Sildenafil or Tadalafil: Which Costs Less Over a Month

Sildenafil starts lower. The starting price for sildenafil at EveryDayMeds is £3.59, and tadalafil on demand starts at £7.64.

That answers the question people ask and not the question they mean. Over a month, which costs less depends entirely on how often you need treatment, and there is a crossover point where the answer flips. Below that point sildenafil is the lower total. Above it, the arithmetic changes.

Nobody can tell you where you sit on that line from a web page, because it depends on your own frequency. What this page can do is give you the method to work it out in about two minutes, using your own number rather than an assumed one.

It also does something most pricing pages avoid. Where a figure could not be verified, it is not printed. Where a comparison is not like for like, that is stated rather than smoothed over. A cost comparison built on numbers nobody checked is worth less than no comparison at all.

Key things to know

• Sildenafil starts at £3.59. Tadalafil on demand starts at £7.64. Both are standard prices, not discounted ones
• Starting prices settle very little. Pack sizes differ, so the meaningful figure is cost per tablet, not cost per pack
• The monthly answer depends on frequency. Occasional use and frequent use give opposite answers
• Daily and on demand are not comparable per tablet. One supplies continuous treatment, the other supplies occasions
• There is no subscription at EveryDayMeds, so no subscription pricing to factor in
• Larger packs do not reliably cost less per tablet. Check the arithmetic rather than assuming
• Quantity is a prescriber decision, not a purchasing choice made on price
• Both medicines require arousal to work and neither increases desire on its own
• Treatment suitability depends on an individual clinical assessment, including medical history and any other medicines

Which Is Cheaper?

The Starting Prices at a Glance

Two of those are verified standard prices. The third is not printed here, and the reason is given further down rather than buried.

Every figure on this page is a standard price quoted before any code or offer. That distinction matters more than it sounds, and it is covered in its own section.

Why the Starting Price Answers Less Than It Looks

A starting price tells you the cost of the smallest pack. It does not tell you what treatment costs, which is why a comparison built on entry points alone misleads.

Three things sit between a starting price and your actual spend.

Pack size. A starting price is usually the smallest pack. If two products have different smallest packs, comparing their starting prices compares different quantities of medicine.

Cost per tablet. This is the only figure that lets you compare like with like, and it is not printed on the front of anything. You work it out by dividing.

How often you need it. Two people buying the same product at the same price can spend very different amounts across a year. Frequency is usually the largest single factor, and it is the one nobody else can supply for you.

So the honest answer to which is cheaper is that sildenafil has the lower entry point, and whether it has the lower total depends on the three things above.

Why a Pack Price Comparison Misleads

A pack price comparison compares the wrong thing, because pack sizes are not standardised between products or between strengths.

A pack price is a function of two things you care about differently: the rate and the quantity. Dividing separates them, and only the rate is comparable.

This is also the reason a headline "from" price is a weak basis for choosing. It reflects the smallest pack of a product, which may be a poor rate, an excellent rate, or somewhere in between.

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Working Out Your Monthly Cost

Start From Your Own Frequency

Any cost comparison has to start here, because neither medicine has a fixed monthly cost. Both on demand products are taken when needed rather than daily, so your monthly cost is set by how often you use treatment.

The calculation is short:

1. Estimate occasions per month. Be honest rather than optimistic, and use a typical month rather than a good one
2. Use that as your starting point for estimating your monthly requirement. The prescribed dose and maximum dosing frequency should always follow your prescriber's instructions
3. Find the pack that covers it at the best rate per tablet
4. That pack price is your monthly cost, or divide it across the months it covers

The Shape of the Answer

That table is deliberately not filled with figures. The moment you put your own frequency into the calculation above, you get numbers that apply to you, which is more useful than numbers that apply to an invented average person.

Tadalafil Daily vs Sildenafil as Needed

Why This Comparison Is Not Like for Like

An on demand product supplies a number of occasions. A daily product supplies continuous treatment. Comparing them per tablet compares two different things.

The only fair comparison is total cost over a fixed period, usually a month or a year, for the pattern of use you actually have.

• On demand cost rises with frequency. Use it twice a month and it is inexpensive. Use it fifteen times and it is not
• Daily cost is flat. It costs the same whether you need treatment twice that month or fifteen times

The Crossover Point

Because one cost rises with frequency and the other does not, the two lines cross somewhere.

Below the crossover, the on demand product costs less over the month. Above it, the daily product does, because its flat cost is spread across more occasions.

Finding your own crossover takes one calculation:

1. Take the monthly cost of the daily product, using its standard price
2. Divide by your cost per tablet for the on demand product
3. The result is the number of occasions per month at which the two are equal
4. Compare that with your actual frequency. Fewer occasions favours on demand, more favours daily

That is a genuinely useful number and it takes a minute to produce. It is also personal, which is why this page gives you the method rather than an answer.

Two Things the Arithmetic Does Not Capture

Format is a clinical decision. Daily treatment is not simply a bulk purchase of the same thing. It is a different product used differently, and whether it is appropriate is for a prescriber to determine, not for a spreadsheet.

A cheaper option you do not use has no value. If the format does not fit how you live, the lower total is theoretical.

Is Tadalafil Worth the Extra Cost?

That depends on what the extra buys you, and the answer is not the same for everyone.

What the higher price buys is documented and specific. Tadalafil tablets may still be effective up to 36 hours after taking the tablet. Sildenafil at the standard strength was effective from less than 1 hour to up to 4 hours after the dose.

Whether one is better value for you depends on one question: does the shorter window cost you anything?

• If occasions are planned, a four-hour window is not a limitation, and the longer one buys convenience you may not need
• If occasions are not predictable, the longer window removes a planning problem, and people who value that tend to find it worth the difference

Neither medicine is better. They differ, and the price difference reflects a genuine difference in what they do rather than a difference in quality. Your prescriber will determine the appropriate treatment.

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Why the Prices Differ

The price gap has explanations that are worth knowing, because they also tell you what to expect over time.

How many manufacturers supply the market. Generic prices fall as more manufacturers enter and compete. A medicine that has been generic for longer, with more suppliers, tends to sit lower.

How long each has been off patent. The longer a medicine has been available generically, the more that competition has had time to work through.

Wholesale availability. Supply pressures move generic prices in both directions, and they move independently for different medicines.

Each pharmacy's own pricing decisions. There is no fixed national price for a generic medicine, so the same product costs different amounts in different places. That is normal rather than suspicious.

None of those is about one medicine being superior. A price difference between two generics reflects market conditions rather than clinical ranking.

Generic Pricing

Both are available as generics, and that is the single biggest factor in what either costs.

A generic must contain the same active ingredient as the branded original, in the same form, and must be shown bioequivalent to it. What differs is the name, the manufacturer, the appearance of the tablet, the inactive ingredients and the price.

The branded versions of both medicines exist and cost substantially more. The generic is not a lesser product, and choosing it is not a compromise on quality.

For anyone comparing on cost, this is where the largest single saving sits, and it is available on both medicines rather than being an argument for one over the other.

Buying Larger Packs

Buying a larger pack often reduces the cost per tablet. It does not always, and the exceptions are easy to miss.

Check rather than assume. Divide each pack price by its tablet count and compare the rates. Pricing structures are set pack by pack rather than by formula, and a larger pack occasionally carries a higher rate than a smaller one.

Watch for the awkward sizes. Where a pattern breaks, it usually breaks at one or two specific pack sizes rather than across the range.

The important caution. How many tablets you are supplied follows from the clinical assessment, not from a price table. A larger quantity is not something to request because the rate is better, and treatment suitability includes quantity.

There is also a practical limit worth remembering. Medicines have expiry dates, and a quantity that outlasts its expiry is not a saving.

Subscription and Prescription Costs

There Is No Subscription

EveryDayMeds does not offer a subscription, auto-refill or recurring order for either medicine, so there is no subscription pricing to factor into a comparison.

The reason is structural rather than commercial. A subscription assumes the same thing should be sent again without anyone looking at it. For a prescription medicine the assessment is the point, and circumstances change between orders: a new medicine, a blood pressure reading, a new symptom.

So each supply follows its own prescriber decision. For cost comparison purposes, this simplifies things. The figures to compare are the standard pack prices, with no recurring discount to model.

What a Private Prescription Cost Includes

With private supply you pay the pharmacy's price for the medicine. At EveryDayMeds the clinical assessment is part of the ordering process rather than a separate charge on the bill.

What the price includes:

• The medicine itself
• The patient information leaflet
• The dispensing label
• Standard delivery, with no separate charge on standard orders

What it does not include is any insurance element, because private supply in the UK is paid for directly rather than claimed against a policy. This page covers private supply only.

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Saving Money on Treatment

What Actually Reduces the Total

Four things make a real difference, in roughly this order of size.

1. Choosing the generic rather than the branded version. This is the largest single difference available on either medicine
2. Comparing per tablet rather than per pack, which frequently reorders the options
3. Matching the pack size to your actual frequency, so you are neither over-buying nor paying a small pack rate repeatedly
4. Checking whether delivery is charged separately, since a low tablet price with a delivery charge on top is not the figure you pay

What Does Not

Buying a larger quantity than you were assessed for. Quantity follows the clinical decision. A better rate is not a reason to request more.

Switching medicine on price alone. The two are not interchangeable, they suit different circumstances, and a medicine that does not fit your circumstances is not a saving.

Buying from an unverified source. A price far below the market from a seller that does not assess you is not a saving. MHRA guidance is direct on this point: where medicines come from unverified sources, there is no guarantee they are safe or effective. A tablet that may not contain what the packaging claims has no meaningful price per tablet at all.

Splitting or combining tablets to stretch a pack. Never take two tablets of a lower strength to make up a higher one, and never take more than one tablet in any 24-hour period.

On Searches for the Cheapest Option

Searches for the cheapest option are looking for a ranking that nobody can honestly publish.

No supplier can verify that claim across every pharmacy in the country at any given moment, and any site asserting it has not checked. Prices change, there is no fixed national price for a generic, and a claim like that is out of date the moment it is written.

What a pharmacy can honestly do is publish its standard prices, show the pack sizes, and let you divide. That is what the tables and the method on this page are for.

A cost comparison that means anything has four properties: it uses standard prices rather than discounted ones, it compares per tablet rather than per pack, it compares like formats, and it uses your own frequency rather than an assumed one. Any comparison missing one of those is measuring something else.

A Note on Discounted Figures

A price shown after a code has been applied is not the standard price. Comparing a discounted figure against somebody else's standard price is two different measurements rather than a comparison.

When a discount code is involved, the honest sequence is: note the standard price, divide by the tablet count, apply any code to that figure afterwards, and compare the result against another standard price treated the same way.

A Note on the Figures on This Page

Two prices on this page are verified standard prices: £3.59 for sildenafil and £7.64 for tadalafil on demand.

A starting figure for tadalafil daily is not printed here, because more than one figure appears in different places and this page will not guess which is current. Check the live product page for that one before relying on any comparison involving it.

That is a deliberately unsatisfying answer, and it is the correct one. A cost page that prints an unverified number is worse than a cost page that admits a gap, because the number gets copied, quoted and planned around.

Prices are standard prices at the time of writing and may change. Any page quoting a price is a snapshot.

Before Price Decides Anything

Cost is a reasonable basis for choosing a pack size once a prescriber has established what you are being supplied. It is not a basis for choosing a medicine, a strength or a quantity.

The Safety Points That Sit Above Price

• Do not exceed the dose or dosing frequency prescribed for your medicine
• Do not combine tablets or change the prescribed strength to adjust your dose unless your prescriber specifically tells you to
• Neither medicine may be taken with nitrates, nitric oxide donors, nicorandil, amyl nitrite or riociguat
• Stay with the strength and quantity on your dispensing label

When to Seek Help Urgently

• An erection lasting longer than 4 hours
• Chest pain during or after use, which is an emergency
• Fainting or collapse
• A sudden decrease or loss of vision, or of hearing
• An allergic reaction

The full range of licensed options is on the erectile dysfunction treatments page. This medicine should only be used under the supervision of an appropriately qualified prescriber.

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