PEPID vs Epocrates: price, content and which one to buy for emergency medicine

PEPID publishes a full rate card and Epocrates publishes one number, so this is one of the few comparisons in the category where both columns can be filled in. On pepid.com in September 2026 the Emergency Medicine Suite is $299.95 for one year, $549.90 for two years and $774.85 for three, paid upfront. The Pediatric Emergency Medicine Suite and the Primary Care Plus Ambulatory Care suite are priced identically. EM Complete, which bundles the adult and pediatric suites with unlimited CME, is $499.95 a year. The cheapest PEPID product with the drug database is the Portable Drug Companion at $12.08 a month billed yearly, about $145, and emergency medicine residents can have the full suite for $9.99 a month, cancel anytime. Every PEPID price, including the nursing and pharmacist suites and the add-ons, is on our PEPID cost page.

Epocrates is simpler. The app is free to install and the free tier has no expiry. The paid tier, epocrates+, is an in-app purchase at $179.99 a year or $24.99 a month, re-read on the US App Store this month, and there is a student rate that is not published as a fixed figure. So an emergency clinician choosing between the two is really choosing between $0, $179.99 and $299.95, and the useful question is what each step up buys. We keep the Epocrates side of that current on the Epocrates cost page.

One rule of PEPID's that Epocrates does not have: sales are final. PEPID's FAQ says so and points buyers to the two-week trial instead of a refund. On a $774.85 three-year term that matters, so trial the suite on a real shift before you pay. Epocrates+ bought monthly can be stopped at the end of any month through the app store, which makes it the lower-commitment way to find out whether you use the paid content at all.

The difference between $179.99 and $299.95 is the specialty layer. Epocrates is organized around the drug: you search a name and get the monograph, the interactions, the adult and pediatric dosing and the pricing. PEPID is organized around the department. The Emergency Medicine Suite carries emergency medicine topics written for the ED, a toxicology section with antidotes and management, procedure content with images and video, a lab manual, and clinical tools that Epocrates does not attempt, the IV compatibility checker being the clearest example. If you have ever stood at a bedside wondering whether two infusions can share a line, that single feature justifies a lot of the gap; we cover the broader question on our IV compatibility checker page.

Pediatric dosing is the other place PEPID pulls ahead for emergency work. Enter the child's weight once and the doses across the suite are calculated against it, which is how emergency physicians and PAs have described using it for years. Epocrates does list pediatric dosing in its monographs, but it is per drug, and you do the arithmetic. For a clinician who sees children rarely, the Epocrates approach is fine. For a pediatric ED, it is the wrong tool, and the Pediatric Emergency Medicine Suite at the same $299.95 is the one to price.

Where Epocrates holds its own is the drug database itself. The free tier's monographs, the multi-drug interaction checker and the pill identifier are as complete as most clinicians need, and paying for epocrates+ does not improve them; the paid tier adds disease monographs, differential diagnosis, lab and diagnostic interpretation, antimicrobial guidance and the removal of advertising. On a pure drug-lookup shift, Epocrates at $0 and PEPID at $299.95 will answer most of the same questions. The money is for the department content around the drugs.

Epocrates, on cost, and it is not close. Epocrates runs an accredited CME catalog at no charge, and it is separate from epocrates+, so paying $179.99 buys no additional credit and not paying loses none. PEPID sells CME as a $169 a year add-on, which its own FAQ describes as an introductory price, or bundles it into EM Complete at $499.95. The bundle is the better buy if you would pay for credit anyway: the adult suite, the pediatric suite and CME bought separately come to $768.90, so EM Complete saves $268.95 against the parts.

The format matters as much as the price. PEPID's CME is earned inside the reference, on the topics you looked up during the shift, which suits an emergency clinician with a fragmented week and no blocked study time. Epocrates' catalog is modules you sit down and complete. If you already earn credit through a paid UpToDate subscription or through your hospital, neither product's CME should decide the purchase.

Probably neither, at first. Ask the program: many emergency medicine residencies license PEPID for their residents, and most US hospitals give trainees UpToDate through the library, which includes Lexidrug drug content. If the program does not cover it, PEPID's resident plan at $9.99 a month is the cheapest way to carry the full Emergency Medicine Suite through residency and can be cancelled at any time, which sidesteps the final-sale rule on the annual products. Epocrates free costs nothing and will be on your co-residents' phones regardless.

For an attending paying personally, the decision is cleaner. If you want the department in one app, PEPID at $299.95, and pay the three-year term upfront if you are certain, because $774.85 works out to $258.28 a year against $299.95 renewing annually. Do not take the four-payment plan for the same three years: it costs $900, which is what three annual renewals would have cost, so the multi-year discount disappears. If you want a drug reference and would rather spend the difference elsewhere, epocrates+ at $179.99, or the free tier. ACEP members get 15 percent off one year of the EM or Pediatric EM suite, which brings PEPID to about $255 for the first year and narrows the gap further.

Both PEPID and Epocrates are references. You ask, they answer, and the interaction checker in each is a separate screen you have to remember to open with the right drugs typed in. In a busy department the interaction that causes harm is usually the one nobody thought to check, on a home medication list that arrived incomplete, in a patient whose creatinine came back after the order went in.

Prescriber.io is built for that step rather than for reading. You enter the drug and the patient's scenario once and the card returns interactions across the whole list, contraindications, allergy blockers, renal and hepatic dose adjustments and guideline-based alternatives together, each with a cited source, for a licensed clinician to review and sign. It is priced per clinician per month and it sits alongside whichever reference you keep, PEPID or Epocrates, rather than replacing either. Emergency clinicians comparing the wider field, including UpToDate and Medscape, will find the rest of the market on our best drug reference app page and in the Epocrates vs Medscape comparison.