Generic vs brand pain relief in Australia: I did the cost-per-pill maths and the gap is wild

I'm going to spoil this article in the first paragraph. If you buy Panadol, Nurofen, or Claratyne instead of the generic equivalent, you're paying somewhere between 2 and 9 times more for the exact same drug. Not "similar." The same drug. Same active ingredient, same dose, same TGA approval, often made in the same factory.

I'm not exaggerating for clicks. The consumer-affairs body CHOICE has confirmed this in repeated testing. But I wanted to know exactly what the gap looks like in 2026 dollars for an Australian household, so I sat down and worked through the maths myself. Here's what I found.

The headline number

If your household uses the standard mix of paracetamol (for headaches, fevers, kid's bumps), ibuprofen (for muscle pain and inflammation), and a daily antihistamine (for hayfever season), switching to generics will save you $180 to $400 a year. Not by buying less. Not by suffering through pain. By buying the identical chemical from a different brand.

That's a tank of fuel every two months back in your pocket. For doing literally nothing different.

Why is the brand so much more expensive?

This is the part that bothered me when I first started looking into it. There's no manufacturing reason the brand should cost more. Paracetamol is paracetamol — it's a molecule, not a recipe. The TGA (Therapeutic Goods Administration) regulates what goes in the pill, and any generic sold in Australia has to meet the same standard as the branded version.

So what are you paying for? Three things, basically:

CHOICE has been running these comparisons for years. Their findings have been consistent: identical chemicals, dramatically different prices.

Paracetamol: the gap is enormous

Let me walk you through the numbers properly.

Panadol Rapid 20-pack: roughly $7 at Woolworths or Coles. That works out to 35¢ per pill.

The same pill, different brand: generic paracetamol 500mg is sold under at least a dozen brand names — Herron Gold, ApoHealth, Chemists' Own, Pharmacy Choice — and the bigger packs are dramatically cheaper per pill. A 100-pack of generic paracetamol from Chemist Warehouse or via pharmacy sellers on Amazon AU runs around $2.50, or 2.5¢ per pill.

That's a 14x difference. The same dose. The same drug.

CHOICE went further. They compared a 10-pack of Panadol Rapid (the "fast-acting" formulation, which is just regular paracetamol with a faster-dissolving coating) to a 100-pack of pharmacy-brand Panamax. The Panadol Rapid worked out to nearly 9 times more expensive per pill.

My pick

For a household that gets through 5-10 paracetamol a week (kids' fevers, headaches, post-workout aches), grab a 100-pack of generic paracetamol 500mg↗. It'll last six months to a year, costs around $2-4, and it works exactly the same as the $7 Panadol you've been buying.

Ibuprofen: same story, slightly smaller gap

Nurofen 24-pack at the supermarket: about $9.50, or 40¢ per pill.

Generic ibuprofen 200mg, 96-pack on Amazon AU or at Chemist Warehouse: around $9-10, which works out to 10¢ per pill.

That's a 4x gap. Smaller than paracetamol, but still significant. If you reach for ibuprofen once a week (period pain, sports injuries, dental pain), the generic switch saves you about $50 a year on its own.

My pick

Grab a 96-pack of generic ibuprofen 200mg↗. Same drug as Nurofen, same dose, fraction of the cost.

Antihistamines: where the savings really stack up

This is the category where switching makes the biggest annual difference, because antihistamines are taken daily during hayfever season — typically September to December in most of Australia, plus whenever else your particular trigger is in the air.

Claratyne 30-pack: about $18 at Chemist Warehouse or supermarket. That's 60¢ per pill.

Generic loratadine 50-pack: around $10 from pharmacy sellers on Amazon AU or in-store at Chemist Warehouse. That's 20¢ per pill.

Three times cheaper. And if you take one a day for the three months of peak hayfever season, that's a 90-pill commitment. Brand: $54. Generic: $18. You save $36 in one season just on hayfever tablets.

Same story for the others

• Telfast (fexofenadine) has generic equivalents at roughly half the price.
• Zyrtec (cetirizine) has generic cetirizine widely available at a fraction of the cost.
• Phenergan (promethazine) generic equivalents exist but are less common in Australia.

The common thread: every major branded antihistamine sold in Australia has a generic that contains the identical active ingredient at the same dose, sold for a third to a half of the price.

My pick

Grab a 50- or 100-pack of generic loratadine 10mg↗. Stash it where you'd usually grab Claratyne. Your body cannot tell the difference, and your bank account will.

What about kids?

I get this question constantly. "Sure, I'll switch myself, but I'm not gambling with the kids' Panadol."

I understand the instinct. But the regulation here is the same: kids' paracetamol generics are TGA-approved to the identical standard as Children's Panadol. The active ingredient is paracetamol at the labelled concentration. There's no quality compromise.

What does change is the formulation experience: flavour, syrup texture, how the dosing syringe works. If your kid has a strong preference for the taste of Children's Panadol, and you can afford the brand, fair enough. But if they're young enough not to care, generic kids' paracetamol works exactly the same.

The other thing worth knowing: ibuprofen for kids (Nurofen for Children) has generic equivalents too. Same situation.

So why doesn't everyone already do this?

A few reasons that are worth being honest about:

1. Pharmacies don't volunteer it. Margin on branded products is much higher. You have to actively ask for the generic, and even then, some pharmacies will steer you toward the brand.
2. The TV ad for Panadol has been running for forty years. Brand familiarity is a powerful thing, especially when you're sick or stressed and not in the mood to read fine print.
3. The packaging is designed to feel medical-grade. White boxes with red crosses, blister packs that look like prescription medicine. Generics often look more workmanlike, which makes them feel less "real."
4. The savings per individual purchase are small. Saving $5 on a single box of Panadol doesn't feel life-changing. It's the cumulative annual figure that matters.

None of these are reasons not to switch. They're reasons to expect resistance — your own, your partner's, your housemate's — and to plan for it.

How to actually make the switch

A few practical tips that have made this stick for me and people I've recommended it to:

Buy in bulk once. If you grab a 100-pack of generic paracetamol and it's sitting in your bathroom cupboard, you'll use it instead of the brand because it's literally the closest one. The friction of the supermarket aisle is what keeps people on the brand.

Decant if it bothers you. Some people genuinely feel weird about the packaging. If that's you, transfer the generic into an old branded box. (Yes, this is silly. Yes, it works.)

Tell your partner. If your household has two adults making purchases independently, you'll both keep buying brands until one of you sets the new default.

Keep brand for the medicine cabinet. If having Panadol on hand for guests, kids' grandparents, or whoever genuinely matters to you, fine — buy a small box for the cabinet and the generic 100-pack for actual use.

The total annual savings, properly calculated

For an average two-adult Australian household, this is what switching looks like, using realistic usage:

That's the conservative estimate. For a family of four with kids and hayfever, you can roughly double those numbers — call it $330 a year.

The TL;DR

If you take nothing else away from this:

• Panadol = paracetamol = generic paracetamol. Identical drug. ~3-9x price difference.
• Nurofen = ibuprofen = generic ibuprofen. Identical drug. ~4x price difference.
• Claratyne = loratadine = generic loratadine. Identical drug. ~3x price difference.
• Switching saves the average household $80-$150/year for zero quality compromise (biggest if there's a hayfever sufferer; smaller if antihistamines are seasonal-only).
• The TGA regulates generics to the same standard as brands.
• Buy a big pack of each, store them where you'd reach for the brand, and the habit takes care of itself.

Generic switching is one of the most boring, lowest-friction wins available to Australian households right now. No subscription, no app, no diet, no behaviour change. Just buy a different box.