For 10 years, the advice has been the same. Eat less and move more. You followed it, with the food logs and the early alarms to show for it. In all that time, your insulin was never tested.
Now you are comparing the companies that advertise a GLP-1 prescription online, among them Hims, Ro and MEDVi. GoodLife Health costs $299 a month. It is fair to ask whether this is the same thing at a higher price.
The fee is higher than the advertised price of many apps. What it buys is different in the place that matters to you. GoodLife Health measures fasting insulin before glucose turns abnormal. It prescribes to the patient's own pharmacy at that pharmacy's price and takes nothing on it. This piece explains why those two sentences change what you would be paying for. It also says plainly who should not join.
- A decade of diet and exercise advice was given without a fasting insulin result.
- GoodLife Health measures fasting insulin before glucose turns abnormal and reads it with A1C every quarter.
- The useful question about any telehealth company is where its money comes from.
- Medication goes to the pharmacy you choose at that pharmacy's price, with nothing taken by GoodLife Health.
- $299 a month. The $598 hold is released if a clinician cannot accept you and is charged, non-refundable, once one does.
- It is not for someone who wants the fastest prescription at the lowest price.
A decade of the same advice
You know how these visits go. The appointment is short. You are weighed and a basic panel is drawn. When the glucose comes back in range, you hear the sentence that closes the visit: “Your labs are normal.” Then comes the advice to eat less and move more, delivered warmly by some clinicians and briskly by others.
You did what was asked, many times over. You tried the programs and counted what there was to count. In some years, the weight moved before it came back. Over time, a quieter conclusion settled in. The advice sounds simple. It has not worked for you, so the failure must be yours.
We are not going to talk you out of that conclusion with encouragement. You have had plenty of encouragement already. Something more useful is available. In 10 years of visits, nobody drew fasting insulin. A judgment about your discipline was reached without the measurement that could have tested it.
We cannot tell you from here that insulin resistance explains your decade. Nobody can say that without the number. What we can say is that the verdict you have been carrying was never checked against it. That gap belongs to the care you received. It says nothing about your character.
This is the moment when the apps start to look good. Their advertising leads with the prescription. After a decade of being told to try harder, a medication can feel like the first sign that anyone has taken you seriously. Then you find GoodLife Health, which costs more and talks about lab panels. The old suspicion returns. Perhaps this is another company selling the same product with a better story and a higher fee.
It is a reasonable suspicion. You have earned it. The answer should not depend on our telling you that we are better. It should depend on what each kind of company is paid to do and on what it measures before it acts.
What the fee is actually paying for
Start with the test, because the test is what the last 10 years were missing. The number your visits relied on was glucose. Fasting insulin is a separate measurement that nobody ordered. As our comparison of the true monthly cost of GLP-1 telehealth puts it, fasting insulin can rise years before glucose moves. A glucose result in range answers one question. It leaves the insulin question unasked.
The word normal deserves a second look too. A reference range describes a population. A result inside it tells you where one number sat among other people's results on the day it was drawn. It cannot speak for a number that was never drawn.
Fasting insulin can rise years before glucose moves. That is why GoodLife Health reads fasting insulin and A1C together at every quarterly panel.
The conclusion that the failure is yours deserves the standard any other claim would get. It should be tested before it is accepted. For you, that means a fasting insulin and an A1C drawn together. It also means someone who reads them with you and sees them again 90 days later.
Nobody can call a decade your fault without the one number nobody drew.
Next, consider the companies. Our white paper on how GLP-1 telehealth companies make money answers your question better than a ranking could. It argues that what matters is where a company's money comes from, meaning who pays it and for what. Every company that prescribes a GLP-1 is paid in one of three ways:
- A margin on the medication, behind a membership fee that looks small
- A low membership fee, with the rest billed to your insurance
- One flat fee, with the medication sold at the pharmacy's own price
The paper is careful about what follows. The way a company is paid is the pressure its clinicians work under. That does not make anyone good or bad. It decides what the company is rewarded for.
Apply that to the companies you are weighing, using only what they publish. In our August 2026 comparison, Hims sold branded Wegovy and Zepbound at bundled monthly prices that included the medication. Ro's lowest advertised track was compounded semaglutide, a copy made by a pharmacy. MEDVi does not appear in our published comparison, so we will not describe its model or quote a price for it.
A bundle shows you one number. You cannot see how much of it pays for the clinician and how much pays for the drug. That is true of bundles in general and says nothing about anyone's intentions. It does mean that the price on the page cannot tell you what the care is worth.
The compounded track needs a short history, told as facts. Pharmacies were allowed to make copies while the branded drugs were in shortage. The FDA declared the tirzepatide shortage resolved in December 2024 and the semaglutide shortage resolved on February 21, 2025. The agency has published its concerns about unapproved GLP-1 drugs used for weight loss. A narrow exception remains for a single patient with a documented clinical need. GoodLife Health prescribes branded, FDA-approved medication only, which means its patients pay the branded price. That price is higher. You should hear it from us first.
So the objection has two honest answers. On price, the membership fee is higher than an app's advertised number. On the product, a bundled plan is priced around the medication. A flat fee with nothing taken on the drug pays for a clinician's judgment. In your case, that judgment starts with the test you never had.
What the membership does and what it costs
The membership starts with measurement. The fee covers four cardiometabolic lab panels a year, with nine biomarkers in each. Fasting insulin and A1C are read together. Apolipoprotein B (ApoB), Lipoprotein (A) and Hs-CRP are in every panel. TSH With Reflex To Free T4 is drawn every quarter. Every result is in your hands, so you hold your own record from the first draw.
The care around the panel is a relationship with one clinician. GoodLife Health's clinicians are licensed in all fifty states. When a panel comes back, you can ask about it by message between visits. When a decision is needed, you see your clinician by video. Because the clinician stays, the person reading your third panel has read your first. Your history is 10 years long. You should not have to retell it to a stranger at every appointment.
The first panel is the measurement your decade was missing. If it shows insulin resistance, you and your clinician will both know. If it does not, that is worth knowing too. Either way, the next conversation starts from a measured number. Because the panel repeats every 90 days, your markers are followed over time. A single visit gives a single reading. Four panels a year show whether anything is moving.
If a medication is clinically indicated, the clinician prescribes branded, FDA-approved medication only. For GLP-1, that means Wegovy, Zepbound, Mounjaro or Ozempic. The prescription goes to the pharmacy you choose at that pharmacy's own price. GoodLife Health sets nothing, sees nothing and takes nothing on medication. The fee stays the same whatever medication is indicated and whatever the dose. Nobody here earns more when a dose goes up.
The manufacturers now publish their own self-pay prices. In September 2026, NovoCare listed Wegovy pens at $199 a month for the first two fills, as an introductory offer for new patients through December 2026. After those fills, the pens were $349 a month. The Wegovy pill started from $149 a month at lower doses. Through LillyDirect, Zepbound vials ran from $299 to $449 a month depending on dose. Those prices belong to the manufacturers and may move. The membership fee does not change with them.
That change says something about where the field is going. When the maker of a drug publishes a self-pay price that anyone can read, the prescription stops being the scarce part of care. What stays scarce is the work done before the prescription and the follow-through after it. That work is what a membership fee should pay for.
Whether your insurance covers a medication is between you, your plan and your pharmacy. Prior authorization is the pharmacy's process. GoodLife Health does not promise coverage or an approval.
The membership is $299 a month. At sign-up, $598 is held on your card to cover the first two months. It is a hold. It is charged only once the clinician accepts you into care. If the clinician cannot accept you, the hold is released and you are never charged. Once you are accepted, the first two months are charged and are non-refundable. From month three, the membership is month to month. Medication billed by a pharmacy follows that pharmacy's own return and refund policy. Over a full year, the membership is $3,588.
The membership does not promise any amount of weight loss or a cure. It does not replace your insurance. It pairs with insurance, which you keep for catastrophic coverage. What it replaces is the primary-care relationship. Not everyone is accepted. The path runs from the eligibility check to the intake and the checkout, then to a clinician's review.
The plain answer and one thing to do this week
Is GoodLife Health Hims, Ro or MEDVi with a higher price? The fee is higher. The model is different. An app's advertised price is built around the prescription. The membership is built around the measurement that comes before any prescription. It pays for a clinician who reads that measurement with you for as long as you stay. It earns nothing on the medication you are given.
Whether or not you join, there is something to do this week. Ask the clinician you already have to order fasting insulin and A1C together. Ask for both numbers in writing. Write down what you have tried over the last 10 years and what happened each time. A clinician who reads that record can use it. If you already take a GLP-1 through an app, ask what is measured before a dose goes up. If the weight stops moving, we would want the reason found before the dose is raised. You can ask any prescriber whether they would do the same.
If your clinician orders the tests and reads them with you, you may not need us at all. If you are told the test is unnecessary, you will have learned something about the care you have now. Either way, the conclusion that this is your fault will finally meet the number it should have been checked against.
Who this is not for
This membership is not for the person who wants the fastest prescription at the lowest monthly price. If that is what you want, a company built around the prescription will suit you better. We would rather say so now.
It is not for anyone who wants compounded semaglutide or tirzepatide, because GoodLife Health prescribes branded medication only. It is not for someone looking for a guarantee about weight. Nobody honest can give one. It is not for someone who expects the fee to include the medication, which is billed by your pharmacy at its own price. It is not a replacement for insurance. It is available only to residents of the United States.
It is also not for someone who wants the testing without the clinician. The panel exists so that a clinician can read it with you and act on it. If you only want numbers on a page, this is more than you need.
For everyone else, the offer fits in one paragraph. GoodLife Health is $299 a month, with $598 held at sign-up for the first two months. The hold is charged only once a clinician accepts you and is released if the clinician cannot accept you. Once you are accepted, those two months are non-refundable. After that, the membership is month to month. The fee buys the quarterly panel, a clinician who stays and medication prescribed to your pharmacy at that pharmacy's price, with nothing taken on it. It returns the diagnosis a visit never produced, your markers followed over time and an end to the eight-minute visit. It is different because it tests first and treats second. It sells neither the drug nor the dose. The reason to start now is the decade behind you. Another year of the same advice without the number would repeat the last 10.
Related Reading
- How GLP-1 Telehealth Companies Make Money: A Plain-Language Whitepaper
- The True Monthly Cost of GLP-1 Telehealth: An Honest Comparison
References
- NovoCare Pharmacy — Wegovy self-pay pricing (Novo Nordisk). 2026. www.novocare.com/pharmacy/wegovy.html
- Zepbound Self Pay Journey Program — LillyDirect vial pricing (Eli Lilly). 2026. zepbound.lilly.com/savings
- FDA's Concerns with Unapproved GLP-1 Drugs Used for Weight Loss (U.S. Food and Drug Administration). 2025. www.fda.gov/drugs/postmarket-drug-safety-information-patients-and-providers/fdas-concerns-unapproved-glp-1-drugs-used-weight-loss