LegitScript certification: what it costs and why your ads need it

What is it, and who actually requires it?

LegitScript is a private certification body that reviews whether a healthcare merchant is operating lawfully. The platforms outsource the hard part of that judgement to them rather than making it themselves.

Google's healthcare policy requires a US telemedicine provider to hold LegitScript certification and then be approved through Google's own healthcare advertiser application. Two steps, in that order. Google's own step is free.

Meta's drugs and pharmaceuticals standard works the same way: active LegitScript certification, then Meta's own authorisation.

So it is not one approval, it is two, and the first one has a price and a queue.

What does it cost and how long does it take?

As of October 2026 the application is $975 and certification is $2,150 a year, charged per website. An optional expedite fee of $2,500 moves you up the queue.

The per-website part catches people out. If you run several brands, each is its own certification and its own annual fee, which is an argument for proving one brand before launching three.

Budget for the timeline rather than the fee. The normal queue runs weeks, and the clock does not start until your application is complete, which means a brand that applies before its website, policies and pharmacy relationships are settled is applying twice.

What do they actually look at?

The whole operation, not the website. Expect them to want your corporate structure, who is prescribing and under what licences, which pharmacy dispenses and where it is licensed, your privacy and terms pages, your refund policy, and how patients are screened.

The two things that most often fail are not legal problems. They are an incomplete site and a vague clinical story. A page that cannot say who prescribes and who dispenses reads as a storefront with no chain behind it, which is exactly what the certification exists to filter out.

Marketing claims are reviewed too. A site making outcome promises or calling a compounded drug equivalent to an approved one is carrying the same sentences that draw FDA warning letters, and the reviewer reads them the same way. That list is here.

When should you apply?

After the store is real and before you need the ads. The sequence that works is entity and clinical arrangements first, then the storefront with its policies and intake live, then apply, then build the ad account while the review runs.

The sequence that wastes money is applying early to save time. An application reviewed against a half-finished site comes back with questions, and you have paid for the privilege.

Worth planning for either way: most prescription brands grow on organic search, content, email and referral for their first months, because that is the channel available while certification is pending. A brand whose entire plan is paid acquisition has nothing to do for six weeks.