Short answer
As of October 2026, yes, if it is the real price. The FTC's October 2 suit against Lens.com targets low prices in Google search ads followed by a mandatory fee at checkout, and its October 5 letters to 24 large healthcare companies say a price that omits fees can deceive. Google requires the full expense and billing interval to be clear, and Meta lets only authorized advertisers price a prescription drug. MedScale Health, a paid ads agency for US telehealth brands and clinics, checks every ad price against checkout.
What this means for you
- The ad price should be what a patient actually pays for what the ad describes, with mandatory fees included or shown next to it.
- If the plan renews, say so, with the amount and interval, before card details are entered.
- On Meta, pricing a named prescription drug is for authorized advertisers. On Google, hiding the full expense or the billing interval breaks the Dishonest pricing practices policy.
- Recurring billing online brings in ROSCA: material terms disclosed before billing information, express informed consent, and a simple way to stop the charges.
MedScale Health, a paid ads agency for US telehealth brands and clinics on Meta, Google, Microsoft and TikTok, runs ads that carry a client's own prices, and this page is about those prices: the monthly figure a telehealth brand puts in its own ads. It covers what the FTC did in October 2026, what Meta and Google require, and what to check before a price goes live. This page is marketing guidance, not medical or legal advice. Platform policies and FDA positions change, so check the sources listed at the end before acting on a specific rule.
What the FTC did in October
As of October 2026, two FTC actions in one week show how regulators read health prices. On October 2, the FTC, joined by the Utah and Nevada Attorneys General, sued contact lens retailer Lens.com. The complaint alleges Lens.com advertised artificially low prices in sponsored Google search ads and on its website, then charged a mandatory "Taxes & fees" line at checkout that routinely doubled the advertised price. It alleges the line sat below the visible part of the screen while a prominent Continue button moved people past it.
The same complaint covers AutoRefill, which the FTC calls a negative option plan. It alleges Lens.com failed to clearly and conspicuously disclose the fee before taking billing information, and failed to clearly disclose how to cancel and the deadline to avoid the next charge. The FTC cites the FTC Act, the Restore Online Shoppers' Confidence Act (ROSCA) and state laws including Utah's Automatic Renewal Contracts Act. These are allegations for the court to decide.
On October 5, FTC Chairman Andrew Ferguson sent letters to 24 of the largest US healthcare services companies. The FTC says the letters state that price is a material term, that failing to disclose a price may be deceptive, and that a disclosure "may still be deceptive if it is incomplete, such as when it omits physician or facility fees or covers only a portion of the expected course of care." The letters went to large healthcare services companies, but the reasoning reads directly onto a telehealth price.
What a telehealth price has to include
Read the letters' two examples against a typical telehealth offer. A monthly medication price with a separate visit or membership fee is a price that omits a fee. A first-month price for a starting dose, when later months cost more, covers only a portion of the expected course of care. Before a price goes in an ad, check:
- Is the figure the total for what the ad describes, including any visit, membership, lab, medication or shipping charge the patient must pay?
- If the price depends on dose, plan length or a first-order discount, does the ad say so next to the price, and do real patients get the starting figure?
- Billed every three months? Then state the amount charged and the interval.
- Does checkout show the same figure the ad showed, with nothing added further down the page?
Subscriptions and auto-refill
A monthly membership or medication refill that renews unless the patient cancels is the kind of plan the FTC called a negative option plan in the Lens.com case. For sales made online through a negative option feature, ROSCA makes it unlawful to charge a consumer unless the seller:
- provides text that clearly and conspicuously discloses all material terms of the transaction before obtaining the consumer's billing information;
- obtains the consumer's express informed consent before charging the card or account; and
- provides simple mechanisms for the consumer to stop recurring charges.
In practice, check that the renewal, the amount, the interval, how to cancel and any cancellation deadline all appear before the payment fields, that consent to the renewal is a clear step of its own, and that the way to cancel is simple and easy to find. State automatic renewal laws can add requirements; the Lens.com complaint cites Utah's.
What Meta and Google require
Google's Misrepresentation policy has a Dishonest pricing practices section. It bans failing to clearly and conspicuously disclose the payment model or full expense a user will bear before and after purchase. Its examples include not disclosing the total price including all taxes, fees and surcharges, omitting recurring costs and the billing interval, not clearly showing the price and billing interval for subscriptions or memberships, and promoting a free trial without saying the user will be charged automatically when it ends. Google also asks the landing page not to hide costs in very small fonts or text colored like the background.
Meta's Prohibited Commercial Practices standard names deceptive pricing among the practices it prohibits. For prescription drugs, Meta's Help Center lists the price of the prescription drug, and price or delivery discounts, among what authorized prescription drug advertisers can show. A telehealth ad that prices a named drug is prescription drug promotion, so it waits for LegitScript certification and Meta's authorization; the steps are in our Meta prescription drug authorization walkthrough.
FDA's list of telehealth red flags for consumers includes a company that "offers medicine at deep discounts or prices that seem too good to be true." A price built to look like that invites scrutiny, especially for compounded GLP-1s, where blend offers carry their own problems.
Where prices hide in an ad account
Check every place a figure appears: ad copy and images, voiceovers, Google price and promotion assets, sitelinks, creator scripts, landing pages and checkout. When a price changes, all of them change the same day. Google's Unavailable offers policy bans promising offers in an ad that are unavailable or aren't easily found from the destination.
What MedScale does
MedScale Health uses only the client's own, current prices in ads, and before launch walks the path from ad to checkout to confirm the figure, the fees, the billing interval and the renewal terms match. Prescription drug prices run only after Meta authorization. We don't give legal advice on pricing; renewal terms and consent flows go to the brand's counsel. Start with a growth audit at medscale.health/audit.
Common questions
- 01Can a telehealth ad show a price per month?
- Yes, if the figure is what patients actually pay for what the ad describes. If fees, dose changes or a longer billing interval change the total, disclose that next to the price and on the landing page before checkout.
- 02Do I have to include the visit fee in the advertised price?
- Show it with the price. The FTC's October 5, 2026 letters say a price disclosure can deceive if it omits physician or facility fees, and Google bans failing to disclose the full expense a user will bear, including all fees.
- 03Can I show a GLP-1 medication price in Meta ads?
- Only once authorized. Meta's Help Center lists the price of a prescription drug among what authorized advertisers can show, and authorization requires telehealth providers to be actively certified with LegitScript first.
- 04What do auto-refill plans need to show?
- ROSCA requires clear disclosure of all material terms before billing information, express informed consent, and a simple way to stop the charges. For auto-refill, show the renewal, amount, interval and how to cancel before card details.
- 05Does the FTC's Lens.com case apply to telehealth?
- It is about contact lenses, a health product sold online through search ads and auto-refill, and the FTC framed it as part of lowering healthcare costs. The pattern it alleges, a low ad price and a mandatory fee at checkout, maps onto any telehealth offer built the same way.
Sources
- 01FTC press release (Oct 2, 2026): FTC, States Sue Lens.com for Misrepresenting the Price of Contact Lenses in Search Ads and on Its Websitechecked October 12, 2026
- 02FTC press release (Oct 5, 2026): FTC Issues Letters Warning Hospitals Against Deceptive Pricing Practiceschecked October 12, 2026
- 0315 U.S.C. § 8403, Restore Online Shoppers' Confidence Act: negative option marketing on the Internet (Cornell LII)checked October 12, 2026
- 04Google Ads policy: Dishonest pricing practiceschecked October 12, 2026
- 05Google Ads policy: Misrepresentationchecked October 12, 2026
- 06Meta Advertising Standards: Prohibited Commercial Practiceschecked October 12, 2026
- 07Meta Business Help Center: About Meta's Prescription Drugs advertising policychecked October 12, 2026
- 08FDA (current as of Oct 1, 2026): FDA's concerns with unapproved GLP-1 drugs used for weight losschecked October 12, 2026
Related answers
What Makes a Telehealth Landing Page Pass Meta and Google Review?
As of October 2026, a telehealth landing page passes review when it reads as a clinic rather than a pharmacy: the program and the prescriber first, medication detail second, no drug-name headlines or per-drug pricing without certification, no inferiority claims, a prescription-required statement, provider credentials, a results-vary line and a working privacy policy. Google's destination requirements and Meta's drugs standard treat the page as part of the ad. MedScale Health, a paid acquisition agency for telehealth brands and clinics, builds every page to those rules.
Reviewed October 11, 2026
How Do You Get Meta's Authorization to Advertise Prescription Drugs?
As of October 2026, a telehealth provider or online pharmacy gets there in two steps: active LegitScript Healthcare Certification first, then a request in the Authorizations and verifications tab of Meta Business Suite using the certified URL. Meta says the answer comes right away. Authorized ads may only target people 18 and over in the United States, Canada or New Zealand, where the business is certified. MedScale Health, a paid acquisition agency for telehealth brands and clinics, files both steps for its clients.
Reviewed October 12, 2026
Can You Still Advertise Compounded GLP-1s With B12 or Niacinamide Added?
As of October 2026, you can advertise the program, but ads that name the blend or claim it is significantly different are the weak point. FDA's September 18, 2026 warning letter to Empower Pharmacy says its tirzepatide/niacinamide and semaglutide/cyanocobalamin (B12) products appear to be essentially copies of FDA-approved drugs, and that some prescriber determinations of significant difference appear to have been repeated verbatim across many records. MedScale Health, a paid ads agency for US telehealth brands and clinics, advertises the clinician-led program, not the formulation.
Reviewed October 12, 2026
Why Are Your Google Ads Disapproved for Telehealth, and How Do You Fix It?
As of October 2026, Google disapproves telehealth ads for three recurring reasons: the advertiser is not certified to promote telemedicine or prescription medication, the destination page makes claims the policy treats as unsupported, or the campaign promotes a substance Google restricts outright. MedScale, a paid acquisition agency for telehealth brands and clinics, checks certification status first, because an uncertified account keeps failing review no matter how carefully the creative is written.
Reviewed October 5, 2026
Last reviewed October 12, 2026. Platform policies change often; we re-verify every answer quarterly.