The cheapest pills in GxRadar's 47-drug price basket

In October 2026, retail pharmacies paid an average of 1.02 cents for a generic 5 mg amlodipine tablet, according to the federal government's NADAC survey files³. That made the blood pressure drug the cheapest single unit in GxRadar's 47-drug price basket, ahead of hydrochlorothiazide 25 mg at 1.15 cents and metformin 500 mg at 1.47 cents. A year of one amlodipine tablet a day cost a pharmacy $3.71 at that rate.

Seven of the 47 drugs cost pharmacies less than 2 cents a unit in October 2026. The median drug in the basket cost 3.63 cents. At the other end, a 100 mg nitrofurantoin capsule cost 28.4 cents and a 250 mg azithromycin tablet 26.8 cents.

The bottom of the list has barely changed since 2014. All eight of the cheapest drugs in October 2026 were among the ten cheapest in January 2014. GxRadar ranked every drug in the basket using CMS's National Average Drug Acquisition Cost (NADAC) data to show which generics sit at the floor, how they got there, and why a price of a cent or two says less than it seems to about cost, value or supply.

The ten cheapest units in the basket

Figures are GxRadar's monthly median of weekly NADAC per-unit rates for generic-classified products at the single strength and form we track for each drug. The January 2014 figures come from the 2014 NADAC files¹. Four drugs in the basket (rosuvastatin, valsartan, duloxetine and tadalafil) had no generic NADAC rate in January 2014, so that ranking covers 43. The full list, with monthly histories, is on our price history page.

Atorvastatin is the outlier. It ranked 33rd of 43 in January 2014 at 17.7 cents a tablet and has fallen 84 percent since, as our atorvastatin price history details. The eight drugs above it were already cheap in 2014, and each has lost between 16 and 48 percent since. Our drug pages carry each series in full.

A floor that moved, slowly

The floor itself has come down. Across the basket, more drugs now sit at the low end than in 2014, and the median unit cost is less than half what it was.

Among the 43 drugs with figures for both months, the median fell from 7.65 cents to 3.48 cents, a drop of about 55 percent; the median drug's own decline was 43 percent. The GxRadar generic price index, which follows those same 43 drugs, stood at 47.4 in October 2026 against a January 2014 base of 100; our piece on the long deflation of generic prices traces how it got there.

Not every drug that started at the floor stayed there. Furosemide 40 mg was the cheapest unit in January 2014 at 1.03 cents. In October 2026 it ranked 11th at 2.89 cents, nearly three times its 2014 cost. Trazodone 50 mg slipped from sixth to 15th. Both appear in our list of generics that got more expensive.

A correction for famotidine

Our ranking uses a different famotidine figure from the one GxRadar has published before. CMS calculates separate NADAC rates for prescription and over-the-counter versions of the same product. Its methodology⁴ says "NADAC rates for legend drugs are calculated only from costs for legend drug NDCs." Since October 2020, the NADAC files² have carried over-the-counter famotidine 20 mg tablets under the same product description as prescription ones, at about 14 cents a tablet in October 2026. An average of both groups overstates what pharmacies pay for the prescription tablet. The figure in our table, 2.85 cents, uses only rows CMS flags as prescription products.

What a low unit price does not tell you

It does not compare treatments. Each drug in the basket is priced at one strength, per tablet or capsule. Prescriptions vary in strength and in how many units are taken a day, and the prescriber decides that. A 1-cent amlodipine tablet and a 1.5-cent metformin tablet are not interchangeable, and their ranking says nothing about which is a better value for anyone.

It is also not what anyone pays at the counter. For drugs this cheap, almost everything in the price of a prescription sits on top of the ingredient. CMS's Medicare Part D Spending by Drug⁶ data show average gross spending per claim many times the NADAC cost of 30 units.

CMS says in its methodology⁷ that this spending includes ingredient cost, dispensing fees and sales tax, counts plan and patient payments together, and does not reflect rebates. A claim can cover more or fewer than 30 units, so the columns are a rough comparison. Most state Medicaid programs add a professional dispensing fee to the ingredient cost; in CMS's table for the quarter ending September 2026⁸, that fee was $10.64 in Alabama, $10.92 in New Jersey and $10.18 in New York. Our explainers on how pharmacies get paid and what a month of common generics costs work through the numbers.

And a low price is no guarantee of steady supply. FDA's 2019 shortage task force named a "Lack of Incentives to Produce Less Profitable Drugs" as the first of three root causes of shortages, writing in its report⁹ that "Manufacturers of older generic drugs, in particular, face intense price competition, uncertain revenue streams, and high investment requirements, all of which limit potential returns." None of the ten tablets in our table was on FDA's shortage list as of October 30, 2026, when the list held 69 current shortages and 161 products marked to be discontinued, according to the openFDA drug shortages data¹⁰ behind our shortage tracker. Related products were. Quinapril with hydrochlorothiazide tablets have been listed as a current shortage since January 19, 2023, and hydrochlorothiazide capsules carry a "To Be Discontinued" entry posted November 19, 2025. Our explainer on why drug shortages happen covers the economics.

NADAC has its own limits. The survey covers chain and independent retail pharmacies, leaves out discounts not shown on the invoice, and asks pharmacies to exclude purchases made under the 340B program, according to the CMS methodology. For drugs priced at a cent or two, a small absolute change shows up as a large percentage, which is why we report cents alongside percentages. CMS posts its next monthly NADAC file on Monday, November 16, 2026, the first Monday on or after the 15th, according to the NADAC page on Medicaid.gov⁵.