NADAC Drug Price Lookup: What Pharmacies Pay
Every week, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) surveys retail pharmacies and publishes the National Average Drug Acquisition Cost (NADAC): the average invoice price pharmacies actually pay wholesalers for each drug. Search a generic drug below to see its NADAC per unit.
What the pharmacy pays
NADAC is the average amount US retail and chain pharmacies pay their wholesaler for one tablet, capsule, milliliter, or gram. It is based on real pharmacy invoices.
What you pay
Your price at the counter adds the pharmacy dispensing fee, insurance or PBM middlemen, and the pharmacy markup. The gap between NADAC and your price is where the business of pharmacy lives.
How to read a result
Each result shows the NADAC per unit, the national average acquisition cost for one unit (tablet, capsule, mL, or gram). We also show simple math for common quantities, for example 30 or 90 tablets, so the number means something real. This is acquisition cost only. It does not include the dispensing fee, taxes, or any markup, so it will almost always be lower than a cash price you see online.
Frequently asked questions
What is NADAC, exactly?
NADAC stands for National Average Drug Acquisition Cost. CMS collects actual purchase invoices from retail and chain pharmacies each week and publishes the national average cost per unit for thousands of prescription drugs. It is the closest thing the public has to the true wholesale cost of a drug.
Is NADAC the price I pay at the pharmacy?
No. NADAC is what the pharmacy pays the wholesaler. Your price includes a professional dispensing fee plus whatever your insurer, pharmacy benefit manager, or the pharmacy adds. Cash discount programs and coupons set their own prices too.
Why does the same drug cost different amounts at different pharmacies?
Each pharmacy negotiates its own wholesale deals and sets its own markup, and insurers negotiate their own reimbursement rates with pharmacies. NADAC is the national average, so an individual pharmacy may pay a little more or less.
How current is this data?
This lookup uses the CMS NADAC weekly file effective September 23, 2026, covering 340 commonly prescribed drugs. NADAC is refreshed every Wednesday by CMS.
Can I use NADAC to save money?
It helps you ask better questions. If a cash price is many times the NADAC, it is worth asking the pharmacist about a lower cash price, a discount program, or a therapeutic alternative. NADAC does not tell you the cheapest pharmacy near you.
Free lookup. More coming.
This lookup is free. Planned premium extras: downloadable NADAC snapshots in CSV, weekly price change alerts for the drugs you follow, and a full file search across every NDC instead of the 340 drug snapshot. Nothing here is for sale today.
Data and honesty
Every price on this page comes straight from the CMS NADAC file. Nothing is estimated, modeled, or rounded beyond display. If a drug is not in our 340 drug snapshot, we say so plainly instead of guessing. The full file covers roughly 30,000 NDCs and is public at data.medicaid.gov.
Guides
- What Your Pharmacy Really Paid for That Generic
What pharmacies pay wholesalers for common generics, from two-cent pills to $1,302 GLP-1s.
- How One Weekly Spreadsheet Became the Number That Sets Pharmacy Paychecks
How NADAC became the benchmark for pharmacy paychecks, and the 2024 chain-pharmacy controversy.