Losartan is the most prescribed drug in its class and, like most blood pressure generics, it costs almost nothing to make. A tablet runs a pharmacy between two and four and a half cents at wholesale. Everything above that is dispensing fee, labor, and markup.
Two things make this page worth more than a single price, though. The first is that the brand version is still on the market at 15 to 25 times the generic price. The second is that losartan carries a reputation problem from the nitrosamine recalls that began in 2018, and a lot of what circulates online about it is years out of date. Every figure and every supply status below was checked on September 3, 2026.
What Does Losartan Cost Without Insurance?
Acquisition costs come from the CMS National Average Drug Acquisition Cost survey, all rows effective August 19, 2026. Cash prices come from Drugs.com, Cost Plus Drugs, and Walmart’s published program list, all read September 3, 2026.
| Option | Low | Average | High |
|---|---|---|---|
| CMS NADAC acquisition cost, one generic losartan tablet | $0.02206 (25 mg) | $0.03244 (50 mg) | $0.04396 (100 mg) |
| Cost Plus Drugs, 30 tablets (plus $5.25 shipping) | $5.52 (50 mg) | $5.66 | $5.79 (100 mg) |
| Drugs.com cash price, 30 tablets | $7.75 (25 mg) | $7.98 (50 mg) | $11.90 (25 mg high) |
| Walmart Prescription Program, 30-day supply | $9.00 | $9.00 | $9.00 |
| Drugs.com cash price, 90 tablets | $14.76 (25 mg) | $15.23 (50 mg) | $20.25 (25 mg high) |
| Drugs.com, 30 losartan-HCTZ combination tablets | $8.17 (50/12.5) | $8.63 (100/12.5) | $13.59 (100/12.5 high) |
| Walmart Prescription Program, losartan-HCTZ 50/12.5 mg, 30 days | $4.00 | $4.00 | $4.00 |
| CMS NADAC acquisition cost, brand Cozaar, 30 days | $100.50 (25 mg) | $134.83 (50 mg) | $184.32 (100 mg) |
| Drugs.com brand Cozaar, 30 tablets | $145.69 (50 mg) | $170.77 | $195.84 (100 mg) |
The arithmetic on the acquisition rows is simple and worth doing yourself. A 50 mg losartan tablet costs a pharmacy $0.03244, so a once-daily 30-day supply is about 97 cents of actual drug and a 90-day supply is about $2.92. At 100 mg it is $1.32 a month, at 25 mg 66 cents. The combination tablets run $1.72 to $2.35 a month at the same wholesale level.
The sources broadly agree on the generic, which is what a commodity looks like. Where they disagree is on what an unhelped retail price is: Cost Plus publishes a $33.00 retail comparison for 30 of the 50 mg and $40.20 for 30 of the 100 mg, well above every discounted route on the table. The honest cross-source range for a cash fill is roughly $5.50 to $12 if you use any discount route at all, and up to about $40 if you use none.
What Drives the Price
Brand versus generic. In the August 2026 CMS data, a Cozaar 50 mg tablet costs a pharmacy $4.49425 and a generic losartan 50 mg tablet costs $0.03244. Same molecule, same strength, about 139 times the money. Drugs.com shows the same gap at the counter, at $145.69 versus $7.98 for 30 tablets.
Which pill your prescription is written for. This is the counterintuitive one. On Walmart’s published program list, the losartan-hydrochlorothiazide 50/12.5 mg combination tablet costs $4 for 30 days while plain losartan costs $9. One pill containing two drugs is cheaper than one pill containing one drug, purely because of the tier the retailer assigned. The same inversion applies to the lisinopril combination, which our lisinopril cost guide covers alongside the price of plain hydrochlorothiazide.
Dispensing and labor, not the drug. Cost Plus charges $5.52 for 30 of the 50 mg tablets, of which $0.45 is manufacturing cost and $5.00 is pharmacy labor, plus $5.25 of standard shipping per order. Roughly 92% of that order is not medicine.
Strength. Generic pricing rises with dose but stays trivial in absolute terms. The 100 mg tablet costs twice what the 25 mg costs at wholesale, which is the difference between 66 cents and $1.32 a month.
Quantity and days supply. Fixed costs dominate. Drugs.com prices 90 losartan 50 mg tablets from $15.23 against $7.98 for 30, so tripling the quantity costs about 91% more rather than 200% more. Walmart’s 90-day program price is $24 rather than three times $9.
The Nitrosamine Recalls, and Where Things Stand Now
Beginning in summer 2018, FDA reported that some generic angiotensin II receptor blockers, valsartan first and later losartan and irbesartan, contained nitrosamine impurities above the agency’s safety limits. FDA describes NDMA and NDEA as probable human carcinogens and NMBA as a potential human carcinogen, and says the impurities were most likely generated by specific chemicals and reaction conditions in the manufacturing of the active ingredient, and sometimes by the reuse of solvents.
Three details from FDA’s own recall page matter to anyone pricing this drug today. Not all losartan products were recalled, and not all lots from a manufacturer involved in a recall were affected. Medicines containing only hydrochlorothiazide were never part of it, though some combination products pairing hydrochlorothiazide with valsartan or losartan were. And to find out whether a specific bottle was affected, you need the labeler name and the National Drug Code, which is why FDA maintains a searchable recalled-lot list rather than a simple yes or no answer by drug name.
On supply, the picture as of September 3, 2026 is unremarkable. FDA’s drug shortage database listed 188 active shortage entries when we read it that day, and no losartan product was among them. Neither was lisinopril nor plain hydrochlorothiazide. That is worth saying plainly because shortage rumors are one of the most common reasons people pay more than they need to, and because supply status can change between the day this was written and the day you read it. Check the database directly before acting on it.
Cash Price vs. Insurance
Losartan is a clean case where paying cash often beats running the prescription through a plan. If your copay is $10 or $15, a $5.52 mail order or a $4 combination fill at a big-box pharmacy wins outright, and you skip the pharmacy benefit entirely.
The usual tradeoff applies. Money spent outside your plan does not count toward your deductible or out-of-pocket maximum, and a discount card cannot be stacked with insurance on the same fill. On a drug this cheap, that lost deductible credit is rarely worth chasing. On the expensive end of the same cabinet the math reverses, which is why our Entresto cost guide and Eliquis cost guide treat the deductible question very differently.
Brand Cozaar is the only place a cash payer can really get hurt here. At $145.69 to $195.84 for 30 tablets it costs about 20 times the generic, for a molecule that has been off patent for well over a decade. If a pharmacy quotes you a three-figure price for generic losartan, run it through our fair price checker before you pay.
How to Pay Less
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Price a transparent mail pharmacy first. Cost Plus Drugs lists $5.52 for 30 of the 50 mg and $5.79 for 30 of the 100 mg, plus $5.25 shipping per order. Ordering 90 at a time spreads that shipping charge across three months and is usually the cheapest total on this page.
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Ask about the combination tablet if you also take a diuretic. On Walmart’s program list, losartan-hydrochlorothiazide 50/12.5 mg is $4 for 30 days and $10 for 90 days, against $9 and $24 for plain losartan. If your prescriber has you on both drugs anyway, the single combination pill is the cheaper prescription.
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Run a free discount card if you fill locally. Card prices on cheap generics move between pharmacies and between visits, so check more than one and check on the day you fill. Our comparison of GoodRx vs. SingleCare explains how to run both against the same prescription.
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Verify the program list rather than assuming. Walmart’s Prescription Program has a $4 tier and a $9 tier, and plain losartan is in the more expensive one. Ask the pharmacy to check your exact strength against the current list before you transfer anything.
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Ask for a 90-day prescription. Every route here charges its fixed costs per fill, so a 90-day script cuts the per-month price on all of them.
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Budget for the visit and the labs, not the pills. The prescription is the cheap part of managing blood pressure. A free or sliding-scale clinic can handle checkups and refills at little or no cost, and our blood work cost guide covers what the kidney and potassium panels run as a cash payer. If a clinic or hospital bills you more than you expected, our guide to negotiating medical bills covers what to do next.
Bottom Line
Budget $6 to $12 a month for generic losartan without insurance, and treat anything above about $15 as a signal to shop rather than a fact about the drug. The combination tablet with hydrochlorothiazide can be cheaper still if your prescriber writes for it, at $4 for 30 days on Walmart’s program list.
Brand Cozaar at $145.69 to $195.84 for 30 tablets is the one expensive way to take this medicine, and there is no cash-payer route that closes that gap. As for the recalls: they are a 2018 to 2022 story, FDA’s own page is the place to check a specific lot, and nothing about losartan was in FDA’s shortage database in September 2026. For the drug most people take before or instead of this one, see our lisinopril cost guide, and for the rest of a typical cardiac cabinet, our cost guides for amlodipine and metoprolol. If you also take a cheap generic for cholesterol or diabetes, our atorvastatin cost guide and metformin cost guide tell a nearly identical pricing story.