What GLP-1s actually cost in Canada

The manufacturer’s price to the wholesaler is essentially uniform across Canada. What varies is everything downstream: each province sets its own rules for how pharmacists are paid, which produces very different dispensing lines on your receipt, and competition is local. A city with four Costco pharmacies inside its boundary has a price floor that a city with none simply does not have.

Alberta cities lead consistently: no provincial cap forcing prices upward, and dense Costco and Real Canadian Superstore coverage in Calgary and Edmonton keeps the discount floor competitive. The city table above ranks every market we track in your province, and the note under it names the counter.

Often, yes. The gap between a city and its own suburbs is frequently larger than the gap between provinces: Mississauga runs cheaper than Toronto proper because four Costco pharmacies operate inside Mississauga and none inside the City of Toronto. Before you drive, phone the specific pharmacy for the cash price of your exact strength including the dispensing fee, and confirm stock.

It depends on where you live. In large markets with strong discount-chain coverage a local Costco or Superstore counter usually still wins. In smaller and more remote markets, including much of Atlantic Canada, mail order is often the cheapest legitimate route because there is no local discounter to set a floor. Compare the all-in figure against the cheapest counter in your own city.

Every row says. Rows marked Audited come from a published August 2026 retail phone audit of Canadian pharmacy counters. Rows marked Estimated are modelled from published list pricing and each chain’s dispensing fee, and should be confirmed with the pharmacy. A row marked Verified means we phoned that counter ourselves on the date shown. If a number here does not match what your pharmacy quotes, the pharmacy is right and we want to know.