The short version
- DrugAlt is free, has no ads, and isn’t paid by any drug maker.
- This is information, not medical advice. Always check with your pharmacist.
- The savings amounts come from each maker’s own offer. What you pay depends on your plan and your pharmacy.
- DrugAlt counts visits, searches and clicks to learn what people look for. It uses no cookies, doesn’t keep your IP address, and never shares or sells what it counts.
What’s an authorized generic?
It’s the brand-name drug sold without the brand name, under the brand’s own FDA approval: the same active ingredient, strength and form, and usually the same inactive ingredients. It often costs less, but pharmacies don’t always offer it unless you ask.
What’s a maker’s savings card?
Many drug companies run their own savings card (or co-pay card) for their brand-name drugs. If you have commercial insurance, it pays part of your share at the pharmacy, often leaving a few dollars a month.
For a brand-name drug, that’s often far less than you’d pay with a discount card like GoodRx. Some makers also sell their drug for a set cash price to people without insurance. Co-pay cards can’t be used with Medicare (including Medicare Advantage), Medicaid, TRICARE or VA.
For savings cards, DrugAlt links only to the maker’s own website, never to coupon sites. The dollar amounts come from the maker’s own page, each page quotes the maker’s words, and it shows when we last checked.
How the comparison works
Each drug’s page compares three options side by side: the brand, the authorized generic and the regular generic. For each, it shows whether it’s sold, how it compares with the brand, and ways to save, whether you pay cash or have insurance. DrugAlt doesn’t pick one for you.
If an option doesn’t exist, like a generic that isn’t sold yet, its column stays in place and says why.
Who makes each generic
A regular generic is often made by many companies. Each drug’s page lists every company selling one the FDA rates a substitute for the brand, from FDA and Medicaid records updated weekly.
The page shows which strengths each sells, how each maker’s pill looks and what’s in it (from its FDA label, so you can spot lactose or dyes), and its packages and NDCs.
Pharmacies fill whichever maker they stock, but you can ask for a certain one. Where a maker runs its own savings program, the page links straight to it on the maker’s website.
Where a pharmacy publishes its own generic price list, the page shows its price with the day it was read; other pharmacies with their own programs get a link. DrugAlt isn’t paid by any maker or pharmacy.
Online clinics and compounded medicines
Online clinics like Hims and Ro can prescribe a medicine after an online visit, if it’s right for you, and mail it to you. Where one sells a drug’s generic, the drug’s page lists the clinic’s own price, in its own words, and when we last checked it. They’re cash prices: most online clinics don’t take insurance.
Some clinics also sell compounded medicines, made by a pharmacy (chewables, combination pills). They aren’t generics and they aren’t FDA-approved, and they’re always labeled that way. Compounded copies of weight-loss drugs like Ozempic aren’t listed. DrugAlt isn’t paid by any clinic.
Where the information comes from
Drug and authorized generic information comes from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA): its list of authorized generics, its directory of drugs sold in the U.S., and its Orange Book, which says which generics can be swapped in for each brand. The last update was October 30, 2026.
How each generic looks and what’s in it comes from its FDA label on DailyMed (U.S. National Library of Medicine).
Savings offers come from each drug maker’s own website. Whether a regular generic is sold comes from Medicaid, which tracks what U.S. drugstores buy, last updated October 28, 2026.