Free worksheet
The GLP-1 launch budget worksheet.
The 29 lines a GLP-1 program launch actually carries, grouped by when you pay them: what you spend before you can legally sell, what recurs every month whether or not a patient shows up, what each patient costs per month, what acquisition costs in the first 90 days, and the five lines a generic telehealth budget leaves out. Every line has a note saying where the real number comes from. Print it, fill it in, and take it into the vendor calls.
Deliberately no totals. This sheet does not compute, because the work that matters is getting real quotes rather than multiplying assumptions, and a blank you cannot fill is the most useful thing on the page.
Before you can legally sell anything
One-time spend that gates launch. None of it is optional and most of it runs on somebody else's clock, which is why it belongs at the top of a budget rather than the bottom.
Clinical entity and management structure
one-time
A healthcare attorney's fee to form and paper the structure, or the platform's if it is included. Ask for a flat quote; hourly on an unbounded scope is how this line triples.
Counsel review of your launch states
one-time
Per-state telemedicine rules, in-person exam requirements and modality limits. Scope it to your launch states only, and add states later as a repeat line rather than paying for 50 you will not open.
LegitScript application fee
one-time
Published at $975 per website, charged before you see the questionnaire and nonrefundable whatever the outcome (LegitScript pricing, checked Sep 8 2026). Multiply by the number of domains you are certifying, and note that every domain you operate must be disclosed even if you are not certifying it.
Site work to meet certification standards
one-time
Business identity, licensure display, pricing transparency and prescription-requirement disclosures. Cheaper as a build requirement than as a remediation round after an analyst finds it.
Brand, domain and trademark clearance
one-time
Including a search that clears the obvious platform-policy problems. A name that cannot run ads is not a cheap name.
Payment processor underwriting
one-time
Setup and any reserve a high-risk merchant account requires. Ask what reserve percentage applies and for how long, because a rolling reserve is working capital you will not have.
Monthly, whether or not a patient shows up
The floor. This is the number that decides how long you can be wrong about demand, so it is worth knowing before you spend anything on acquisition.
Medical oversight
monthly
Medical director or collaborating physician, or included in the platform. Get the arrangement's scope in writing: what it is priced on (states, providers, product lines) decides whether the quoted figure survives your second state.
Platform, storefront or software
monthly
The recurring licence for whatever runs the front end and the clinical workflow. If a vendor quotes 'custom', treat the number as re-negotiable upward and ask what triggers a change.
EHR and e-prescribing
monthly
Often bundled, often not. Ask specifically whether e-prescribing is per-provider, per-prescription or included, since the three behave completely differently at volume.
Malpractice and business insurance
monthly
Confirm who carries what: whether clinician malpractice sits with you, the network, or the platform is a line item and a liability question at the same time.
LegitScript annual certification, spread monthly
monthly
Published at $2,150 per website per year, charged only on approval and auto-renewing on your anniversary unless cancelled five business days ahead (LegitScript pricing, checked Sep 8 2026). Budget it monthly so the renewal is not a surprise to finance a year in.
Patient support coverage
monthly
A person, a desk, or the platform's. If it is yours, price the hours honestly against your expected message volume rather than against your hopes for it.
Compliance-safe analytics, comms and hosting
monthly
Health-data rules rule out several defaults here, so price the compliant tool rather than the one you already use.
Per patient, per month
In a recurring-prescription program this is the business. If you get one section right, make it this one, and make every number in it a quote rather than an assumption.
Clinician visit fee, initial
per patient / month
The first consult usually costs more than a follow-up. Ask for the all-in figure at your projected volume, in writing, not the rate card.
Clinician time, ongoing
per patient / month
Follow-ups, titration reviews, message handling and refill authorisations. Programs routinely budget the first visit and forget that the rest recurs forever.
Medication cost per fill
per patient / month
The single largest line, and the one you will not find published: across the public sites of eleven compounding pharmacies read on 2026-09-08, one of the eleven showed any figure at all and zero of the eleven showed a partner rate card. Write 'not quoted yet' until you have it in writing at three volumes in the same units.
Fills per patient per month
per patient / month
Not always one. A titration schedule can change the number of shipments and the dose in the same month, so this is a multiplier on the line above rather than a constant.
Shipping and cold chain
per patient / month
Validated packaging for temperature-sensitive product, plus who pays for a remake when a shipment fails. If your partner will not name the excursion threshold, that is the answer.
Payment processing
per patient / month
Percentage plus per-transaction, on the retail price rather than your margin. At recurring billing this compounds monthly and is worth modelling rather than rounding away.
Acquisition, first 90 days
Sized to a CAC assumption you have written down. The category-specific trap here is that your paid channels may not be open yet.
Paid media budget, per channel
first 90 days
Only spendable after the certification chain clears, since prescription-service ads require LegitScript certification first and then the platforms' own approvals. Budget the money and the start date separately.
The certification lag
first 90 days
The weeks between launch and paid eligibility, priced as the organic-only runway you have to fund. This is the line most GLP-1 budgets omit entirely, and it is the one that decides whether month three is a crisis.
Creative production and compliance review
first 90 days
Health advertising rules are stricter than general performance marketing: no outcome promises, no before-and-after in these categories, no implying knowledge of a person's health condition. Budget the review, not just the shoot.
Landing pages and conversion work
first 90 days
Including the disclosures the platforms and the certifier both look for. Compliant pages convert differently, so test them rather than assuming the compliant version is the worse one.
Assumed CAC, per channel
first 90 days
Write the assumption down as a number even if it is a guess, because an unwritten CAC assumption is how a budget survives contact with reality by quietly becoming someone else's fault.
The GLP-1 lines a generic budget misses
Everything above appears in some form in any telehealth budget. Each of these is specific to this category, and each one moves the model materially.
Dose escalation over time
per patient / month
Medication cost per patient is not flat: it typically rises as patients titrate up. A model built on the starting dose understates cost to serve for every retained patient, which is exactly backwards.
Retention against the early cliff
per patient / month
Model a retention curve explicitly and check that the business still works if it is worse than you hope. Discontinuation in this category concentrates early, so blended averages flatter month one and lie about month six.
Check-in and titration labour
per patient / month
Somebody has to run the follow-up cadence. Whether that is clinical time, support time or automation, it is a real cost that scales with retained patients rather than with new ones.
Supply-status contingency
first 90 days
The regulatory posture of compounded GLP-1s has moved repeatedly and has a live proceeding pending. Budget for reformulation, patient communication and a revenue bridge, and agree in advance whose job each of those is.
Refunds, chargebacks and cancellations
monthly
A simple cancellation mechanism through the purchase channel is required, and honest pricing is the chargeback-minimising strategy. Budget the reversal rate rather than discovering it.
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Using the worksheet
How much does it cost to launch a GLP-1 program?
There is no single number, and any page that gives you one is describing a market it cannot see. What there is instead is a set of lines that every GLP-1 launch has, split into what you spend before you can legally sell, what recurs monthly whether or not a patient shows up, what each patient costs per month, and what acquisition costs in the first 90 days. This worksheet is those lines with a blank beside each one, plus a note on where the real number comes from.
Why is the medication cost line blank?
Because almost nobody publishes it. We read the public sites of eleven compounding pharmacies on 2026-09-08: one of the eleven showed a figure of any kind and zero of the eleven showed a partner rate card, so your number will come from a call rather than a page. Writing a plausible range here would hand you an anchor you would carry into a negotiation as though we had researched your deal. Write 'not quoted yet' until you have it in writing at three volumes in the same units.
What does a generic telehealth cost calculator miss for GLP-1?
Five things, and each one moves the model materially: dose escalation over time; retention against the early cliff; check-in and titration labour; supply-status contingency; and refunds, chargebacks and cancellations. Each is on the worksheet with a note saying where the real number comes from.
Which line do budgets most often leave out?
The certification lag. Prescription-service advertising requires LegitScript certification first and then the ad platforms' own approvals, so the paid budget and the paid start date are separate facts. A plan that funds the media but not the runway before the media can run is the most common way month three becomes a crisis.
Is this a calculator?
No, deliberately. It does not compute anything, because the useful work here is assembling real quotes rather than multiplying assumptions. Use the startup cost calculator for the generic setup path, and use this to walk into vendor conversations knowing which numbers you are missing.
Keep exploring
Startup cost calculator
The generic setup path, priced line by line.
What to charge
The other side of this sheet: the revenue line.
Retention benchmarks
The curve this worksheet asks you to assume.
Pharmacy diligence questions
How to fill in the medication line honestly.
GLP-1 ads pre-flight
What has to be true before the acquisition budget is spendable.