Generic Ozempic Canada Price: What Every Pharmacy and Online Plan Charges

What you pay for generic Ozempic in Canada comes down to two things: which counter you walk up to, and whether you already have a prescription. The drug in the pen is the same everywhere. What changes is the chain’s markup and its dispensing fee.

This page lists every big chain and every online prescriber in one table, says where each number comes from, and shows the public price that sits under all of them. If you just want the cheapest route for your province, the three-question route finder does the sorting for you.

How much is generic Ozempic in Canada?

Generic Ozempic costs $92 to $123 for a four-week pen at Canadian pharmacy chains, cash, before any insurance. The low end is Costco Pharmacy at $92. The high end is Shoppers Drug Mart at $123.

The generic you will be handed today is almost always Apo-Semaglutide, from Apotex. It comes as two pens: one for the 0.25 or 0.5 mg doses and one for the 1 mg dose.^1,2 Health Canada lists it as a prescription drug, so you need a prescription from a doctor, a nurse practitioner or an online prescriber.²

A “four-week pen” is how Canadian price reports count a month of semaglutide. The Globe and Mail compared the generic and the brand per four-week supply.^3,4 Both are once-weekly injections, so a month means four doses.⁵

Why not Dr. Reddy’s? It was the first generic approved, on April 28, 2026.⁶

But the company halted new batches in July 2026 over an ingredient quality problem.^7,8 It told investors it planned to resume supply by November.⁹

Until that happens, the prices on this page are Apo-Semaglutide prices. Our Apo-Semaglutide guide covers the pens, DINs and recalls.

Where these prices come from

Every generic Ozempic Canada price in the table carries a label, Audited or Estimated, and the two mean different things. Nobody working on this site has phoned a pharmacy, so no price here is called “verified”.

Audited rows

Costco, Walmart, London Drugs, Rexall and Shoppers Drug Mart carry figures from a published August 2026 retail audit of Canadian pharmacy counters. Someone called those chains and recorded the drug cost; it was not us. We add each chain’s dispensing fee to get the till total you see.

An audited figure is used exactly as recorded. It is not scaled up or down by province, so it shows as one number rather than a range.

Estimated rows

The other chains, including the mail-order pharmacy and the grocery-store pharmacies, were not in the audit. Their rows are estimates, modelled from the public list price, a factor for each province and the chain’s posted dispensing fee. That is why an estimated row shows a range: the cheapest province at one end and the priciest at the other.

Treat an estimate as a starting point. Before you move a prescription for one, call and ask for the cash total on the pen you use.

How the numbers line up with the news

The best independent check is CBC. In May 2026, pharmacies told CBC that generics had “slashed the price to roughly $100 a month”.¹⁰ The chain prices in the table sit around that figure, below it at Costco and above it at the full-service chains.

The other anchor is the public price. Ontario’s drug plan lists every generic semaglutide pen at $78.14.¹ The Globe and Mail put the Apotex wholesale price at $78.14 per four-week supply, against $240.48 for Ozempic, both before pharmacy markup and fees.^3,4

Generic Ozempic at Costco, Shoppers, Walmart and Rexall

The four chains most people search for differ by roughly the cost of a takeout lunch. Much of the gap is the dispensing fee: Costco’s is about a third of what the full-service chains charge.

Costco Pharmacy

Costco is the cheapest audited counter, at $92 for a four-week pen. Its dispensing fee is the lowest of any walk-in chain in the table. Costco Canada does not spell out on its pharmacy pages whether non-members can fill a prescription, so phone your nearest warehouse pharmacy before you move one there.

Shoppers Drug Mart

Shoppers is at the top of the audited range, at $123, and it charges the highest dispensing fee in the table. Our read: the main reason to pay that total is convenience, such as keeping every prescription at one counter you already use.

Walmart Pharmacy

Walmart sits in the middle of the audited chains. Its drug cost was recorded higher than Costco’s, and its dispensing fee is close to the other full-service chains. The table shows its current total.

Rexall

Rexall’s audited drug cost was one of the lower ones, but its fee pulls the total up toward the other full-service chains. Rexall also runs Novo Nordisk Care Rx, the pharmacy that applies Novo’s Ozempic card automatically, which matters only if you want the brand.¹¹

Generic vs brand Ozempic at the same counter

At the cheapest counter, the generic saves $170 per four-week pen compared with brand Ozempic. Over 13 pens, about a year, that comes to $2,210.

Apotex said at launch that its generic would cost “approximately one-third the price” of Ozempic.¹² The counter prices bear that out at the low end. Ontario’s own price list shows the same pattern, with the generic at 34% of the brand’s listed price.¹

Is the brand worth the extra? That is a question about the medicine, not the price, and our generic vs brand comparison covers what is the same and what differs. Our read: for most cash payers on a dose of 1 mg or less, the price gap is the deciding fact.

Buying generic semaglutide online

Online prescribers cost more per month than a pharmacy counter because you are buying more than the pen. The price usually covers an assessment, a Canadian prescriber, follow-up messages and delivery to your door.

The online rows in the table each say what is bundled.

Some charge one monthly price with nothing else to pay. Others add a separate consult fee, a setup fee or a monthly program fee on top of the drug, so read the notes column before you compare. One service, Maple, sells virtual visits and sends the prescription to a pharmacy, so you pay the counter price on top of the visit.

Province matters online too. Each provider serves a set list of provinces, shown in the table, and not every one serves Quebec.

The lowest first-month price in the online rows is $125. Some plans charge more from the second month on, so compare the ongoing monthly price, not just the first one.

Here is the honest trade-off. If you already have a family doctor who will prescribe, a pharmacy counter is the cheaper way to buy the same pen. If you do not, an online plan can be faster than waiting for an appointment, and the extra cost pays for the prescriber.

Whatever route you pick, buy only from a licensed Canadian pharmacy or a prescriber that fills through one. Health Canada warned in January 2026 that retailers were selling unauthorized GLP-1 products, some with the wrong ingredient or none at all. It advises checking the eight-digit DIN on the box against its drug database.¹³

Why Ontario’s public price sets the floor

Ontario’s drug plan pays $78.14 per generic semaglutide pen, and that figure is the closest thing Canada has to a list price. It applies to every generic pen on the Ontario Drug Benefit Formulary, both doses and both makers.¹

The same formulary lists Ozempic at $227.94, but it pays only $78.14 for an Ozempic prescription too. The plan reimburses the brand at the generic price.¹ The generic price is 34% of the brand’s listed price.

So why does a cash customer pay more than $78.14? The counter adds two things: the pharmacy’s markup on the drug, and its dispensing fee. Those two pieces explain the whole gap between the public price and the numbers in the table.

You may read about “price tiers” for generics. Those come from the pan-Canadian Pharmaceutical Alliance, which sets generic prices for public plans as a percentage of the brand price.^14,15

No tier has been published for semaglutide. It does not appear in the alliance’s September 2026 report of generic categories, so any dollar “ceiling” you see quoted for it is someone’s arithmetic, not an announced price.¹⁶

Will generic semaglutide get cheaper?

Probably, but slowly, and nobody has published a date. More makers are approved but not yet selling, and more are waiting for a decision.

Sandoz received its approval on September 16, 2026 and called its product an “upcoming launch” without a date.¹⁷ Aspen Pharmacare holds two approvals, from July and August 2026, and neither product is marketed yet.^18,19,2 Health Canada’s list shows nine more generic semaglutide submissions under review as of August 31, 2026.²⁰

Competition usually pushes generic prices down. Under the public-plan framework, the general rule is 50% of the brand reference price with two generic makers. With three or more, it drops to 35% for products that are not oral tablets, which includes an injectable like semaglutide.¹⁴

Ontario already pays less than either of those percentages of Ozempic’s listed price, so the framework does not promise a further cut on its own.

A Windsor-Essex pharmacist told CBC the monthly price could slip below the $100 mark as more generics arrive.¹⁰ That is one pharmacist’s forecast, not a published price.

Our read: the cash price at the full-service chains has more room to fall than Costco’s does, because their fees are higher. A second generic actually on shelves, from Sandoz, Aspen or a returning Dr. Reddy’s, is the thing to watch.

Ways to pay less for generic semaglutide

You can cut the cost without changing the medicine. These steps are in rough order of how much they tend to save.

1. Check your drug plan first. A plan that covers the generic beats any cash price. Several big insurers have said they pay the generic price once a province rules the products interchangeable, and some require the switch.^4,21
2. Compare counters, not just chains you know. The spread between the cheapest and dearest chain in the table is real money over a year. Use the table, or let the route finder pick for your province.
3. Ask for the generic by name. Say “Apo-Semaglutide” at the counter. If your prescription says “no substitution”, ask your prescriber whether the brand is needed.
4. Ask what the dispensing fee is. Fees differ by several dollars between chains, and you pay the fee on every fill.
5. Price an estimated row before you switch. If the cheapest option near you is an estimate, phone for a quote on your exact pen first.
6. Use Novo’s card only if you want the brand. The Ozempic Savings Card lowers the brand’s cash price outside Quebec. It does not apply to the generic.^11,22

Is generic Ozempic covered by insurance?

For type 2 diabetes, often yes. Ontario lists every generic under Limited Use, and Alberta added the generics to its benefit list on July 1, 2026.^1,23 Weight loss is another matter: Novo told the pan-Canadian Pharmaceutical Alliance in 2025 that it would no longer seek public coverage for Wegovy.²⁴

Private plans differ. Some insurers now require the generic unless you pay the difference for the brand.²¹ Our coverage guide goes province by province and explains how plans handle the switch.

Generic or the Ozempic Savings Card?

Novo Nordisk’s card brings the brand’s cash price closer to the generic for people outside Quebec, and it now works with private insurance too. It does not work with any public plan.^11,22

Novo has not published what you pay with the card. The fair test is to ask your pharmacist to run it and compare the total with the generic at your counter. Our savings card breakdown covers who qualifies and when the card wins.

Where to fill your generic Ozempic prescription

Start with the lowest audited counter you can reach, which today is Costco Pharmacy at $92. If that store is not close, compare the next two chains in the table, and phone any estimated row before you move a prescription.

If you have no prescription, an online prescriber will cost more each month, but it gets you a prescriber and delivery in one step. If you have a plan, check it before you pay cash. For a quick overview of every generic Health Canada has approved and which ones are on shelves, see generic Ozempic in Canada.