[dhruvp]

For those wondering, here’s how GoodRx works and makes money:

1. GoodRx obtains prices of drugs at all pharmacies through contracts it has with PBMs (middleman that determines insurance payouts to pharmacies).

2. Pharmacies have wildly different prices from one another - going to one pharmacy over another can save you and your insurance a lot of money.

3. When you use a GoodRx coupon, the insurance company pays GoodRx a small amount as they had to spend less on their patient thanks to the coupon (i.e they didn’t use a super expensive pharmacy).

4. The pharmacy pays GoodRx a referral fee (kind of like a restaurant pays yelp a referral fee when you use a yelp coupon).

Over the last 5 years, insurance companies are increasingly pushing high deductible plans on to employers. As a result, patients are way more price sensitive than they used to be. If you had no deductible, you probably wouldn’t care too much about drug price differences because the copays wouldn’t be that different. However, due to these new plans you care a lot more and hence services like GoodRx and Blink become a lot more important.

[appleflaxen]

but it works even if you have no insurance. plus it doesn't know what insurance you have. isn't that incompatible with what you are describing?