Montelukast is the generic version of Singulair, a once-daily tablet prescribed for asthma, exercise-induced bronchoconstriction and allergic rhinitis. It is one of the cheapest prescriptions in respiratory care, and it is also one of the clearest examples of how far apart a brand price and a generic price can drift on the exact same molecule.
Almost nobody should be paying a large number for this drug. The point of this guide is to show you what the real cash prices look like in September 2026, where the last few dollars of savings hide, and what the FDA warning on montelukast means for you as a consumer, which is a question that comes up constantly and has nothing to do with price.
What Does Montelukast Cost Without Insurance?
The 10 mg tablet is the adult strength and the one most people are prescribed. CMS figures below are National Average Drug Acquisition Cost, the price pharmacies pay to buy the product, from the file effective August 19, 2026.
| Option | Low | Average / typical | High |
|---|---|---|---|
| Generic montelukast 10 mg, 30 tablets, retail cash | $5.71 | not published | $11.50 |
| Generic montelukast 10 mg, 90 tablets, with a discount card | $9.44 | $9.44 | $9.44 |
| Generic montelukast 10 mg, 90 tablets, retail cash | $8.25 | not published | $389.68 |
| Brand Singulair 10 mg, 30 tablets | $290.57 | $290.57 | $290.57 |
| Brand Singulair 10 mg, 90 tablets | $855.92 | not published | $1,125.49 |
| CMS acquisition cost, generic, 30 tablets | $1.25 | $1.25 | $1.25 |
| CMS acquisition cost, brand, 30 tablets | $276.37 | $276.37 | $276.37 |
Three sources put the generic in the same neighborhood. The Drugs.com price guide lists 30 tablets of montelukast 10 mg from $5.81 to $11.50, and 90 tablets from $8.25 to $18.90. Cost Plus Drugs sells 30 tablets for $5.71 before shipping. SingleCare’s montelukast page, with prices updated September 2, 2026, brings 90 tablets to $9.44 with its free card.
Where the sources diverge is on retail. SingleCare’s stated average retail price for 90 tablets of generic montelukast is $389.68, which sits absurdly far above the $8.25 to $18.90 that Drugs.com publishes for the same 90 tablets. Both figures are real. Pharmacies do post triple-digit cash prices on cheap generics for customers who ask for no card and no comparison. That is precisely the gap a discount card or a direct-order pharmacy closes.
The brand price is the outlier, not the generic
CMS acquisition data effective August 19, 2026 prices generic montelukast 10 mg at $0.04154 per tablet and brand Singulair 10 mg at $9.21241 per tablet. That is roughly a 220-fold difference in what the pharmacy pays before any markup. At retail, Drugs.com lists Singulair at $290.57 for 30 tablets against a generic starting at $5.81, and SingleCare’s Singulair page puts the brand at $1,125.49 for 90 tablets while offering the generic at $9.44 for the same count.
There is no clinical-cost argument to make here and we are not making one. As a purely financial matter, if a pharmacy hands you a bill in the hundreds for this prescription, the near-certain explanation is that it was filled as brand.
What Drives the Price
Brand versus generic, and nothing else comes close. The spread is roughly $285 per month on a 30-day supply. Every other factor on this list is worth single-digit or low double-digit dollars.
How many manufacturers make it. FDA records list 52 applications for montelukast sodium products, 49 of them abbreviated applications, which is what a mature generic market looks like. Compare that to a drug like tiotropium, where a single approved generic keeps the price within pennies of the brand. Competition, not the label, is what makes montelukast cheap.
Strength and formulation. The 10 mg tablet is by far the cheapest form. The Drugs.com guide prices 4 mg oral granules, the pediatric packet form, at $45.51 for 30, and 4 mg chewable tablets at $13.49 for 30. If a prescription is written for granules, ask whether a chewable is an option, since that is a price question your prescriber can answer.
Quantity per fill. Drugs.com’s per-tablet price falls from a range of $0.19 to $0.38 at 30 tablets down to $0.09 to $0.21 at 90. On a maintenance drug, filling 90 days at a time is usually the cheapest per day.
Whether you shop at all. The distance between the cheapest and priciest published figures for a 90-day generic supply is roughly $8 to $390. That is not a regional variation, it is a shopping variation.
Cash Price vs. Insurance
This is one of the drugs where insurance can genuinely cost you more than cash. A plan with a $15 or $20 generic copay is more expensive than a $9.44 card price for 90 tablets or a $5.71 Cost Plus order for 30. If you have a high-deductible plan, paying cash almost always wins, though cash spending will not count toward your deductible.
Cost Plus Drugs is unusually transparent about how a cash price is built, and the montelukast page shows the whole stack: $0.62 to manufacture 30 tablets, $0.09 as the company’s 15 percent markup, $5.00 in pharmacy labor and $5.25 in standard shipping added at checkout. That works out to about $10.96 delivered. It is a useful benchmark even if you fill elsewhere, because it tells you what the real floor is.
If any quote you get for this prescription is more than about $20 for a month of the generic, our fair price checker will confirm what you already suspect.
About the FDA boxed warning
This comes up on every montelukast search, so here is the consumer version. FDA issued a Drug Safety Communication on March 4, 2020 requiring a Boxed Warning, the agency’s most prominent warning, on montelukast prescribing information regarding serious behavior and mood-related side effects, and requiring a new patient Medication Guide. In the same communication, FDA advised that for allergic rhinitis the medicine be reserved for patients who are not treated effectively by, or cannot tolerate, other allergy medicines.
We include this because it explains something you may notice at the pharmacy: the Medication Guide handed to you with the fill, and why a prescriber may steer toward an over-the-counter antihistamine or steroid nasal spray for hay fever instead. It is not medical advice and we are not suggesting you change anything. Questions about whether this drug is right for you belong with your clinician.
How to Pay Less
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Confirm the prescription is being filled as generic. This is worth roughly $285 a month by itself. If the label says Singulair and the price has three digits, ask the pharmacist to re-run it as montelukast.
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Run a discount card, then check a direct-order pharmacy. SingleCare published $9.44 for 90 tablets on September 2, 2026, and Cost Plus Drugs lists $5.71 for 30 tablets plus $5.25 shipping. Which wins depends on your quantity and location, so check both. Our comparison of GoodRx vs. SingleCare covers how to price the same NDC on both cards quickly.
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Ask for a 90-day fill. The per-tablet price on the Drugs.com guide drops by roughly half between a 30-count and a 90-count fill, and you cut the number of pharmacy trips and dispensing fees by two thirds.
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Do not pay a triple-digit cash price out of inertia. SingleCare’s own average retail figure for 90 generic tablets is $389.68, which is what happens when nobody asks. Ask.
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Price the rest of the asthma shelf the same way. Montelukast is usually one line on a larger respiratory bill. Our guides to inhaler costs, albuterol inhalers without insurance, Symbicort and Advair cover the maintenance and rescue side, and for severe asthma the biologics in our Nucala, Tezspire and Dupixent guides are where the real money sits.
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Get the visits priced, not just the pills. A free or sliding-scale clinic can handle the appointments that generate and renew this prescription, and if a specialist or hospital bill has already arrived, our medical bill negotiation guide covers what to say before you pay it.
Bottom Line
Budget about $6 to $12 for a 30-day supply of generic montelukast 10 mg in September 2026, or roughly $9 to $19 for 90 days if you use a discount card or a direct-order pharmacy. CMS data says the pharmacy itself buys those 30 tablets for about $1.25, so almost everything above that is dispensing cost and markup.
Brand Singulair at $290.57 for 30 tablets is the only way to turn this into an expensive prescription, and with 49 generic applications on file at FDA there is no reason to end up there by accident. Check the label, run a card, and move on to the parts of your respiratory bill that actually cost money.