Clinician-led weight management in Ontario for $29 a month, our founding price. Your prescription goes to the pharmacy you choose, and you pay the pharmacy's price. Nobody marks up your medication.
The sentence
Because the companies quoting you also own the pharmacy. The markup is the business.
Public prices, verified 20 Sept 2026. Apo-Semaglutide 4 mg pen, Costco Ontario, $88. We re-check monthly and date everything.
The whole trick
We don't own a pharmacy. We don't sell medication. We don't ship it.
We employ Ontario nurse practitioners who assess you, prescribe if it's right for you, and check in every month while your dose comes up. You fill the prescription wherever you want, and your insurance works the normal way, at the counter.
That's it. That's why it's $29.
Where your $29 goes
Most of it pays the nurse practitioner who reviews your file and writes your prescription. The rest keeps the lights on. None of it is a markup on medication, because we don't sell any.
And you are never charged before your nurse practitioner approves you.
Skincare figured this out years ago: name what's in the bottle, charge what it costs, treat people like adults. We're doing it for a prescription.
Start for $29 a monthOr read The Receipt — eight pages, every clinic's price in Ontario itemized, free, no email.
How it works
Sixty seconds, anonymous. We tell you honestly if you're not a candidate.
A structured medical questionnaire, then a direct exchange with your NP in your patient account before anything is prescribed. Most patients never need a call. You’re charged $29 only if your nurse practitioner approves you and writes a prescription. If she declines, you pay nothing.
Your nurse practitioner reads your intake and decides. If treatment is right for you, your prescription is faxed to the pharmacy you chose — Costco, not a courier on Thursday. Only then are you billed.
While your dose comes up, your NP checks in each month, adjusts your dose and writes the next prescription. Message anytime in between.
By dose
Incumbent pricing rises with the dose because the medication is where their margin lives. Ours doesn't, because our $29 is the same at 0.25 mg and at 2 mg.
Every Ontario pharmacy and every clinic, side by side and dated: the price page, updated the first of every month.
| Weekly dose | Costco price | + Basal | Felix |
|---|---|---|---|
| 0.25–1.0 mg (1 pen / month) | $88 | $117 | $149 |
| 1.25–1.5 mg (2 pens / month) | $176 | $205 | $286 |
| 2.0 mg (2 pens / month) | $176 | $205 | $298 |
Apo-Semaglutide, Costco Ontario, $88 per pen (2 mg and 4 mg pens, same price), verified 20 Sept 2026. Felix pricing from felixforyou.ca, same date. Other pharmacies: Walmart ~$95–110, Shoppers/Rexall ~$100–120, PocketPills delivery ~$20–40 below chain prices.
This price comparison is published by Basal, the company. It is not an advertisement by, or a statement of, any nurse practitioner.
Your clinician
You are assigned one nurse practitioner, registered with the College of Nurses of Ontario. A named person who reads your file and writes your prescription, and who you message directly — not a queue.
Basal is open and our Clinical Lead is in place. You are given her name and her College of Nurses of Ontario registration number before anything is prescribed — they appear on the prescription itself, as the College requires. If your nurse practitioner ever changes, we tell you, by name, before your next review.
An Ontario NP reading this? The role, the pay and the terms are public.
Why we exist
We think the future of this kind of care is boring, honest and cheap.
Weight-management medication finally got cheap. Generic semaglutide is $88 a month at Costco. The only thing standing between most people and a fair price is a company that would rather you didn't know that.
So we built the version with nothing to hide. A nurse practitioner, a prescription, a receipt.
Eligibility check
This is a pre-screen, not a medical assessment. A licensed Ontario nurse practitioner reviews every application and makes the final decision.
Which province are you in?
We can only treat people physically located in Ontario right now.
Questions
Basal is an Ontario-only telehealth clinic providing asynchronous GLP-1 weight management for $29 a month, never charged before a nurse practitioner has approved the patient. Basal does not sell or ship medication: prescriptions go to the pharmacy the patient chooses, and the patient pays that pharmacy's own price.
Yes. Basal opened to patients in Ontario in November 2026 and is accepting new patients now. The founding price of $29 a month is held for the first 100 patients. Eligibility is checked by a nurse practitioner, and you are charged $29 only if your nurse practitioner approves you and writes a prescription — if she declines, you pay nothing.
The founding price of $29 a month is for Basal's first patients, and it stays at $29 for as long as they remain patients. After the founding group it becomes $45 a month. At either price the fee does not change with your dose, because Basal does not sell the medication and takes no markup on it — you buy it at the pharmacy you choose and pay that pharmacy's price.
All three contain the same drug, semaglutide. Ozempic is the brand approved in Canada for type 2 diabetes. Wegovy is the brand approved for chronic weight management. Generic semaglutide, sold as Apo-Semaglutide, is the same molecule as Ozempic at a far lower cash price. The indication differs, not the drug.
Generic semaglutide was $88 a month at Costco for doses up to 1 mg when we last checked Ontario pharmacy counters on 22 September 2026. Chain pharmacies quoted $100 to $120. Brand Ozempic runs roughly $240 to $310 per pen. Every check and its date is published at basalclinic.ca/verification.
Yes. You do not need a family doctor to be prescribed semaglutide in Ontario. A nurse practitioner can assess and prescribe independently, and Basal is built for exactly this case — you complete a questionnaire online and an Ontario nurse practitioner reviews it. No referral and no family doctor are required.
Yes. Nurse practitioners in Ontario hold independent prescribing authority and do not need a physician to co-sign. Every Basal prescription is written by a nurse practitioner registered with the College of Nurses of Ontario, and carries their name, title and registration number as the College's prescribing standard requires.
No. Ontario pharmacists can prescribe for a defined list of minor ailments, and weight management is not on that list. A pharmacist can dispense semaglutide and advise on it, but the prescription itself has to come from a physician or a nurse practitioner.
No. OHIP does not cover prescription medication taken at home. The Ontario Drug Benefit programme covers semaglutide only for type 2 diabetes, and only for people it already serves — those 65 and over, long-term care residents, and people on Ontario Works or ODSP. Weight management is not a covered indication.
That depends on the product, not the clinic. Plans generally do not reimburse diabetes-indicated semaglutide used for weight loss. Products carrying a Health Canada weight-management indication — Wegovy, Sevmia and Zepbound — are the ones a plan can consider. Coverage is set by your employer's contract with the insurer, not by the insurer alone.
Because Basal does not sell the medication. You buy it at your own pharmacy at that pharmacy's price, and Basal charges $29 a month for the nurse practitioner's care. Clinics quoting one all-in number bundle the pen together with the consultation, which is what makes the markup invisible.
Usually not, but your nurse practitioner may require one. Basal is asynchronous: you complete a structured medical questionnaire and a nurse practitioner reviews it. Before anything is prescribed, she contacts you directly through your patient account to ask about anything your answers raise and to go through the medication with you. For most patients that exchange is all it takes. She may require a short telephone or video call at her own discretion, at no extra charge — that is her clinical judgement and nobody at Basal can overrule it or ask her to skip it. If she judges that a physical examination or an in-person test is needed, she will tell you to be seen in person.
Not necessarily. No Canadian clinical guideline requires routine bloodwork before prescribing semaglutide for weight management. Your nurse practitioner orders tests when your history gives a reason to, and can order them directly. Requiring bloodwork from every patient adds cost and delay without evidence behind it.
Any licensed Ontario pharmacy. Basal faxes the prescription to whichever pharmacy you name — Costco, which does not require a membership to use the pharmacy counter, a chain such as Shoppers or Rexall, an independent, or a mail-order pharmacy like PocketPills. You are never restricted to a pharmacy we have a relationship with.
An assessment by an Ontario nurse practitioner, a prescription where it is clinically appropriate, and a review every month while your dose comes up — she checks how you are doing, adjusts the dose and writes the next prescription. You can message her directly between reviews. Bloodwork is ordered when your history calls for it. You are never charged before your nurse practitioner approves you, and the $29 does not change with your dose.
Email [email protected] or send a secure message in your patient account and say you want to stop. There is no notice period and no cancellation fee. You pay only for care you have already received. If you stop before your nurse practitioner has approved you, you are not charged at all.
Anyone under 18 or over 75, anyone pregnant, breastfeeding or planning pregnancy within two months, and anyone with a personal or family history of medullary thyroid cancer or MEN2. Pancreatitis, type 1 diabetes or an active eating disorder also rule out online care. If another clinician already prescribes you a GLP-1, that is not an automatic no: your nurse practitioner decides case by case, and will need to know the product, the dose, and that you have stopped with the other prescriber.
Pharmacy prices last verified 22 September 2026. We publish the date because a price without one is a guess. See every check we have run, with its date.