As any of us who’ve ever purchased prescription drugs for our pets well know, they can be expensive! Unlike human insurance, even if you have pet insurance it won’t cover the cost of your pet’s Rx.

Many pet owners are surprised to learn that a large portion of pet drugs are used for people too, and are available at regular human pharmacies such as Walgreens or CVS.

And here’s a little hack that very few know about: there are free programs that discount pet drugs, sometimes substantially, just for bringing in a coupon-like discount card to a regular people pharmacy.

Some people are familiar with programs like GoodRx for human drugs, but few realize there are pet versions as well.

For example, the popular website iHeartDogs offers a pet prescription card. You simply fill out your name, email and phone number and they send the card digitally to your mobile phone.

Wait, but how can a free program save me money? Seems like a scam!

That’s what we thought too! The world of prescription drug pricing is complicated and confusing, but here’s the short explanation. Every pharmacy benefit manager has negotiated a different discount for different drugs. Oftentimes, this negotiated, bulk discount pricing is far lower than your pharmacy’s cash price. The only way to know is to check the discount program’s website for the pricing. For example iHeartDogs has a price lookup tool here to preview the price of your pet’s RX before you go into the pharmacy.

We’d love to hear from you! What other ways have you found to save on your dog or cat’s prescriptions? Comment below!