What a pharmacy website needs

The facts here come from primary sources: the FDA's BeSafeRx pages Considering an Online Pharmacy? and Locate a State-Licensed Online Pharmacy, the Google Ads Healthcare and medicines policy, Google's guidelines for representing your business and special hours help, Google Search Central's local business structured data doc and schema.org's Pharmacy type, all checked on November 14, 2026. This is general information, not legal or regulatory advice; your state board of pharmacy has the final word on what you may do and say. The rest is our view from building websites for small businesses.

The short answer

A pharmacy website needs a refill request and a transfer request that work on a phone, one page per service you actually provide, pharmacy hours shown separately from store hours, your state license and a US address and phone number on every page, a privacy policy written for health information, and a Google Business Profile and schema markup that match the site.

Refills and transfers

Refills are the reason most patients come back to the site, so the refill link belongs in the header, not three clicks deep. Keep the form short:

• Prescription number, with a small picture of a label showing where to find it.
• Patient name and date of birth, so the pharmacy can match the right person.
• Phone number and how the patient wants to hear that it is ready (call or text).
• Pickup or delivery, if you deliver, and the date they need it by.

A transfer request needs the patient's details, the medicine name, and the name and phone number of the current pharmacy, so your team can call them. Say plainly on both forms what happens next and how long it usually takes your team, for example that you call or text when it is ready, and what to do when the medicine is urgent: call the pharmacy. If you use a refill app or a portal from your pharmacy software vendor, link to it from the same place and keep the simple form for people who will not install an app. Our website forms UX guide covers field design.

Services pages: vaccines, compounding and more

Give each service you offer its own short page: vaccinations, compounding, medication reviews, blister packs or other adherence packaging, home delivery, durable medical equipment, travel health, and so on. Each page should say who it is for, whether it needs an appointment or takes walk-ins, what to bring, and whether insurance may cover it. Book directly from the page if you take appointments; our online booking guide covers the options.

List only what you do and are licensed and set up to do. Rules on which vaccines a pharmacist may give, at what ages, and on compounding differ by state, so check the wording of each services page against your state board's rules rather than copying another pharmacy's page. Avoid promises about results or claims that a compounded medicine works better than another product; describe the service, not the outcome. The same care applies to service pages for a medical practice.

Store hours and pharmacist hours

Many pharmacies sit inside a larger store, and the pharmacy counter often keeps shorter hours than the shop. Patients who arrive after the pharmacist has left are the ones who complain, so show the pharmacy hours on their own, close to the refill link, and the store hours below them if you have both. Include lunch breaks if the counter closes for one.

For holidays, update the site and your Business Profile together. Google's help says you can set special hours if your business "temporarily adjusts its hours of operation or remains closed for up to 6 days in a row", and that "It's a good idea to confirm your hours for official holidays, even if they're the same as your regular hours."

Show you are a real, licensed pharmacy

Patients have good reason to be careful: the FDA runs a campaign, BeSafeRx, to help people avoid unsafe websites that only look like pharmacies. Its page lists the "Safe Signs". The FDA says an online pharmacy is likely safe if it:

• "Always requires a doctor's prescription"
• "Provides a physical address and telephone number in the United States"
• "Has a licensed pharmacist on staff to answer your questions"
• "Is licensed with a state board of pharmacy"

Your website should make each of those easy to see. Put your street address and phone number in the footer of every page, name your pharmacists on an about page, and show your state pharmacy license number with a link to the board's license lookup. The FDA's state-licensed pharmacy page tells consumers to look up the pharmacy in the state's license database and says: "If your online pharmacy is not listed, you should not use that pharmacy."

The same FDA list of warning signs includes a site that "Does not provide clear written protections of your personal and financial information, or sells it to other websites" and one that "Offers deep discounts or prices that seem too good to be true". Prices are fine to publish, but in our view a page full of discount banners on prescription medicines looks like the sites the FDA warns about.

Google Ads for pharmacies

If you plan to advertise refills or prescriptions online, read Google's Healthcare and medicines policy before you build the landing pages. It says the businesses it covers "include but aren't limited to online pharmacies and telemedicine providers." For the United States, Google allows online pharmacies that are accredited by one of the programs it lists: LegitScript's Internet pharmacy certification, which Google describes as "Available to websites that accept refills, transfers, or new prescriptions", the National Association of Boards of Pharmacy (NABP) Digital Pharmacy Accreditation, or a ".Pharmacy" domain. Google adds: "Advertisers must also be certified with Google."

So if your website takes refills or transfers online and you advertise it, expect these rules to apply. Plan the certification time into any launch that depends on ads, and ads for the front of the store (gifts, cosmetics, a photo counter) may be the simpler start. If an ad account gets suspended, our Google Ads account suspended guide explains the appeal steps.

Privacy and accessibility

A refill form collects health information, so treat it with more care than a normal contact form: send it over HTTPS to a system your pharmacy is allowed to use for patient data, not to a plain email inbox, and keep marketing trackers off the form pages. We cover the privacy side for healthcare sites in the dental website guide's privacy section and the basics in website privacy basics; a pharmacy's compliance officer or lawyer should review the privacy policy itself.

Many pharmacy patients are older or have low vision, so large readable type, real buttons, form labels and good contrast matter more than on most sites. See website accessibility basics for the checks.

Google Business Profile and schema

If your pharmacy is inside a grocery store or another business, Google may allow it its own Business Profile. Google's guidelines say "Publicly-facing departments that operate as distinct entities should have their own page", that the department's exact name "must be different from that of the main business", and that its main category must differ too. "Their hours may sometimes differ from those of the main business." The rest of the profile setup is in our Google Business Profile guide, and Business Profile reviews covers asking for reviews.

For markup, schema.org's Pharmacy type is defined as "A pharmacy or drugstore" and sits under both MedicalBusiness and MedicalOrganization. Google's local business structured data doc shows a pharmacy inside a department store: the store is the main LocalBusiness, and the pharmacy is a Pharmacy item in its department property with its own phone number and opening hours. Google's text: "Define properties that differ from the main store individually in each respective department element." Our local business schema guide walks through the markup.

A short checklist (our view)

• Refill and transfer links in the header; both forms work on a phone and say what happens next.
• One page per service you provide, checked against your state's rules.
• Pharmacy hours shown separately from store hours; holiday hours updated on the site and the Business Profile.
• US street address and phone number on every page; pharmacists named; license number with a link to the state lookup.
• No discount-heavy prescription banners.
• Google's healthcare certification planned before any ad campaign for refills or prescriptions.
• Health forms sent to a system approved for patient data; privacy policy reviewed.
• Readable type, labelled forms, good contrast.
• Business Profile and Pharmacy schema match the site's name, address, phone and hours.

Related guides: the medical practice website, optometrist website and dental website guides, and the ecommerce launch checklist if you sell front-of-store products online. If you want a pharmacy website built this way, see our website development service or all our services.

Frequently asked questions

What pages does a pharmacy website need?

A home page with refill and transfer links, a refill request form, a transfer request form, one page per service you offer (such as vaccinations or compounding), a page with pharmacy and store hours, an about page naming your pharmacists, a contact page with your US address and phone number, and a privacy policy.

How can patients tell a pharmacy website is legitimate?

The FDA's BeSafeRx page says an online pharmacy is likely safe if it always requires a doctor's prescription, provides a physical address and telephone number in the United States, has a licensed pharmacist on staff to answer questions, and is licensed with a state board of pharmacy. Show all four on your site and link to your state's license lookup.

Can a pharmacy advertise on Google Ads?

Yes, with limits. In the United States, Google allows online pharmacies accredited by LegitScript, the NABP Digital Pharmacy Accreditation or a .Pharmacy domain, and the advertiser must also be certified with Google. Google says LegitScript's certification covers websites that accept refills, transfers or new prescriptions.

Can a pharmacy inside a store have its own Google Business Profile?

Google's guidelines say publicly-facing departments that operate as distinct entities should have their own page, with a name and main category different from the main business. The pharmacy's hours can then differ from the store's.