Fridays vs. MyStart Health: prices, fine print, and the honest verdict

Tirzepatide pricing

Fridays: $359 a month all-in at the 10 mg maintenance basis, flat at every dose from 2.5 to 15 mg, no membership fee. Prepaid terms bring the effective rate to $240/mo (annual plan). MyStart Health carries only a reported figure — $179/mo from a competing comparison site (May 2026), never captured on a provider page — so it is listed, reviewed, and excluded from ranked comparisons pending verification.

Semaglutide pricing

Only Fridays publishes a semaglutide price here: Semaglutide runs $175 a month all-in. MyStart Health offers semaglutide without a published price.

Transparency

Fridays: Third-party-reported (verified 2026-08-05); dispensing pharmacy not publicly named. MyStart Health: Third-party-reported; dispensing pharmacy not publicly named. In this market, a named pharmacy and a dated, source-verified price are worth real money — they are what let you check the claim instead of trusting it.

Commitment & cancellation

Fridays: annual plan for lowest rate; not published. MyStart Health: terms not published.

Two ladders, side by side

The 2.5-to-10 mg climb is the honest stress test: Fridays holds $359 on every rung (four-month titration: exactly $1,436). A flat ladder makes dose decisions purely clinical; a scaled one attaches an invoice to every escalation — including the post-plateau bump from 10 to 12.5 mg that many patients eventually face. Full framework: the titration cost guide.

The semaglutide board

Only Fridays fields a verified semaglutide price here — $175/month all-in (#5 of 19) — while MyStart Health publishes no semaglutide figure we could capture. For a buyer starting on the cheaper molecule with a likely upgrade later, single-molecule programs mean a future re-shop; dual-molecule ones price the whole arc.

The five normalizations, applied to this pair

1 · All-in, not advertised. Fridays's ranked figure is $359, with no membership to add; MyStart Health's reported $179 can't be normalized because no source page confirms what it includes. 2 · Maintenance basis. Fridays is dose-flat, so its entry and 10 mg figures coincide. 3 · Terms separated. Fridays: standing $359, prepaid $240 effective (annual plan) — standing rates rank, prepaid effectives are labeled beside them. 4 · Evidence tiered. Fridays: third-party-reported, read 2026-08-05; MyStart Health: third-party-reported. 5 · Pharmacy weighed. Fridays names no pharmacy; MyStart Health names no pharmacy — in a pharmacy-variance market, disclosure is a scored asset. Run the same five on any roundup you read and most published “cheapest” lists reorder themselves.

Fine print, itemized

Fridays: no membership — the medication figure is the billed figure; prepaid annual plan at $240/mo effective; not published; commitment: annual plan for lowest rate. MyStart Health: no membership — the medication figure is the billed figure. The pattern to police on both sides is the same: memberships that outlive the medication order, renewal-relative cancellation deadlines, and prepaid terms whose refund language matters more than their discount in a year of live litigation. Cancel in writing; screenshot everything.

Transparency, audited

Fridays carries third-party-reported pricing (last read 2026-08-05); its dispensing pharmacy is not publicly named, so the five pharmacy questions (name, 503A/503B status, state licensure, certificate of analysis, formulation) are your pre-purchase homework. MyStart Health carries third-party-reported pricing; its dispensing pharmacy is not publicly named, so the five pharmacy questions (name, 503A/503B status, state licensure, certificate of analysis, formulation) are your pre-purchase homework. Our weighting is unapologetic: in a market of identical molecule names, a dated source-verified price and a named pharmacy are the two claims a buyer can actually check, and they carry 25 of 100 formula points between them — the methodology shows the math, and the pharmacy guide decodes every answer the five questions can return.

Switching between them

Neither program locks the door: a Fridays-to-MyStart Health move is a new intake, a new prescription at the new pharmacy, and a written cancellation at the old shop — typically a one-to-two-week overlap if you time the last fill. What does not move with you: prepaid months, membership balances, and any dose paperwork, so re-state your current rung clearly at the new intake.

Refills, shipping, and the week-to-week reality

Past the pricing page, the operational facts are what a subscriber lives with: Fridays: shipping included; consultation included. MyStart Health: shipping, consult, and refill logistics aren’t published in our capture — ask at intake, in writing. Cold-chain shipments run 3–7 days across the market; the recurring failure modes are refill-timing gaps and pharmacy backlogs, so whichever program wins here, order refills a week early and confirm the pharmacy’s current turnaround at intake.

Who should pick which

Pick Fridays if you want a price that survives titration; you'll prepay for the $240 effective rate. Pick MyStart Health if its published terms happen to fit your state, format, or timing. Neither answer is universal — which is the argument for choosing from data with dates on it rather than from whichever ad loaded first.

What verification would take

For MyStart Health, ranking would require: a provider-page capture confirming the reported $179 figure and exactly what it includes; the dose structure (flat or scaled, with the 10 mg tier stated); the pharmacy's name, 503A/503B status, and state licensure; commitment and cancellation terms verbatim. We publish the checklist because the gap is fixable — providers that clear it get ranked on the same arithmetic as everyone else, and readers who ask these questions get the answers this page can't yet print.

If neither one fits

Two programs never exhaust the market — the nearest substitutes on the verified board are Lavender Sky Health at $352 (dose-scaled, $25 membership included); Henry Meds at $349 (flat, no membership); TrimRx at $349 (flat, no membership) — or skip straight to the rankings page, where every standard “cheapest / best / no-commitment” question is answered in one sourced sentence.

The brand benchmark both must beat

Neither program exists in a vacuum: FDA-approved Zepbound sits at $449/month at maintenance (LillyDirect or retail KwikPens, ~$350 on TrumpRx, ~$50 for newly eligible Medicare patients), and Wegovy at a flat $349. The cheaper of these two compounded options saves $1,080/year against the Zepbound benchmark — the number that has to justify accepting a not-FDA-reviewed product, per the full trade analysis. When a compounded quote drifts above ~$350, this benchmark starts winning the argument on its own.

The verdict

With incomplete published pricing on one or both sides, get current figures in writing before enrolling with either. Both records, with dates and sources, live in the pricing database.