How it works
What happens in the ten seconds after you press search.
No black box. Here is the actual sequence, the rule that keeps the comparison honest, and the things SlashedRx will not do at any price.
The search, step by step
We identify exactly what you take
Your medication is matched against RxNorm, the National Library of Medicine’s drug vocabulary, so we are pricing the specific drug, strength and quantity on your label — not something with a similar name.
We query every savings source we have
All available sources run at once: cash-price pharmacies, FDA generic equivalence data, federal pricing datasets, and manufacturer and assistance programs read from those organizations’ own pages while you wait. Nothing is checked by hand — every result links to the page it came from and says when it was read. On your results page we list which sources actually answered.
We normalize, then separate what is not comparable
Different sources quote different pack sizes, so everything is converted to your quantity first. Then options are split by type, because a cash price and a program price are not the same kind of number.
We rank, and calculate what you would actually save
Within each group the cheapest option comes first, and savings are measured against what you told us you pay today. If the difference is under $5 a month or 5%, we do not call it a saving.
Why we refuse to put every option in one list.
A $238 cash price and a copay card that caps you at $25 if you have commercial insurance and are not on Medicare are not the same kind of number. Ranking them against each other would be a lie told with arithmetic. So every option is sorted into one of three groups first.
A quoted price
A real price for this drug, this strength, this quantity, from a source we can name. Only these can be the headline number.
A program price
A manufacturer or assistance program price that depends on eligibility — often on what insurance you have. It can only lead if nothing comparable beats it, and it is always labelled.
A route with no price
An assistance foundation, or the fact that an FDA-approved generic exists. Useful to know, but it produces no savings figure and never appears as one.
A program you cannot check is not a program.
Every manufacturer and assistance program we show is read from that organization’s own official page, at the moment you search. The page has to exist, the operator has to be who we say it is, and the eligibility language has to still be there — otherwise there is nothing to show you.
We cannot send you anywhere that is not on a fixed list of approved organizations held in our own code. That list is the same one that governs every outbound link on this site, and adding to it is a deliberate change, not something a search can do on its own. Every result carries the page it came from and the time it was read, so you can check it in one click rather than trust that we did.
Every result has to say four things
- 1What kind of option it is
- 2Where the price came from
- 3When it was last checked
- 4What conditions apply to it
These are required fields in the code, not a style guideline. A result that cannot state all four cannot be displayed.
What SlashedRx will never do.
- Diagnose anything, or suggest what you should be taking
- Tell you to stop, switch, or change the dose of a medication
- Invent a therapeutic equivalent that the FDA has not listed for your exact drug
- Show a price we cannot attribute to a named source and a date
- Send your medication name to an advertising network, or sell your search history
- Scrape a site in violation of its terms to fill a gap in our data
Your medication searches are private. We never sell your search history and never send medication names to advertising networks. How we handle your data.
Try it on your most expensive prescription.
Free, no account needed. Any prescription medication.
SlashedRx provides medication pricing and savings information and does not provide medical advice. Never change or stop a prescribed medication without speaking with your healthcare professional.