The short version
The two biggest consumer brands made opposite bets after the shortages ended: Hims doubled down on compounded offerings under a personalization rationale (and lost its Novo Nordisk partnership in the process, per 2025 reporting); Ro leaned into brand access — insurance navigation and manufacturer self-pay channels. Your legal-pathway comfort and coverage status decide which bet serves you; our verification pass will decide the numbers.
How Hims works
Hims is the men's storefront of Hims & Hers Health, a publicly traded telehealth company that entered weight loss with heavily advertised compounded semaglutide at aggressive headline prices. Its 2025 was turbulent in public view: a distribution partnership with Novo Nordisk was announced and then terminated by Novo within weeks (reported June 2025) amid disputes over how compounded products were marketed, and Hims has continued offering compounded GLP-1 doses under a personalization rationale — a legally contested framing now that the shortages are resolved. It has also added other agents such as liraglutide. Hims is very good at onboarding and advertising; the ledger's job here is the unglamorous part — separating the advertised entry price from the true recurring cost at maintenance dose, and documenting which legal pathway each product travels.
How Ro works
Ro is one of the largest direct-to-consumer telehealth platforms in the United States, and its weight program (Ro Body) has made a specific bet: insurance navigation for brand medication. Rather than competing primarily on a cash price for compounded drugs, Ro pairs prescribers with a team that runs benefits checks and prior-authorization paperwork for Wegovy and Zepbound, and it has participated in manufacturer self-pay channels for brand vials (its Zepbound vial arrangement with Lilly was announced in 2025 — verify current status). During the shortage era Ro also offered compounded semaglutide, and how much of that remains in the catalog is a verification question. The structural implication is simple: for a person with real coverage, a navigation-first platform can produce a monthly cost no cash program can touch; for a cash payer, Ro's value depends on membership fees and brand self-pay totals we have not yet verified.
Verified vs pending
Neither side of this table carries verified figures yet — both providers are in the queue, so this page documents structure, not prices, and says so plainly.
Full files
Hims provider file · Ro provider file · the pricing ledger · 2-minute match quiz. Have a current receipt from either program? Corrections moves it up the queue.