Written and sourced by Vincent Wesley Couey, RxGrab founder. Updated .
Costco has a price lookup that works without signing in: search your drug at costco.com/cmpp (Costco calls it Member Value Pricing). In it, 17 common generics cost $6.99 to $10.99 for 30 tablets (60 for metformin). On membership, Costco says two things that fit together:
Read on October 26, 2026. Costco's customer service answer CU1540 (customerservice.costco.com, read directly), and Costco's Member Value Pricing lookup and pharmacy support pages (rx.costco.com), read signed out in a browser with Generic selected and the filters confirmed on every row. This is not a hands-on test: we did not fill a prescription at Costco. This page is not medical advice.
The May version was titled "No Membership Needed" and said, among other things, that Costco "publishes no flat list" and that RxGrab therefore quoted no Costco figures, that a non-member "can enroll in the CMPP", that the CMPP is free, that Costco must serve non-members under state law with a possible surcharge, that members get "the deepest discounts", and a four-pharmacy comparison table with CVS ExtraCare and other figures. Costco now publishes a signed-out lookup with real prices. Costco's current support page says any Costco member can join the program, which does not match the May "non-member can enroll" line, and we could not re-read the other claims on a primary page. We kept what Costco's own pages say, replaced the rest with the lookup's numbers, and moved the unread items to a "not read" list.
What we hit reading it on October 26, 2026.
"You don't need to be a Costco member to purchase Costco Pharmacy prescriptions online or at our warehouses." Costco customer service answer CU1540, published August 28, 2023, read October 26, 2026.
"Show your Costco membership card at the participating pharmacy of your choice to receive your discount." Costco pharmacy support, read October 26, 2026.
A prescription drug discount card program for eligible Costco members and their eligible dependents; any Costco member can join; people under 18 or pets can be dependent members; the discount is determined at the time of purchase. Costco support, read October 26, 2026.
The two Costco statements above can both be true, but no page we read says what price a non-member is charged, or whether a surcharge applies. Ask the counter.
Not read on any page we could load. Check Costco's membership page before you weigh it against any saving.
The lookup shows a Home Delivery price equal to pick-up on every row. Delivery fees, and whether membership is needed for mail order, were not read.
Basis: 30 tablets (metformin 1000 mg: 60), Generic selected, form, strength and quantity filters confirmed on each row, warehouse pick-up price (home delivery was the same on every row), read October 26, 2026. A 30-tablet fill is a month only for a once-a-day dose, so use your own tablet count. For the same 17 beside Walmart and Cost Plus Drugs, see cheapest pharmacy for prescriptions.
30 tablets (metformin 60), member pricing, full bar = $10.99.
DRUG AND STRENGTH: ______________________ TABLETS ON MY PRESCRIPTION: ______ FOR ______ DAYS 1. Costco's online lookup shows $______ for this generic, strength and tablet count. Is that what I will pay today? 2. I am / am not a Costco member. Does that change the price, and is there any non-member surcharge? 3. Is it the generic, not the brand? (The lookup can default to the brand.) 4. Do you take my insurance? What is my copay, and which is lower, the copay or the lookup price? 5. What would 90 days cost, and does my prescriber need to write a new prescription? 6. If I use home delivery, what are the fees and do I need a membership?
Costco says to show your card at the pharmacy to receive the discount. Run the drug in the lookup, then compare with the Walmart and Cost Plus prices.
Pick: the lookup, then Costco vs Walmart.
Costco says non-members can buy prescriptions. What a non-member pays relative to the lookup was not stated, so ask before you rely on it.
Pick: ask the counter the non-member question first.
Costco calls its program a discount card, not insurance. Get your copay and the lookup price for the same fill and pay the lower.
Pick: the lower of copay and cash, per drug.
Cash prices sit outside your Part D plan, which prices by its own pharmacy network. Medicare Plan Compare is the official place to see a named drug at a named pharmacy. For negotiated prices, read OmniRx on negotiated prices.
Pick: your plan's price, then the lookup for comparison.
RxPass is $5 a month on top of Prime for more than 50 listed generics. It is not available to Medicaid or CHIP members, or for shipping to California and Washington.
Pick: RxPass if you already have Prime and take a listed drug.
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Costco prices are read from the Member Value Pricing lookup with Generic selected and the form, strength, package and quantity filters confirmed on each row (the lookup's subtitle can lag the filter), using the warehouse pick-up price and noting the home-delivery price beside it. The minimum, maximum, spread and median are computed over the 17 rows and asserted in a small script kept beside the staged page. The membership statement is quoted from Costco's customer service answer CU1540, read directly on October 26, 2026; the card and program statements are from Costco's pharmacy support page, read in a browser the same day.
Costco beside the other routes: Costco pharmacy prices (the 17 generics against Walmart and Cost Plus), Costco vs Walmart, cheapest pharmacy for prescriptions and Walmart prescription price lookup. Reuse and embed terms are on our licence page and the pharmacy finder embed. See also our method and the 85 Drug Pricing Statistics. Costco links here are plain links; we are not enrolled in a Costco affiliate program.
Costco's customer service answer CU1540, published 28 August 2023 and still published when we read it on 26 October 2026, says: you don't need to be a Costco member to purchase Costco Pharmacy prescriptions online or at our warehouses. Costco's price lookup, however, labels its prices member pricing and says to show your Costco membership card at the pharmacy to receive the discount. Whether a non-member is charged the lookup price, and any non-member surcharge, was not stated on the pages we read.
Search your drug at costco.com/cmpp, which opens Costco's Member Value Pricing lookup at rx.costco.com. It showed prices signed out when we read it on 26 October 2026. Select Generic, then check the form, strength, package and quantity filters, because the lookup can default to the brand and its descriptive subtitle can lag the filter.
In the lookup on 26 October 2026, with Generic selected, 17 common generics cost $6.99 to $10.99 for 30 tablets (60 for metformin 1000 mg), a median of $8.99. Warehouse pick-up and home delivery showed the same price on every one.
Costco's support page says it is not insurance. It is a prescription drug discount card program that provides eligible Costco members and their eligible dependents access to lower prices at participating pharmacies, any Costco member can join, and people under 18 or pets are eligible as dependent members. The discount is determined at the time of purchase.
The lookup can default to the brand-name product. When we searched amlodipine it defaulted to Norvasc at $1,119.71 for 90 tablets, and levothyroxine defaulted to Synthroid. Select Generic and check the quantity filter.
Prescription prices in the United States are set through a documented chain of list prices, pharmacy benefit contracts and federal programs, and the sources below are the primary public records of how that chain works. They are linked so a reader can check a claim here without taking this page's word for it.
This page describes how prescription pricing and discount programs work. It is not medical advice, and what a given person pays depends on their own plan, pharmacy and prescriber.