Sesame is the odd one out on this site, and that is the point. It is a cash-pay healthcare marketplace rather than a GLP-1 brand, you choose your own named clinician from a list rather than being assigned one, and it prescribes FDA-approved branded medication only. There is no compounded semaglutide here. Its weight-loss subscription, Success by Sesame, is $99 a month month-to-month or as low as $59 a month on an annual commitment, and that fee includes video visits, messaging and labs.
The structure that makes Sesame honest is also the structure that makes it hard to price. The care fee and the medication are separate bills. Sesame lists brand-name options from $149 a month, which is a remarkable number for FDA-approved product and reflects the manufacturers’ own cash-pay channels rather than any Sesame discount, but the same list runs up to $1,086 a month for one Zepbound presentation. So the honest answer to what Sesame costs is somewhere between about $2,500 and $13,700 a year, depending entirely on which drug you are prescribed. Anyone who tells you a single number is not reading the same page we did.
Who we recommend it to. If you do not want a compounded preparation, this is the strongest option on the site: FDA-approved branded medication only — Wegovy, Wegovy HD, the Wegovy pill, Zepbound and orforglipron — a named clinician you pick yourself and keep, labs included in the care fee, same-day pharmacy pickup or delivery. Know the split before you click: care is $99 a month month-to-month, billed every 28 days, falling to $79, $69 and $59 on three, six and twelve-month commitments, and medication is a separate bill, from $149 a month and up to $1,086. Cancel at least three hours before your initial visit start time and the care fee is refunded in full.
See FDA-approved options — Sesame ↗ Compare all sixteen providers
The Sesame button above is an affiliate link. The comparison link is an internal page on this site and is not. Care runs $59 to $99 a month depending on commitment and the medication is billed separately from $149 a month, so a realistic first year is about $2,496 to $13,740. Sesame did not review this page and has no editorial input.
What Sesame costs
There are two bills and they behave differently. The subscription is a fixed, published, tiered price. The medication is a from-price that depends on which drug a clinician prescribes and which presentation of it you get.
The care subscription
| Commitment | What Sesame charges | Effective monthly rate |
|---|---|---|
| Month to month | $99, billed every 28 days | $99, but thirteen charges a year, so about $1,291 annually |
| 3 months | Billed every 3 months with a $60 saving per period | About $79 a month, or $948 a year |
| 6 months | Billed every 6 months with a $180 saving per period | About $69 a month, or $828 a year |
| 12 months | Billed once every 12 months with a $480 saving | $59 a month, or $708 a year |
| Labs | Included in the subscription | Sesame states labs to monitor progress are included. Almost nobody else in this comparison includes them. |
| Video visits and messaging | Included | With the specific provider you pick, on an ongoing basis. |
The medication, billed separately
| Medication | Sesame’s from-price | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Wegovy pill (oral semaglutide) | From $149 a month | Marked as new on the page. A needle-free branded semaglutide option. |
| Wegovy and Wegovy HD (injection) | From $149 a month | High dose available. |
| Foundayo (orforglipron) | From $149 a month | Marked as new. A different molecule from semaglutide or tirzepatide. |
| Zepbound vial | From $299 a month | The vial presentation of tirzepatide. |
| Zepbound KwikPen | From $299 a month | Marked as new. |
| Zepbound (autoinjector) | From $1,086 a month | The same drug in the pen presentation most people picture, at roughly 3.6 times the vial price. |
Sesame states plainly that medication pricing is separate from clinical care and applies only if prescribed, and that availability, eligibility and pricing vary by treatment, dose, pharmacy and provider determination. That is the correct disclosure and it is why we will not publish a single all-in Sesame number.
The realistic annual total
Putting the two bills together, using Sesame’s own figures and the twelve-month care tier:
| Scenario | Care | Medication | Annual total |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cheapest published route | $708 | $1,788 at $149 a month | About $2,496 |
| Zepbound vial route | $708 | $3,588 at $299 a month | About $4,296 |
| Zepbound autoinjector route | $708 | $13,032 at $1,086 a month | About $13,740 |
| Month-to-month care, cheapest medication | $1,291 | $1,788 | About $3,079 |
The $2,496 figure is the one worth sitting with. That is FDA-approved, brand-name, manufacturer-made semaglutide with labs and a clinician included, for roughly what several compounded providers on our annual cost ranking charge for a compounded preparation. It is not the cheapest option in the market and it is not close to the cheapest. It may well be the best value in it.
Practical version: decide the two bills separately, because they move independently. The care bill is knowable today — $99 a month month-to-month, billed every 28 days, or $59 a month if you commit to twelve — and it is the medication bill that swings the first year between about $2,496 and $13,740. Ask your chosen clinician which presentation they intend to prescribe before you commit to anything longer than a month.
See Sesame’s care tiers and medication prices ↗ Compare annual costs
The Sesame button is an affiliate link; the annual cost ranking is an internal page on this site and is not. Care is billed separately from medication: $99 a month month-to-month every 28 days, down to $59 a month on an annual commitment, with medication from $149 a month and up to $1,086 a month.
No compounded medication at all
Every other provider on this site leans on compounded semaglutide or tirzepatide, because it is cheap and because it can be sold as a subscription. Sesame does not offer it. What you get through Sesame is a prescription for an FDA-approved product, sent to a pharmacy of your choosing, with same-day pickup available or home delivery if you prefer.
That removes an entire category of risk. Compounded preparations are not FDA-approved, are not generic equivalents, and vary between the pharmacies that make them. Our guides on compounded versus FDA-approved GLP-1s and whether compounded semaglutide is legal set out what you are accepting when you buy compounded. If you have read those and decided you would rather not, Sesame is the most direct route in this comparison to not doing it.
It also means you cannot get a $99 a month plan here. Nothing Sesame prescribes is that cheap, because nothing Sesame prescribes is compounded. If the budget is firm, the practical route is to ask your clinician about the $149 a month branded options first and pair them with the twelve-month care tier at $59 a month, which is the cheapest FDA-approved combination Sesame publishes.
You pick the clinician, which is genuinely unusual
On every other provider in this comparison, a clinician is assigned to you and you will probably never learn much about them. Sesame publishes a list of named providers with credentials, from MDs and DOs to nurse practitioners and physician associates, and you choose. Your subscription then keeps you with that person for video visits and messaging.
For people who have had a bad experience with a form-driven telehealth funnel, that is a meaningful difference. It is also a marketplace, which means the quality of your care depends on which individual you picked, and we have no basis for assessing any of them. Read their listings properly rather than picking the first available slot.
One boundary to know about: Sesame states that providers on the platform do not prescribe controlled weight-loss medications, which rules out phentermine and Qsymia. If a stimulant-based option is what you are after, this is not the place. If it is not, that boundary costs you nothing: everything Sesame does prescribe for weight loss is FDA-approved and branded, so check the medication list against what you are hoping to be prescribed, then pick your clinician on their published credentials rather than on the first open slot.
The refund window is three hours
Sesame’s subscription refund policy is short and specific. If you sign up and cancel at least three hours before your initial visit start time, you get a full refund. Once the initial visit has happened, no refund is issued for the first month.
After that, you can self-cancel at any time, but cancellation must happen before the next billing cycle starts to avoid the next charge, and fees already paid for previous months are not refundable. Sesame also notes the policy is subject to change and advises reviewing it regularly.
Note also that the month-to-month tier is billed every 28 days, so your renewal date moves earlier through the calendar each cycle. The three, six and twelve-month tiers are billed on true calendar periods. Practical version: set a calendar reminder for the day before each renewal and drag it four days earlier every cycle on the monthly tier, then cancel in the account before the next cycle opens — fees already paid for previous months are never refundable, so the reminder is the whole defence. And if you are still deciding at all, book nothing until you are sure, because up to three hours before your initial visit start time the entire care fee comes back.
Start on FDA-approved branded medication — Sesame ↗ Compare refund policies
The Sesame button is an affiliate link; the refund policies page is an internal page on this site and is not. Full refund only if you cancel at least three hours before your initial visit start time; once that visit has happened there is no refund for the first month, and fees paid for previous months are never refundable. Care is billed every 28 days on the monthly tier and the medication is a separate bill from $149 a month.
Insurance, and what Sesame is really for
Sesame is a cash-pay marketplace. Its pitch is upfront prices with no insurance required, no copays and no surprise bills, and it contrasts itself directly with traditional in-network care. The care subscription is not billed to insurance.
That does not mean insurance is irrelevant to you. If your plan covers Wegovy or Zepbound at a modest copay, going through your plan will beat any cash-pay route including this one, and our guide on whether insurance covers GLP-1s explains how to check before you commit. Sesame is for people whose insurance will not cover a GLP-1, or who do not have insurance, and who want an FDA-approved drug anyway.
Claims we could not verify
- A Trustpilot rating of 4.5 out of 5 is displayed on the programme page. We did not verify it independently.
- Lose up to 25% of your body weight appears as a headline bullet with no cited trial next to it. Published trial averages for the drugs Sesame prescribes are lower than that, and up to figures describe the best responders rather than a typical result. Our page on how much weight loss to expect uses the trial averages instead.
- No markups on medication is stated in a comparison table on the page. We have no way to audit the pharmacy pricing behind it.
- Patient testimonials are quoted as real Sesame patients without names or verification.
- From-prices on the medication cards are floors, not quotes, and Sesame says so. Assume you will pay more than the from-price until a pharmacy tells you otherwise.
Practical version: treat every from-price as a floor, and before your first visit ask the clinician to confirm what your pharmacy will actually charge for the presentation they intend to prescribe. If that number lands above what you budgeted for, you can still cancel for a full refund up to three hours before the visit starts.
Who runs it
Sesame, Inc. The company is a direct-to-patient marketplace connecting patients with licensed clinicians at upfront cash prices across many specialties, not only weight management, and it has been operating in that form for several years. Weight loss is one service line among urgent care, mental health, dermatology, prescription refills and others. Clinical care is delivered by the individual providers listed on the platform, not by Sesame.
Who this suits, and who it does not
Worth a look if
- You want an FDA-approved branded GLP-1 and would rather not use a compounded preparation at all.
- You want to choose your own named clinician and stay with them.
- You want labs included rather than billed separately.
- Same-day pickup at your own local pharmacy is more convenient than waiting on a cold-chain delivery.
- You are willing to pay more than the compounded market rate for a manufacturer-made drug.
Look elsewhere if
- You are shopping on price. Nothing here approaches the $99 to $169 compounded rates on our semaglutide comparison.
- You want one predictable all-in monthly number. Two separate bills, one of which is a from-price, is the opposite of that.
- You want a refund after your first appointment. Three hours before the visit is the whole window.
- You want a stimulant-based weight-loss medication. Sesame providers do not prescribe controlled substances for weight loss.
- You want a provider that will bill your insurance for the clinical care. Sesame will not.
If you are in the first list, Sesame is our pick for you, and the reason is narrow and verifiable: it is the only provider in this comparison that will not put a compounded preparation in front of you, labs are inside the care fee, and you read a named clinician’s credentials before you book them.
See FDA-approved options and named clinicians — Sesame ↗ See the compounded alternatives
The Sesame button is an affiliate link; the comparison link is an internal page on this site and is not. Care is $99 a month month-to-month billed every 28 days, or $79, $69 and $59 a month on three, six and twelve-month commitments, and the medication is billed separately from $149 a month. Prices above were read on 12 August 2026 and medication from-prices are not quotes.
Compare this against the rest of the market
We keep a separate page for each question people actually ask before they hand over a card. Every link below is an internal page on this site, not an affiliate link.
- Cheapest GLP-1 telehealth 2026, ranked on real annual cost
- Compounded semaglutide price comparison
- Compounded tirzepatide price comparison
- GLP-1 providers with no subscription
- GLP-1 refund policies compared
- Oral and needle-free GLP-1 providers compared
- Fourteen red flags to check before you pay
- The full sixteen-provider comparison table
How we sourced this
Read on sesamecare.com on 12 August 2026: the online weight loss program service page in full, including the medication cards and their from-prices, the Success by Sesame commitment tiers, the programme inclusions, the billing schedule and the refund policy, plus the FAQ sections on which medications are and are not prescribed. Every price and every policy statement below comes from that page. We did not book a visit, complete an intake, or contact any provider on the marketplace, so we cannot speak to the quality of any individual clinician. Company claims we could not check are labelled below.