Amazon RxPass: How the $5/month prescription program actually works

As someone who already gets prescriptions through Amazon Pharmacy, I thought I had the whole online pharmacy thing figured out. Then I heard about their RxPass program. For only $5 a month with a Prime membership, Amazon says you can get unlimited refills at no additional cost on over 50 generic medications with no delivery charge, copays, or insurance required.

My state, Minnesota, recently became eligible, so of course I need to find out if this is the best place to get prescriptions online, or if I should consider switching to GoodRx, Cost Plus Drugs, Costco, or some other place.

Let’s walk through the fine print and savings together.

What is Amazon’s RxPass and who is it for?

RxPass is a $5-per-month add-on subscription for Amazon Prime members that covers unlimited refills on more than 50 commonly prescribed generic medications. And the part I didn’t understand at first: those refills are $0! (100% included in the cost of your $5 membership fee.)

Amazon Pharmacy fills and ships the prescriptions directly to your door with free two-day delivery (and same-day delivery in eligible locations), so there's no pharmacy counter involved at all.

Since launching in January 2023, Amazon has continually expanded the scope of RxPass. It’s currently available in 48 states, with only Washington and California excluded due to local regulations governing prescription delivery. But with laws changing in Minnesota, those states may become eligible in the future.

Another recent change was enrollment being opened up to Medicare beneficiaries—a major step forward from its initial debut, which blocked any government-funded insurance. That said, individuals covered by CHIP or Medicaid remain ineligible.

What does RxPass cost?

$5 per month, billed at the start of each cycle. That's it. Whether you order one prescription or six, the fee doesn't change.

But you also must be an Amazon Prime member, which runs $14.99 per month (or $139 per year). If you're already a member, RxPass is purely an incremental $5. If you'd be signing up for Prime specifically to access RxPass, you're looking at roughly $20 per month total, which changes the math considerably.

Unfortunately, coverage is also limited to one person per Amazon account, which isn’t ideal for families with multiple members on medication. Another downside is that the $5 monthly fee cannot be charged to an FSA or HSA card.

You can cancel RxPass at any time through your Amazon Pharmacy account settings, and canceling doesn't affect your Prime membership or your ability to use Amazon Pharmacy.

What does RxPass cover (and what does it not)

RxPass covers more than 50 generic medications across a wide range of common conditions. You can view them on Amazon by category or name, and the breadth is solid for a program this inexpensive.

• High blood pressure & heart health: lisinopril, losartan, amlodipine, ramipril, furosemide, doxazosin, sotalol
• High cholesterol: atorvastatin, rosuvastatin, simvastatin
• Mental health: sertraline, escitalopram, bupropion, venlafaxine, doxepin, quetiapine, risperidone
• Diabetes: glipizide, glyburide
• Acid reflux & digestion: omeprazole, ondansetron
• Allergies: fluticasone nasal spray, azelastine, cyproheptadine, mometasone
• Infections: amoxicillin, cephalexin, doxycycline, nystatin
• Pain & inflammation: naproxen, piroxicam, cyclobenzaprine, tizanidine
• Migraines: rizatriptan
• Other: finasteride and dutasteride (hair loss/prostate), estradiol (hormone therapy), lamotrigine (seizures), tamoxifen (breast cancer), donepezil (dementia), sildenafil, biotin, folic acid, vitamin B12

When you browse Amazon Pharmacy, eligible medications display an "Included with RxPass" badge, so you don't have to cross-reference a separate list.

The gaps are worth paying attention to, though, because RxPass only covers generics—no brand-name drugs, no controlled substances (that rules out opioids and benzodiazepines), and no insulin.

Amazon says the medication list may grow over time, but as it stands, if your most important prescription isn’t on it, RxPass alone won’t solve the problem.

How to sign up for RxPass

Enrollment runs through both the Amazon website and the mobile app. I started the process myself to see what it looks like—here's the flow:

1. Sign into your Prime account. Head to pharmacy.amazon.com/rxpass or open the Amazon app and navigate to Amazon Pharmacy. You'll find an RxPass banner or a "Get started" button—either takes you to the same enrollment flow.
2. Set up or update your Amazon Pharmacy profile. If you don't already have an Amazon Pharmacy account, you'll create one during this step. This includes entering your shipping address and basic health information.
3. Confirm your eligibility. Amazon walks you through a short set of questions to verify that you qualify—primarily confirming your state of residence and that you're not enrolled in Medicaid or CHIP.
4. Choose your payment method. Select or add a payment method for the $5 monthly fee. (Remember, HSA and FSA cards won't work here.)
5. Add your prescriptions. Once enrolled, you can search for your medications in Amazon Pharmacy. Anything eligible for RxPass will display the "Included with RxPass" badge. You can transfer existing prescriptions from another pharmacy by providing your medication name and current pharmacy details, or your healthcare provider can prescribe directly to Amazon Pharmacy.
6. Set up auto-refill (optional). RxPass works with Amazon Pharmacy's auto-refill feature, which automatically processes your prescriptions when they're due so you don't have to remember to reorder.

RxPass vs. the other online pharmacies

Now that we’ve taken a closer look at how Amazon’s online discount pharmacy works, let’s compare it to the others. My overall assessment is that none of these programs win across the board. It really depends on what you take, how many prescriptions you need and which ones, and whether you have family members who also need fills, etc.

Where RxPass wins

Three eligible generics at a retail pharmacy without insurance can run $30 to $60 per month. Even with a GoodRx coupon bringing each fill down to the $4 to $8 range, three of them still add up to $12 to $24, and you’re presenting the coupon at a physical pharmacy counter each time. With RxPass, that same stack of prescriptions is completely covered under the $5 monthly subscription.

But convenience might matter more than the savings. Your prescriptions ship to your door with free two-day delivery (same-day in a growing number of cities), and auto-refill handles reordering automatically so your medications just show up when they’re due.

Amazon pharmacists are also available 24/7 if you need help transferring a prescription or coordinating with your doctor, which is something a CVS closing at 9 p.m. can’t match.

And for Medicare beneficiaries specifically, Amazon estimates RxPass could save roughly $70 per year on eligible medications. That’s not a staggering number on its own, but for someone on a fixed income managing several daily generics, every bit of savings and friction removed counts.

Where RxPass falls short

50+ generics through RxPass sound like a lot until you realize that GoodRx offers coupons for thousands of medications and that Cost Plus Drugs stocks more than 2,000. If even one of your prescriptions falls outside the RxPass formulary, you’re still keeping a relationship with a local pharmacy.

Plus, two states are still excluded (California and Washington), though standard Amazon Pharmacy works in both even if RxPass doesn’t. And because RxPass is mail-order only, it can’t help when you need something filled today. An antibiotic for a sudden infection still means a trip to the pharmacy down the street.

The bigger Amazon Pharmacy picture

Even if RxPass doesn’t cover everything you take, Amazon Pharmacy has other layers worth knowing about. The pharmacy accepts most insurance plans and automatically applies manufacturer coupons at checkout whenever they beat your insurance copay. I have really good insurance (at least I think I do), but almost every one I order through Amazon still has a lower price with Amazon’s discount program, so I select that price instead. I save $10–$15 per order.

There’s also the Prime prescription savings benefit, which comes included with Prime at no extra cost and offers discounts of up to 80% off generics and 40% off brand-name drugs at more than 60,000 pharmacies nationwide, including CVS and Walgreens. So a medication that falls outside the RxPass list isn’t automatically stuck at full retail.

You can think of RxPass as the first line of defense for low-cost daily generic prescriptions, while Prime savings steps in to cover the rest, all delivered straight to your home.