Sublocade is not a pharmacy drug, and that single fact explains most of what is confusing about its price. Indivior ships it through a restricted distribution program directly to a certified provider, who buys the vial, administers it and then bills for it. You cannot walk into a drugstore with a discount card and pick it up, which means the usual coupon math does not apply.
What you can do is find out exactly what the drug costs, because three independent sources publish a figure and they agree closely. All prices below were researched on September 3, 2026, and they cover the medication only. The office visit and the administration charge are separate lines on your bill.
What Does Sublocade Cost Without Insurance?
The table covers the drug component only. Medicare figures are the payment limits in the July 2026 Medicare Part B Drug Payment Limit File, which run from July 1 through September 30, 2026. Indivior’s list price is from its own WAC pricing disclosure, accurate as of January 1, 2026. Drugs.com figures were read September 3, 2026.
| Product and fill | Low | Average | High |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sublocade, one monthly injection | $2,068.16 (Medicare Part B limit) | $2,158.85 (Drugs.com cash) | $2,202.03 (Indivior list price) |
| Sublocade, 12 months | $24,817.86 | $25,906.20 | $26,424.36 |
| Brixadi monthly injection | $1,722.31 (Medicare Part B limit) | $1,732.51 (midpoint) | $1,742.70 (Drugs.com cash) |
| Brixadi weekly injection | $430.58 (Medicare Part B limit) | $436.09 (midpoint) | $441.60 (Drugs.com cash) |
| OTP monthly bundle, injectable buprenorphine (G2069) | $2,063.77 (CMS CY2026) | $2,063.77 | $2,063.77 |
| Generic buprenorphine-naloxone 8-2 mg tablets, 30 | $19.14 (NADAC acquisition) | $29.99 (Drugs.com) | $29.99 |
| Generic buprenorphine-naloxone 8-2 mg film, 30 | $62.23 (NADAC acquisition) | $83.76 (Drugs.com) | $83.76 |
The spread across the top row is only about 6 percent, which is unusual and useful. When a manufacturer’s list price, a federal payment limit and a retail cash quote all land within $134 of each other, you have a reliable number to negotiate against.
The last two rows are the comparison almost nobody makes out loud. A month of daily generic buprenorphine-naloxone film costs about $84 at a pharmacy, and pharmacies acquire the tablet form for $19.14 per 30 at the August 19, 2026 federal acquisition price. The injection is roughly 26 times the monthly cost of the film and more than 70 times the acquisition cost of the tablets.
What Drives the Price
It is a medical benefit, not a pharmacy benefit
Sublocade is bought and billed. A certified practice orders the vial, keeps it in inventory, injects it and submits a claim. That is why there is no cash price at your local pharmacy and why the two published consumer numbers (Indivior’s $2,202.03 list and Drugs.com’s $2,158.85) do not behave like ordinary drug prices. If you are uninsured, the price you are quoted depends on what that specific practice paid and what it marks up.
The J-code, and a common billing mix-up
Sublocade bills under Q9991 for doses of 100 mg or less and Q9992 for doses above 100 mg. J0570 is a different product entirely, the 74.2 mg buprenorphine implant, and it is not what you are getting. If a bill or a benefits check cites J0570 for an injection, that is worth asking about.
The pricing quirk here is that Q9991 and Q9992 carry the same July 2026 Medicare payment limit, $2,068.155. Tripling the dose from 100 mg to 300 mg does not change what Medicare pays, and it does not change Indivior’s list price either. That is why the maintenance dose does not cost three times the starting dose.
Whether you go through an opioid treatment program
A Medicare-enrolled opioid treatment program does not bill Q9991 at all. It bills a bundle. CMS’s CY2026 rate for the monthly injectable buprenorphine bundle (G2069) is $2,063.77, split into $1,823.20 of drug and $240.58 covering dispensing, substance use counseling, individual and group therapy, and toxicology testing. That $240.58 is the entire wraparound package for the month, which is far less than those services would cost billed one at a time.
The administration is a separate charge
Neither the list price nor the Part B payment limit includes the visit or the injection itself. Indivior’s own copay program terms state plainly that the benefit is valid for the medication only and not for office visit charges or medication administration charges. Budget for a clinic visit on top of the drug, and see our doctor visit cost guide for what a cash office visit typically runs.
Cash Price vs. Insurance
This is one of the rare drugs where paying cash almost never wins. At $2,068 to $2,202 a month, no discount card closes that gap, and the copay program that exists is closed to you if you are uninsured.
That last point deserves emphasis because it is counterintuitive. The INSUPPORT Copay Assistance Program terms and conditions state that a patient must have private health insurance covering some portion of the cost, and that the program “is not valid for uninsured patients.” Government coverage of any kind also disqualifies you. So the card that brings 95 percent of enrolled commercial patients to $0, per Indivior’s own figure, is not available to the person paying the full list price.
For people who do have coverage, the program is generous. It pays up to $2,202.03 for each of the first two injections in a calendar year, then up to $800 per injection after that, across a maximum of 15 injections and $14,804.06 per calendar year.
Indivior also publishes what its data shows for other coverage types: nearly 90 percent of Medicaid patients pay $0, and Medicare patients pay between $0.02 and $1,607 per dose with an average of $97. If you are uninsured and Medicaid-eligible, enrolling in Medicaid is by far the largest single lever on this bill.
How to Pay Less
Ask about the opioid treatment program bundle. At $2,063.77 a month under CMS’s CY2026 rate, the OTP bundle is priced below the standalone drug and includes counseling, therapy and testing. Programs also commonly run sliding scales. Our guide to rehab costs breaks down how bundled behavioral health pricing works and where the discounts sit.
Price Brixadi as a genuine alternative. Braeburn’s product is the same molecule delivered on a weekly or monthly schedule, and it is cheaper on both. Medicare’s July 2026 payment limits are $1,722.31 for the monthly injection (J0578) and $430.58 for the weekly (J0577), against $2,068.16 for Sublocade. Drugs.com quotes $1,742.70 and $441.60. Choosing between them is a clinical conversation, but the price difference is real and worth raising.
Compare against daily buprenorphine honestly. Generic buprenorphine-naloxone film runs $83.76 for 30 at Drugs.com and the sublingual tablets $29.99, and the tablet form is a fraction of the film’s price for the same molecules. Our Suboxone cost guide covers that form gap in detail.
Call INSUPPORT even if you think you do not qualify. The copay card is closed to uninsured patients, but Indivior runs a broader patient support program at 1-844-467-7778 that handles benefits investigation and coverage transitions, including for people leaving incarceration without coverage.
Use a federally funded clinic. Federally qualified health centers and opioid treatment programs receive block grant money specifically so that ability to pay is not the gate. Our guide to free clinics and sliding-scale care explains how income-based fees are set and what to bring.
Get the bill itemized before you pay it. A Sublocade bill has at least three parts: the drug, the administration and the visit. Ask for the line items and the code on each. Our guide to reading an itemized hospital bill applies directly, and our negotiation script tool gives you the language for asking for the self-pay rate.
The Bottom Line
Sublocade runs $2,068 to $2,202 per monthly injection as of September 2026, or roughly $25,000 to $26,000 a year for the medication alone. The three sources that publish a figure agree within about 6 percent, so there is not much mystery left in the number itself.
The mystery is in the route. The same molecule costs $1,722 to $1,743 a month as monthly Brixadi, $2,063.77 a month inside a Medicare opioid treatment program bundle that also includes counseling and testing, and about $84 a month as a daily generic film. If you are paying cash, the copay card that solves this for insured patients will not help you, so the leverage is in choosing the setting and checking Medicaid eligibility. Our guides to naltrexone, Vivitrol and methadone cover the other medication routes and their prices.