Drugs.com Medication Guide

Drugs.com Review: 24,000 Drugs in Your Pocket, Funded by Ads and Tracking

Free tier vs. Plus Plan: what the ads pay for, and the 2026 price jump

Looking up a drug, running the Interactions Checker, identifying a pill and comparing medications cost nothing. Saving a medication list needs a free Drugs.com account, and registration asks for your name, age and email plus a username that is shown publicly on the website. Advertising funds the free tier: Google Play shows the Contains ads label, the App Store age rating lists Advertising, and premium consumer display ads on the site are managed by Healthline Networks. The Plus Plan removes ads and is sold through the Drugs.com account; neither store lists in-app purchases. Since early 2026, Play reviews from long-time subscribers report renewals rising from about $5 a year to about $70, and the developer's replies acknowledge the price change and offer to restore older plans through support. Check current plan terms with the publisher before paying.

Interactions Checker: four severity grades, a 60-drug list, Multum data

The checker accepts prescription drugs, OTC products, supplements and vaccines, and the in-app screen also covers interactions with alcohol, food and medical conditions. Every result carries one of four grades: Major, Moderate, Minor or Unknown, the last meaning the data are limited. One list holds up to 60 drugs and can be saved under a name. Interaction data come from Cerner Multum, updated monthly according to the publisher, while Micromedex and PDR content is refreshed quarterly. My Med List keeps a separate profile, with its own age and sex, for each family member, so pregnancy and lactation warnings match the person. One October 2025 review describes a weak spot: unticking the disease filter still left pages of alcohol warnings for a user who does not drink. Drugs.com states that it does not provide medical advice, diagnosis or treatment.

Location, Meta Pixel and 10,820 deletion requests: what the disclosures say

Apple's privacy label lists contact info, user content, identifiers and usage data as data that may be used to track you; health data is linked to your identity for analytics, personalization and app functions, not for tracking. Google Play's Data safety form says user IDs and precise location may be shared with other companies, including for advertising; health info is optional, data is encrypted in transit and deletion can be requested. The privacy policy, updated August 21, 2026, names Google Analytics and the Meta Pixel and says the company does not support Do Not Track. In the year to August 2026, the website logged 10,820 deletion and 10,620 opt-out-of-sale requests. Several Play reviews from 2024 to 2026 say accepting new data-sharing terms became a condition for keeping an account. We describe these disclosures; we do not certify how the data is handled.

Medscape, GoodRx or MyTherapy: when another app fits better

Medscape, from WebMD, is also free and has its own interaction checker and pill identifier, but it covers 9,200+ drugs, herbals and supplements and is built for clinicians, with 450+ medical calculators. GoodRx suits a different goal: its free coupons work at more than 70,000 U.S. pharmacies, while the built-in Price Guide shows estimated cash prices with its own discount card, which is not used with insurance. For dose reminders, MyTherapy counts remaining pills and warns before a refill, which the developer here says its app does not do, although MyTherapy also shows ads unless you pay. The app is English-only, a recurring complaint in Spanish-language Play reviews.