Mark Cuban Cost Plus Drugs is a legitimate licensed online pharmacy that sells generic and some brand-name medications at transparent prices. It operates with a simple pricing formula: the manufacturer’s cost plus a 15% markup, a small pharmacist labor fee, and shipping. The company has filled prescriptions for millions of customers since launching in 2022, but like any online pharmacy, it comes with tradeoffs worth understanding before you transfer your prescriptions.
How the Pricing Model Works
The core appeal of Cost Plus Drugs is that you can see exactly what you’re paying for. Traditional pharmacies negotiate prices behind closed doors with middlemen called pharmacy benefit managers, and the final price you see at the counter often has little connection to what the drug actually costs to make. Cost Plus Drugs skips that system entirely.
Every drug on the site shows three components of its price: the manufacturer’s cost, a 15% markup that funds the company’s operations, and a flat pharmacist dispensing fee. Shipping is added at checkout. For many common generics, this results in prices that are dramatically lower than what you’d pay at a retail pharmacy, sometimes by 80% or more. The transparency itself is unusual in an industry where pricing has historically been opaque.
The company also carries some brand-name medications, though these are limited to drugs that have lost patent protection and already face generic competition. NPR reported that Yaz birth control pills and Climara hormone patches, for example, were added at a fraction of their typical list prices. In most cases, the generic version on the same site is even cheaper than the discounted brand name.
What They Sell (and Don’t)
Cost Plus Drugs focuses primarily on generic medications. Their catalog covers hundreds of commonly prescribed drugs for conditions like high blood pressure, diabetes, cholesterol, mental health, and infections. However, they don’t carry every medication. If you take a newer brand-name drug that’s still under patent, or a specialty biologic, you won’t find it here. Controlled substances like most opioids and benzodiazepines are also generally not available through the platform.
Before switching, it’s worth searching the site for your specific medication and dosage. The catalog has grown steadily since launch, but gaps remain. The company has also built a manufacturing facility in Dallas, Texas, classified by the FDA as an outsourcing facility. It has produced injectable epinephrine and a suspension called miglustat, signaling an ambition to eventually manufacture some of its own products rather than relying solely on outside suppliers.
The Ordering Process
Cost Plus Drugs operates as a mail-order pharmacy. You create an account on their website, search for your medication, and either have your doctor send a new prescription directly to them or request a transfer from your current pharmacy. Orders are filled at their pharmacy and shipped to your door, typically within several business days.
One important detail: because this is a mail-order service, it doesn’t work well for medications you need the same day. If you’re managing a stable, ongoing prescription and can plan ahead for refills, the model fits naturally. For urgent or time-sensitive needs, a local pharmacy is still the better option.
Customer Service Has Weak Spots
The most consistent criticism of Cost Plus Drugs involves customer support and shipping communication. The company is not accredited by the Better Business Bureau, and the complaints filed there cluster around three areas: delivery issues, service problems, and difficulty reaching a real person for help.
Multiple customers have described sending emails to support and receiving only automated replies that redirect to FAQ pages. Others have reported prescriptions sent by their doctors that never appeared in their accounts, with no proactive communication from the company explaining what happened. Password reset and account access issues have also left some users locked out with no way to get human assistance. Several reviewers describe opening support cases that were closed without resolution.
These complaints don’t suggest the pharmacy is illegitimate, but they do point to a customer service infrastructure that hasn’t fully kept pace with the company’s growth. If you rely on a medication daily and something goes wrong with an order, slow or unresponsive support can create real problems. Having a backup plan, like keeping a small supply from a local pharmacy, is a reasonable precaution when using any mail-order service.
How It Compares to Using Insurance
One of the most common questions people have is whether Cost Plus Drugs is cheaper than using their insurance. The answer depends entirely on your plan. If you have a high-deductible plan and haven’t met your deductible yet, or if your copay for a particular drug is high, Cost Plus will often beat your insurance price by a wide margin. For people without insurance, the savings can be even more dramatic.
If you have strong prescription coverage with low copays, your insurance price may already be comparable or lower for some medications. The simplest approach is to compare: look up your drug on the Cost Plus Drugs website, note the total price including shipping, and compare it to what you currently pay at the pharmacy counter. There’s no membership fee or commitment, so you can use the service for some medications and your regular pharmacy for others.
Some employers and insurance plans have also begun integrating Cost Plus Drugs into their pharmacy networks, which means you may be able to use their prices while still having the order count toward your insurance benefits.
FDA Oversight and Safety
Cost Plus Drugs operates as a licensed pharmacy and is subject to state pharmacy board regulations. Their Dallas manufacturing facility has been inspected by the FDA, which issued a Form 483 (an inspection report noting observations) in September 2024. FDA inspections and 483s are a routine part of pharmaceutical manufacturing oversight. The medications they dispense, whether manufactured in-house or sourced from other suppliers, are the same FDA-approved drugs available at any other pharmacy.
The generic drugs sold through Cost Plus Drugs are required to meet the same bioequivalence standards as their brand-name counterparts. You’re not getting a lower-quality product because you’re paying less. The price difference comes from cutting out intermediaries, not from cutting corners on the medication itself.