Washington Manual app and which version to buy, from $74.99 a year to the $99.99 bundle

There are two Washington Manual of Medical Therapeutics apps on the US App Store, and they are not the same edition. Unbound Medicine's app is a free download with a 14-day trial, then a $79.99 purchase for the manual or $99.99 bundled with Davis's Drug Guide; its December 2025 update brought in 38th edition content. Skyscape Medpresso's app is $74.99 a year on auto-renew and still says its content is licensed from the 37th edition. We read both listings, and the publisher's book page, at the source.

The Washington Manual, or WashMan to most interns, is the spiral-bound ward book written by Washington University residents and faculty. The question buyers actually have is which digital version to pay for, and whether the app beats the $84.99 book. Here is every option with its price and what it gets you.

Washington Manual app prices compared

Two pricing details are easy to miss. The Skyscape listing's own description calls its shorter terms one month and three months, while its in-app purchase names call them three months and six months, so confirm the term on the purchase sheet before you tap. And the Unbound listing still sells a separate "Washington Manual 37e" item at $79.99; buy "The Washington Manual" or the bundle, not the older edition.

Which Washington Manual app has the 38th edition?

The Unbound Medicine app. Its version history for 1.17, released December 16, 2025, reads "Now includes new content from the 38th edition." That put the app ahead of the print book, which Wolters Kluwer published on January 8, 2026. The Skyscape app was last updated on December 5, 2025 and its description still lists the 37th edition ISBN as the source of its content.

For a reference you read on the wards, edition matters more than it does for a textbook. Each Washington Manual edition is revised by Washington University residents and faculty, and treatment recommendations, antibiotic choices and dosing tables shift between them. Paying $74.99 a year for the previous edition when the current one costs $5 more makes little sense unless you already own the Skyscape app and are mid-subscription.

Is the Washington Manual app worth it over the book?

On price they are almost level: $79.99 for the Unbound app, $79.99 for the VitalSource ebook, $84.99 for the spiral paperback. What you are choosing is how you use it. The app searches across the whole manual, works with no signal in a basement call room, links to journal abstracts, and with the bundle puts a drug guide in the same place. The paperback fits a white coat pocket and never needs a battery.

The ebook is the weakest of the three for ward use. It is a page-faithful copy read through a general e-reader, without the clinical search and offline design of a dedicated app, and it costs the same as the Unbound app. Buy it only if you want to highlight and annotate the full text on a laptop.

What about the bundle with Davis's Drug Guide?

The Unbound bundle is $99.99, $20 more than the manual alone, and Davis's Drug Guide on its own is $39.99. If you do not have a drug reference, that is a cheap way to get 5,000+ drug monographs next to the treatment text. If your hospital already gives you Lexicomp or Micromedex, the bundle duplicates what you have. It is worth checking what your institution actually licenses: our page on Micromedex subscription cost explains how hospital access and the free activation code work, and the Lexidrug subscription guide covers the one pharmacy-grade database you can buy personally.

Infectious disease is where the drug guide question matters most. The manual's empiric antibiotic recommendations are a starting point, and the right choice on your service still depends on local resistance patterns, which is why infection prevention teams keep antibiogram software that tracks local susceptibility data current. Neither app replaces your hospital's antibiogram.

Who should buy which version

• Intern or PGY-1 in internal medicine: the Unbound app at $79.99, or the $99.99 bundle if your hospital gives you no drug reference. It is the current edition and works offline.
• Resident who already pays for Skyscape: finish the current term, then switch at renewal. You are paying for the 37th edition.
• Medical student on a medicine rotation: check the library first; many schools carry the Washington Manual online. If not, the Unbound app or the $84.99 paperback.
• Hospitalist or nocturnist: the Unbound app, for offline use on nights. If you also want the deeper disease text, our Harrison's app guide prices the Harrison's options.
• NP or PA in outpatient practice: the Washington Manual is an inpatient book. An outpatient reference such as the 5 Minute Clinical Consult app usually fits clinic work better.

Where a ward manual stops

The Washington Manual tells you how to treat community-acquired pneumonia or a heart failure exacerbation. It does not know that the patient you are writing for takes eleven other drugs, has a creatinine clearance of 28 and a documented penicillin allergy. Those checks happen at the order, one lookup at a time, at the hour of the night when lookups get skipped.

That is the step Prescriber.io is built for. You enter the drug and the patient's scenario once, and one card returns interactions across the whole medication list, contraindications, allergy blockers and renal and hepatic dose adjustments, each with a cited source, for you to review, verify and sign. It sits beside the manual rather than replacing it. Try it on a real case with the drug contraindication checker, see the creatinine clearance calculator for the renal side, or compare drug references by role in our best drug reference app guide. Plans start at $24 per clinician a month billed annually on our pricing page.