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Standalone drugstores like CVS, Walgreens, and Duane Reade can be a handy place to pick up a prescription or over the counter medicine But they also sell household essentials, groceries, and other items and can often be more convenient than a grocery store or big box store.
Drugstores and independent pharmacies are also places where you can earn up to 5% cash back on your purchases by using the right credit card. Here’s our take on the best cards to use for drugstore purchases.
Overview of the best drugstore and pharmacy credit cards
Here’s our short-list of the best drugstore and pharmacy credit cards. These cards will give you the best total rewards on your purchases at drugstores and standalone pharmacies.
| Card | Drugstore Rewards | Other Rewards |
|---|---|---|
 Citi Custom Cash℠ Card Annual fee: $0 | 5% cash back on the first $500 of spending each month in the eligible category, in which you spend the most. Eligible categories include drugstores. | 1% on all other purchases. |
 Chase Freedom Unlimited Annual fee: $0 | Unlimited 3% back on purchases at drugstores. | 5% on travel purchased through Chase Ultimate Rewards. 3% on dining at restaurants, including takeout and eligible delivery services. 1.5% on all other purchases |
 Chase Freedom Flex Annual fee: $0 | Unlimited 3% back on purchases at drugstores. | 5% on up to $1,500 in combined purchases in bonus categories each quarter. 3% on dining at restaurants, including takeout and eligible delivery services. 1% on all other purchases |
Cards for pharmacies within grocery stores
If you pick up your prescriptions at the pharmacy counter at your local grocery store, you can likely get the most cash back by using a grocery store credit card. Most grocery store pharmacy purchases get processed as grocery store purchases, so you likely won’t earn additional cash back on a drugstore credit card. But you will earn more cash back with a grocery card.
The best cards for drugstore purchases
Here are some more details on our picks for the best cards for purchases at drugstores and standalone pharmacies.
Citi Custom Cash℠ Card – 5% cash back at drugstores
The Citi Custom Cash℠ Card typically isn’t marketed as a pharmacy credit card, but you can use it to get 5% on your drugstore purchases on up to $500 in purchases monthly.
The Citi Custom Cash℠ Card offers 5% cash back on up to $500 in spending on the category where you spend the most each month. Eligible categories include restaurants, gas stations, grocery stores, drugstores, home improvement stores, fitness clubs, live entertainment, select travel, select transit and select streaming services. The Custom Cash carries no annual fee.
The best way to use the Citi Custom Cash℠ Card is to select a bonus category and use the card primarily for that bonus category. The card earns 5% rewards only in the eligible category where you spend the most each month, and only on your first $500 in spending in that category. Other purchases earn 1% rewards.
Citi Custom Cash® Card: bonus_miles_full
Our take on the welcome bonus: Citi doesn’t often offer an increased welcome bonus on the Custom Cash. If you do not yet have a Custom Cash card, there’s no reason to wait for an increased bonus.
The link above is a link directly to the bank’s website. We don’t make money when you use the above link, but we always show you the best offer.
Card highlights:
Annual fee: $0
Rewards: 5% on the first $500 in monthly purchases in your top eligible category; 1% everywhere else
Chase Freedom Unlimited – Unlimited 3% cash back at drugstores and pharmacies + restaurants + 1.5% everywhere
The Chase Freedom family of cards offers unlimited 3% cash back on drugstore purchases. If you choose the Chase Freedom Unlimited®, you’ll get 1.5% rewards everywhere, plus additional rewards in select categories.
The Chase Freedom Unlimited® offers cardmembers 1.5% rewards on all purchases. It is the essential “everywhere else card” in the Chase Ultimate Rewards® ecosystem.
Although the Chase Freedom Unlimited® is marketed as a “1.5% everywhere” card, it offers plenty of bonus spending categories. You get 5% on travel purchased through Chase Ultimate Rewards®, 3% on dining at restaurants including eligible takeout and delivery, and 3% on drugstore purchases. Although rewards are marketed as cash back, the card earns Chase Ultimate Rewards® points behind the scenes, which can be transferred to a premium Ultimate Rewards® card and redeemed for greater value.
For a card with no annual fee, the Chase Freedom Unlimited® comes with a healthy set of benefits, including purchase protection, extended warranty, secondary auto rental collision damage waiver insurance, and trip cancellation/interruption insurance.
Get the Chase Freedom Unlimited®: Welcome bonuses
Offer #1: card_name: bonus_miles_full
Offer #2: Chase Freedom Unlimited®: Earn a $200 bonus after you spend $500 on purchases in the first 3 months from account opening. Plus get a 5% gas and grocery offer up to $600 cash back. (Earn 5% cash back on combined gas station and grocery store purchases on up to $12,000 spent in the first year.)
Our take on the welcome bonuses: These are both arguably the best offers we’ve seen on this card. One of the other might be better for you, depending on how you plan to use the card.
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Card highlights:
Annual fee: $0
Rewards: 5% travel through Chase; 3% dining; 3% drugstore; 1.5% all other purchases
Chase Freedom Flex- Unlimited 3% cash back at drugstores and pharmacies + restaurants + 5% rotating categories
Like the Chase Freedom Unlimited®, the Chase Freedom Flex offers unlimited 3% cash back on drugstore purchases. But the Freedom Flex pairs its drugstore rewards with 5% rewards in categories that rotate quarterly.
The Chase Freedom Flex℠ is Chase’s take on the 5% rotating category card, offering increased rewards in limited-time categories that are announced quarterly. The Freedom Flex has no annual fee.
The Freedom Flex offers 5% back on up to $1,500 spent each quarter in rotating bonus quarterly categories. Categories have historically included purchases at grocery stores, Amazon.com, gas stations and big box retailers. In addition, the card offers 3% cash back on restaurants and drugstore purchases and 1% cash back on everything else. All rewards are earned as Ultimate Rewards points, but can be redeemed for cash back.
In addition to cash back rewards, the Chase Freedom Flex℠ offers a generous suite of benefits for a card with no annual fee. The card protects your purchases with Purchase Protection, Extended Warranty Protection, and Cell Phone Protection and it offers protection for your travels with secondary auto rental collision damage waiver insurance and trip cancellation/interruption insurance.
Get the Chase Freedom Flex℠ welcome bonus
Chase Freedom Flex℠: Earn a $200 bonus after you spend $500 on purchases in the first 3 months from account opening. Plus get a 5% gas and grocery offer up to $600 cash back. (Earn 5% cash back on combined gas station and grocery store purchases on up to $12,000 spent in the first year.)
Our take on the welcome bonus: This is the best offer we’ve seen on this card. Getting a $200 bonus after spending $500 on the card is good, but getting five percent cash back on up to $12,000 of spending on gas and groceries makes this card both one of the best gas cards and one of the best grocery cards for new cardmembers.
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Card highlights:
Annual fee: $0
Rewards: 5% in rotating categories (up to $1,500 in combined purchases per quarter); 5% travel through Chase; 3% dining; 3% drugstore; 1% all other purchases
How we picked
When we create our lists of best cards, we consider a bunch of factors, including rewards rate, annual fee, caps on rewards, and how easy points are to use. We start by selecting baseline card with no annual fee that offers the highest rate of uncapped earnings available to general consumers. In the case of drugstores, our baseline cards were the Chase Freedom Flex℠ and Chase Freedom Unlimited®, but of which offer unlimited 3% back at drugstores.
Other cards get added to our list if they are better than our baseline card in some cases. Maybe a card with an annual fee gets you more earnings in more categories. Or maybe there’s another card that caps earnings on drugstores, but offers another compelling category or two.
Cards we didn’t consider include any card that earned rewards on drugstores with a value equivalent to less than 3% cash back. In some cases, we excluded cards that earn more than 3 points per dollar when the points couldn’t be redeemed for cash or travel rewards with an average value that met our benchmark.
Advertiser disclosure: Cards and Points has partnered with CardRatings for our coverage of credit card products. Cards and Points and CardRatings may receive a commission from card issuers. Some or all of the card offers that appear on this site are from advertisers. Compensation may affect how and where card products appear on the site. The site does not include all card companies or all available offers. Opinions, reviews, analyses & recommendations are the author’s alone, and have not been reviewed, endorsed or approved by any of these entities. Terms apply to all credit card benefits.