsible for. They are also why we are smaller, slower, and more expensive than the alternatives, and we would rather say that here than have you find it out later.

Who should not buy this. We would rather you read this list than find out after paying.

• If you are healthy, on no medicine, and see a doctor twice a year, you will not recoup $3,588. Keep your plan and a good primary care doctor.
• If you need in-person examination, imaging, or procedures, the membership is telehealth only. Pair it with a local practice or choose concierge.
• If you are looking for insurance — for the hospital, for surgery — this is not that. Members carry a low-premium plan for catastrophic coverage.
• If what you want is a daily app that logs meals and counts steps, Noom and WeightWatchers are built for that. We are built around labs and a clinician.
• If your insurance fully covers a branded GLP-1 and you only want the prescription, a cheaper membership will get you the same medicine for less.

7. What the third-party ratings say

In August 2026, U.S. News & World Report published its first ratings of GLP-1 telehealth platforms. It evaluated twenty companies that offer FDA-approved branded medicines, using six weighted measures: clinical support, screening rigor, transparency, insurance assistance, supplemental care, and customer satisfaction.

Eleven were rated best: Amazon One Medical, Found, Fridays, Ivim Health, LifeMD, Mochi Health, Noom, PlusCare, Remedy Meds, Ro, and WeightWatchers. Amazon One Medical was named best for insurance support. Found was named best for clinical support.

GoodLife Health does not appear in the ratings. We are a cardiometabolic membership that prescribes GLP-1s when indicated, not a GLP-1 platform, and we are a new practice. We include the list because you should be able to see the whole field, and because if one of those companies fits your situation better than we do, you should use it.

8. The one question to ask any company

Before you pay anyone — including us — ask: what still gets billed after I pay this fee?

If the answer is "your visits, your labs, and your prescriptions, to your insurance," the fee is a floor, and the real cost is your plan. If the answer is "the medicine, at a price higher than the pharmacy's," the fee is a doorway, and the medicine is the business. If the answer is "the medicine, at the pharmacy's own price, and nothing else," the fee is close to the whole cost.

Then ask a second: where does the medicine come from, and is it the branded product? In 2026 that question has a clear answer and a company should give it in one sentence.

9. What happens next: one fact, and our expectation

Here is one thing we know, and one thing we expect. We keep them apart on purpose.

The fact. Eli Lilly makes tirzepatide, and Lilly makes retatrutide. When retatrutide reaches the market, one company will own the current best medicine and the next one. Lilly has said it plans to file retatrutide with the FDA in the first quarter of 2027 — and to file it as a biologic, not a conventional drug. The FDA disagrees with that classification. Lilly sued the agency over it in September 2024, and a federal court has since vacated the FDA's decision and sent the question back to the agency. As of this writing it is unresolved.

Why a classification fight should matter to a patient: two things ride on it. A biologic gets twelve years of market exclusivity instead of five. And biologics sit outside the legal exemptions that allow pharmacies to compound copies of drugs at all. If retatrutide is approved as a biologic, there is no shortage-list exception and no patient-specific exception — it cannot be compounded at all.

Our expectation. What follows is our forecast, not a fact. We label it so you can weigh it that way.

When retatrutide is on the market, we expect Lilly to reprice tirzepatide downward. A company that owns both a medicine and its successor has every reason to make the older one affordable and the new one premium. When the branded price of tirzepatide falls toward what a compounded copy costs, the last economic reason for compounded GLP-1 disappears — and with it, the margin that the "margin on the medicine" model in section 4 depends on. Companies built on that margin will need a different model.

On timing: a standard FDA review runs about ten months from filing, a priority review about six. If Lilly files in the first quarter of 2027 as planned, the earliest realistic approval is late 2027, and the repricing we expect would follow it. It could be later. Regulatory timelines slip, and the classification dispute could delay the filing itself.

What Kristin sees in practice is the other half of this. Patients are not only looking for access to a medicine. They are looking for someone who reads their labs and stays with them. When the price advantage of the transactional model goes, that is what is left to compete on.

Where we could be wrong

Prices in this paper will drift; the sources are dated so you can check them. Our reading of the compounding exception comes from FDA statements and court outcomes; it is not legal advice. The U.S. News methodology is theirs, not ours, and we have not seen the underlying data. Section 9 is a forecast: Lilly may not reprice, the classification may go the other way, and the timeline may slip by years. And we have a stake: we co-founded the company in Model C, and Kristin holds its chart of record. There are fair objections to what we have built, and you should hear them from us: we are telehealth only; we are new; and we do not yet appear in any third-party rating. Each of those is a reason some readers should choose differently. We have tried to write this so that a reader who chooses Model A or B anyway comes away better informed, not talked down to. If we have failed at that anywhere, the contact page reaches our team.

If you want to see the membership terms, they are on the pricing page. If you want to know whether you qualify, the eligibility check takes a few minutes and does not ask for payment.

FAQ

What is the cheapest way to get a GLP-1 online? If your insurance covers a branded GLP-1, the cheapest route is usually a low-fee membership such as Amazon One Medical plus your plan's copay. If you are paying cash, the manufacturers' own direct channels — NovoCare for Wegovy, LillyDirect for Zepbound — publish the reference prices, as of September 2026: Wegovy pens $199 a month for the first two fills and $349 after that, the Wegovy pill from $149 a month, and Zepbound vials $299 to $449 a month. A company charging more for the same product is adding a margin.

Is compounded semaglutide or tirzepatide still legal? Large-scale compounding ended when the FDA resolved the shortages in December 2024 and February 2025 and the enforcement grace periods closed in spring 2025. A pharmacy may still compound for an individual patient with a documented clinical need the branded product cannot meet. Compounded versions are not reviewed by the FDA for safety or effectiveness.

How do telehealth companies make money on GLP-1s? Three ways: a margin on the medicine, a low membership fee with visits and prescriptions billed to your insurance, or one flat fee with the medicine sold at pharmacy cost. Most large platforms use the first or second. GoodLife Health uses the third.

Why does GoodLife Health cost $299 a month when other memberships are cheaper? Because the fee carries everything — the clinician's time, a comprehensive lab panel every 90 days, and the protocol — and nothing is billed to insurance or earned on the medicine. Cheaper memberships buy access; the labs, visits, and medicine are paid for elsewhere.

Does GoodLife Health make money on the medicine? No. Prescriptions are billed by the pharmacy at its own price, or by your insurance where covered. GoodLife Health takes no margin, no dose upcharge, and no manufacturer rebate. The $299 fee is its only revenue from your care.

Is retatrutide available? No. It is investigational. Eli Lilly announced Phase 3 results in May 2026 and has said it plans to file for FDA approval in the first quarter of 2027. Anything sold as retatrutide today has not been reviewed by the FDA.

Will retatrutide make tirzepatide cheaper? That is our expectation, not a fact. Lilly makes both medicines and plans to file retatrutide in early 2027; a company that owns a medicine and its successor usually prices the older one down. Approval would follow filing by roughly ten months at the earliest, so any repricing is a late-2027-or-later event, and it may not happen.

Sources

Trial results: Wilding et al., Once-Weekly Semaglutide in Adults with Overweight or Obesity (STEP 1), NEJM 2021; Jastreboff et al., Tirzepatide Once Weekly for the Treatment of Obesity (SURMOUNT-1), NEJM 2022; Eli Lilly press release on TRIUMPH-1, May 21, 2026, and its stated plan to submit to the FDA in Q1 2027.

Regulatory: FDA, FDA clarifies policies for compounders as national GLP-1 supply begins to stabilize (shortage resolutions and enforcement dates); FDA, FDA proposes to exclude semaglutide, tirzepatide, and liraglutide on 503B bulks list, 2026; BioSpace, Lilly, FDA retatrutide biologic dispute comes to a head as submission nears, 2026, on the classification lawsuit and Lilly's stated plan to file a Biologics License Application.

Ratings: U.S. News & World Report, 2026–2027 Best GLP-1 Telehealth Platforms, released August 12, 2026.

Insurance: Kaiser Family Foundation, 2025 Employer Health Benefits Survey — average worker contribution for single coverage $1,440; average single-coverage deductible $1,886.

Prices: the manufacturers' own self-pay programs (NovoCare Pharmacy for Wegovy, LillyDirect for Zepbound), as published on their pricing pages in September 2026, and each company's public pricing page — Hims, Ro, Amazon One Medical, MDVIP, SignatureMD — as advertised in September 2026, and as compiled for the GoodLife Health comparison chart in May 2026. Figures are estimates and subject to change.

This article is informational only and is not medical advice. GoodLife Health is a direct primary care telehealth membership, not a pharmacy, compounder, or supplement seller, and it does not manufacture, compound, dispense, ship, or take title to any medication. Individual results vary. Consult a licensed clinician.

Related guides

• The Real ROI of a $299/Month Health Membership: Every Alternative, Priced Honestly
• The True Monthly Cost of GLP-1 Telehealth: An Honest Comparison
• Compounded vs Branded GLP-1: What Changed and What the Safer Path Looks Like