Arena: Market Conditions Before GoodRx
People paying for prescriptions · 2011 · United States
Scattered supplyInformation asymmetry
In 2011 a person filling a prescription usually learned its price only at the pharmacy counter. The list price of the same medicine could vary widely between pharmacies a few blocks apart, and nothing online showed what each one charged GR1 GRX-4. Insurance did not settle the question: deductibles, formularies and copays made the cheapest route hard to predict GR2. Pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs), the companies that negotiate drug prices for insurers, also ran discount networks with their own cash prices, but each network showed only its own price, and a patient had no simple way to compare them before choosing where to fill GR1. Americans spent about $400 billion a year on prescriptions GRX-4.
How each step happened
Step 1 of 5 · 2011–14
One search across every discount network's local price
GoodRx's innovation was one search that showed every discount network's price for a drug at each nearby pharmacy. Doug Hirsch and Trevor Bezdek founded it in 2011 after searching online for the price of Lipitor and finding almost nothing GRX-4 GRX-3. Discount cards already existed, but each carried one network's price. Against a single card, which offers only the prices its owner negotiated, a search across many networks gave patients the lowest of them all before they left home.
The first version scraped public prices from Costco, Walmart and state transparency sites and phoned pharmacies for the rest GRX-2 GRX-3. GoodRx then added PBM cash networks, homogenizing each source's pricing methods and drug lists "so that prices are directly comparable" GR1. The patient picks a pharmacy, saves a GoodRx code (a coupon number the pharmacist enters at the counter) and pays that price GR1. Hirsch described prices in plain retail words such as coupon and discount price instead of insurance terms GRX-2. A free, readable search turned a hidden price into an everyday choice, and its codes were what step 2 turned into revenue.
Rivals SingleCare, run by Rick Bates's RxSense in Boston, was founded in 2015, four years later. It picked the drugs people most often bought with cash and negotiated one price for each directly with chains such as Walgreens, Walmart, CVS and Kroger GRX-9.
Aggregator StrategyInformation asymmetry
Step 2 of 5 · 2012–19
Free to consumers, paid by PBMs per filled script
GoodRx charged the patient nothing and let the PBM pay. When a prescription fills with a GoodRx code, the PBM whose price was used earns a fee from the pharmacy, and GoodRx receives a percentage of that fee or a fixed payment per transaction GR1. The code is then recorded in the pharmacy's database, so GoodRx keeps earning "when the consumer returns to the pharmacy for refills and new prescriptions" without the patient showing it again GR1. PBMs paid because GoodRx brought their networks new volume, and only on completed purchases.
A free search gave patients no reason to hesitate, and every refill added revenue without a new search. GoodRx was profitable on and off from 2013 GRX-3; revenue rose from $99 million in 2016 to $388 million in 2019, with $66 million of net income GRX-5. The design also gave a few PBMs leverage over its prices and fees: early on one threatened to end its contract over pricing accuracy GRX-2. Step 4 is how GoodRx reduced that dependence.
Rivals SingleCare built its model on cutting out middlemen and contracting directly with retail pharmacies, Bates said in 2019 GRX-9, so each drug carried one SingleCare price rather than the best of many networks.
Cross-Subsidy
Step 3 of 5 · 2012–20
Doctors, pharmacists and drug-price pages bring unpaid demand
The people patients already trusted spread GoodRx for free. After a presentation at the Health 2.0 conference, doctors became early adopters and flooded the team with calls GRX-2 GRX-3. A prescription the patient could not afford went unfilled; a GoodRx price solved that on the spot. By 2018 GoodRx counted more than 260,000 physician endorsements, over 10 million monthly customers and 2–3% of US prescription volume GRX-4. Pharmacists helped too: GoodRx trains them to apply codes, and fewer patients walk away from the counter over price GR1.
Recommendations from friends, healthcare professionals and pharmacists, plus press coverage, drive "significant unpaid traffic to our apps and websites," the company says GR1. It adds its own drug-price pages and thousands of GoodRx Health articles, and sends prices into electronic health record systems so doctors can text them to patients when they prescribe GR1. GoodRx also buys TV and search ads GR1, but unpaid demand meant many of the codes that earned fees in step 2 cost nothing to acquire, which kept it profitable while it grew.
Rivals SingleCare bought much of its reach: TV commercials with the actors Martin Sheen and Martin Short GRX-10 and cards stocked in more than a million doctors' offices GRX-11.
Customer ReferralsOwned Media
Step 4 of 5 · 2016–25
Consumer volume turns PBM networks into interchangeable price feeds
Once GoodRx sent large volumes of patients, PBMs competed to be the price it showed. It works with dozens of PBMs that run cash networks, and the number has grown over time GR1; GoodRx simply displays the prices they negotiated, on its own codes GRX-1. Each patient goes to whichever network is cheapest at that pharmacy for that drug, so every PBM became one interchangeable input among many. Cheaper inputs made GoodRx more useful, and more patients drew more PBMs.
The shift shows in GoodRx's revenue. Its three largest PBMs accounted for 61% in 2018 and 42% in 2020 GRX-6, then 22% in 2025, with no single PBM above 10% in 2024 or 2025 GR1. No significant PBM has ended its relationship, and many contracts keep paying GoodRx for patients it sent even after termination GR1. The breadth also made GoodRx codes work at more than 70,000 pharmacies, nearly every retail pharmacy in the country GRX-3 GR1. The leverage a few PBMs held in step 2 was spread thin.
Rivals SingleCare's own network covers about 35,000 pharmacies against GoodRx's 70,000-plus, and a 2026 consumer guide tells shoppers to check both cards and use whichever is lower GRX-12 GRX-13.
Commoditize your complementMarketplace network effects
Step 5 of 5 · 2020–25
The default place to check a drug's cash price
By its 2020 listing GoodRx was the first place many Americans checked a drug's cash price. It reported 4.9 million Monthly Active Consumers (people who used a GoodRx code to buy a prescription in a month) and more than 80% repeat activity GRX-5. Repeat use was built in: the code stays on file at the pharmacy, and refill reminders bring patients back GR1. The IPO in September 2020 valued the already profitable company at $12.7 billion, and the shares closed the first day at a $19.4 billion market value GRX-8 GRX-7.
Owning that demand brought a second set of buyers. Drug manufacturers pay to reach GoodRx's patients and prescribers with brand-drug affordability programs, and this pharma direct revenue grew 41% to $151 million in 2025, when total revenue was $797 million GR1. Prescription transactions revenue fell 6% that year as Monthly Active Consumers dropped 14% with pharmacy store closures GR1, and a 2023 FTC order barring GoodRx from sharing health data for advertising showed how much the business rests on patients' trust GR3.
What made GoodRx win
The search of step 1 was valuable only if patients checked it first, and steps 2 to 4 made them do so: a free product paid for by PBMs, spread by doctors and pharmacists, drawing on so many networks that no single card reliably beat it. Patients who return on their own give GoodRx its bargaining position with PBMs, pharmacies and manufacturers, and its name is what a patient trusts at the counter.
Rivals SingleCare says more than 40 million Americans have used its card GRX-10 and, in 2023, claimed the second position in the market with 7 million monthly users GRX-11. It remains a unit of RxSense GRX-12.
Demand ownershipBrandingMulti-Product