- from USD 24.99/mo
- Not disclosed
- Not disclosed
- —
- 1998
- US
Drug info
Epocrates
by Epocrates (athenahealth) · founded 1998 · US
Drug reference app with interaction checks, calculators, disease guidance and a beta AI Assist.
On this page
46/100Solid choice
- Regulatory & Compliance0/22
No FDA clearance listed
- Clinical Integration0/26
No EHR integrations listed
- Evidence Strength24/27
5 peer-reviewed papers
- Vendor & Market21.6/21.6
market_relevance=90 (top-tier funding/adoption)
- Sentiment & Transparency6/15
2 pricing tier(s) with explicit $ amounts
▸ Show all 11 dimensions▾ Hide dimension detail
- FDA clearance0/12
No FDA clearance listed
- HIPAA / SOC2 / BAA0/10
No public HIPAA/SOC2/BAA attestation
- EHR integrations (count)0/14
No EHR integrations listed
- Top-3 EHR coverage (Epic / Oracle / Athena)0/8
None of the top-3 EHRs covered
- Bidirectional write-back0/4
No bidirectional write-back documented
- Peer-reviewed papers21/21
5 peer-reviewed papers
- RCT / meta-analysis / systematic review3/6
1 observational study (no RCT)
- Funding & adoption signal16/16
market_relevance=90 (top-tier funding/adoption)
- Years in market6/6
Founded 1998 (28 years)
- Clinician sentiment (Reddit)0/9
No clinician sentiment data available
- Pricing transparency6/6
2 pricing tier(s) with explicit $ amounts
Scored October 15, 2026 · Public scoring method v1.1.0
Most-used clinician drug-reference app in the US, free tier.
Free + $16.99/mo Plus + $159/yr Essentials. Pill ID, formulary, interactions.
Bottom line
Epocrates is a mobile drug and clinical reference that has served clinicians since 1998. It carries an AI Assist feature in beta, with no description or validation published. A paid epocrates+ plan costs $24.99 a month or $179.99 a year, and secondary sources report a free registered tier below it. It fits a resident or hospitalist who wants a quick interaction check and dosing lookup on a phone.
What is Epocrates and who owns it?
The company's about page calls it the top mobile medical reference for clinicians, a claim footnoted to user feedback from 2018, and says it has served more than a million users since 1998. It is part of athenahealth, which agreed in January 2013 to buy it for about $293 million, or $11.75 per share, according to TechCrunch. David Minkin has been president and general manager since February 2024 and Stacy Lawrence is editor in chief.
What does it offer?
Epocrates+ lists drug information, interaction checks, calculators, herbs and supplements, and ICD-10 codes. It adds disease guidance, guidelines, lab interpretation and infectious disease treatment, plus articles and clinician-led education. A plus-for-groups plan serves teams and residents, and students can get access through a student email. AI Assist Beta appears under the page's smarter-workflow features, and no paper in the literature tests it. Neither the homepage nor the epocrates+ page names an EHR integration or states HIPAA, SOC 2 or HITRUST status.
How much does epocrates+ cost?
As of October 2026 the epocrates+ page lists $24.99 per month, renewing monthly, or $179.99 per year, which it presents as a 40 percent saving. The annual plan works out to about $15 a month against $24.99 month to month. Trial and refund terms are not stated. GetApp and prescriber.io report a free registered tier, but the official page does not mention one.
What do users complain about?
GetApp, Software Advice and App Store reviews point to subscription cost, content behind the paywall, mandatory sponsor ads when the app opens, slow loading, missing pricing data and one subscriber who lost paid access. GetApp averages about 4.57 from 88 ratings. The praise is for the free drug content and the interaction checker.
What does the evidence say?
A 2023 PLOS ONE paper examined identification of psychotropic drug interactions across Drugs.com, Lexicomp and Epocrates, and a 2024 Cureus review of traveler's diarrhea medication interactions mentions Epocrates as a tool without evaluating it.
The older head-to-head numbers come from a 2016 comparison of five common interaction programs in the Journal of Research in Pharmacy Practice. Lexi-Interact and Epocrates each scored 250 of 400 for accuracy and comprehensiveness, Micromedex 236, Medscape 202 and iFacts 191. The study is a decade old and tested the versions of that time.
How does it sit next to Medscape's checker?
Medscape's Drug Interaction Checker is a web tool that covers prescription drugs, OTC medications, herbal supplements and common foods and shows the mechanism, such as CYP450 inhibition. Its page lists no price, and third-party sources describe it as free with registration. Epocrates lists dosing, disease guidance and calculators alongside its interaction checks.
Who is it for?
A PGY-2 on night float who needs to check a dose and an interaction in 30 seconds is the core user, provided the free registration covers what they need. An attending prescribing in a complex polypharmacy clinic should verify against the interaction checker their pharmacy uses. A group practice that wants shared access should look at the plus-for-groups plan.
The verdict
Keep Epocrates on your phone for lookups, and find out what the free registration covers before paying $24.99 a month. Treat AI Assist as untested until the vendor publishes validation.
Editorial review last generated October 15, 2026. Synthesized from clinician sentiment, peer-reviewed coverage, and our editorial silo picks. Refined by hand where vendor facts change.
What it costs
Single paid tier at USD 24.99/month per provider.
| Tier | Monthly | Annual | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| epocrates+, monthly | USD 24.99 | — | Cancel anytime. |
| epocrates+, yearly | — | USD 179.99 | The page says Save 40% when subscribing annually. Trial and refund terms are not stated. |
Source: vendor pricing page. Last checked October 15, 2026.
Who builds it
Epocrates (Epocrates (athenahealth)) was founded in 1998 in US, putting it 28 years into market.
What the literature says
5 peer-reviewed studies indexed on PubMed evaluate Epocrates in clinical contexts. The most relevant are shown below, ranked by editorial relevance score combining title match, study design, recency, and journal tier.
- Retrospective cohort observation on psychotropic drug-drug interaction and identification utility from 3 databases: Drugs.com®, Lexicomp®, and Epocrates®.
- Pinkoh R, Rodsiri R, Wainipitapong S· PLoS One· 2023
- Pharmacotherapy is necessary for many people with psychiatric disorders and polypharmacy is common. The psychotropic drug-drug interaction (DDI) should be concerned and efficiently monitored by a proper instrument. This study aimed to investigate the prevalence and associated factors of psychotropic DDI and to compare the identification utility from three databases: Drugs.com®, Lexicomp®, and Epocrates®. This was a retrospective cohort design. We collected demographic and clinical data of all patients hospitalised in the psychiatric inpatient unit in 2020. Psychotropic DDI prof…
- Agreement of Different Drug-Drug Interaction Checkers for Proton Pump Inhibitors.
- Carollo M, Crisafulli S, Selleri M, et al.· JAMA Netw Open· 2024
- Proton pump inhibitors (PPIs) are a widely prescribed class of drugs, potentially interacting with a large number of medicines, especially among older patients with multimorbidity and polypharmacy. Beyond summary of product characteristics (SPCs), interaction checkers (ICs) are routinely used tools to help clinicians in medication review interventions. To assess the consistency of information on drugs potentially interacting with PPIs as reported in their SPCs and different ICs. This cross-sectional study was conducted using data from SPCs for 5 PPIs (omeprazole, esomeprazole, lansoprazole, p…
- Assessing accuracy and completeness of drug information in mobile apps compared with Micromedex®: An AI-based study in Thai online communities.
- Meepradist Y, Chokchaitam S, Teerakulkittipong N, et al.· Res Social Adm Pharm· 2026Observational
- Ensuring access to accurate and complete drug information is fundamental to rational medication use. Mobile medical applications (MMAs) are increasingly used by healthcare providers; however, their quality compared with institutional databases remains underexplored, especially in non-English and resource-limited settings. Natural Language Processing (NLP), particularly using Thai-language transformer models such as WangchanBERTa, enables automated screening and classification of real-world drug-related queries derived from public online communities. This study aimed to compare the accuracy an…
- A Comprehensive Narrative Review of Drug Interactions Between Traveler's Diarrhea Medications and Chronic Therapies: Implications for Clinical Practice.
- B S, Satish Kumar RC, B M, et al.· Cureus· 2024
- Diarrhea is a common illness for travelers. Traveler's diarrhea is typically defined as experiencing at least three unformed stools per day during a stay abroad or within 10 days of returning from the destination. In this review, we consulted five databases, namely, Medicine Complete, Medscape, Drugs.com, Epocrates, and DDInter, to conduct a comprehensive drug interaction analysis. We selected commonly prescribed medications used for the treatment of traveler's diarrhea, including ciprofloxacin, levofloxacin, norfloxacin, ofloxacin, azithromycin, rifaximin, bismuth salicylate, and loperamide.…
- A comparison of five different drug-drug interaction checkers for selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors.
- Xu S, Song Z, Li Y, et al.· Front Pharmacol· 2025
- Selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) are widely prescribed for depression and anxiety, but their potential for drug-drug interactions (DDIs) poses significant risks, particularly given their influence on cytochrome P450 enzymes. Variability in identifying and classifying these interactions among drug interaction checkers (ICs) can complicate clinical decision-making and compromise patient safety. This study aims to compare five widely used ICs in identifying DDIs related to SSRIs, highlighting discrepancies in DDI identification and severity classification to inform best practices.…
Other drug info
See the full drug info rankingUpToDate Lexidrug
by Wolters Kluwer
Drug reference with interaction analysis, dosing guidance and IV compatibility, from UpToDate (formerly Lexicomp).
No public price, contact form only. Personal subscriptions are also sold (mobile app and store.uptodate.com), but the current personal price is not confirmed.
Medscape Drug Interaction Checker
by WebMD
Drug interaction lookup for prescription drugs, OTC medications, herbal supplements and some foods, with severity categories.
Free to use per third-party sources (registration may be required). The Medscape page itself states no price.
Drugs.com Professional
by Drugsite Trust
Free drug reference for professionals: AHFS monographs, interaction checker, pill identifier, FDA alerts and shortages. No AI features described.
Free to use with a free sign-up to save drug and interaction lists. Funded by advertising. No Pro subscription or price was found.
Micromedex
by Merative
Drug reference with interaction checking, IV compatibility, toxicology and RED BOOK pricing, plus AI-powered search since September 2025.
No public price, quoted per organization. No current individual subscription was found.