Hospital Price Lookup

Cesarean Section (C-Section) Delivery: cost by metro

Maternity & delivery · inpatient (a hospital stay) · billed as MS-DRG 786 / 787 / 788 · priced across 29 metros

What does a Cesarean Section (C-Section) Delivery cost? Across 29 major U.S. metros, the typical insurer-negotiated price for a C-Section (MS-DRG 786 / 787 / 788) ranges from about $686 to $41,922 by metro, based on hospitals' own price-transparency files. Self-pay cash prices, where hospitals publish them, are often lower. Pick your metro for the local range and a hospital-by-hospital breakdown. These are price references from public data — not a quote, a bill, or medical or financial advice.

C-Section price by metro

The typical insurer-negotiated price for a C-Section, by metro — lowest first. Open a metro for the full three-level breakdown and every hospital.

Metro Typical negotiated Range Cash
St. Louis, MO $686 $686 $11,627
Columbus, OH $1,745 $1,151–$7,568 —
Kansas City, MO $2,717 $2,717–$13,725 —
Sacramento, CA $4,527 $4,527 —
San Francisco, CA $4,527 $4,527–$12,955 —
Detroit, MI $6,756 $6,678–$16,696 —
Denver, CO $7,093 $4,124–$31,127 —
Phoenix, AZ $8,853 $6,240–$28,005 $13,288
Nashville, TN $9,436 $8,850–$12,671 —
Austin, TX $9,526 $7,832–$14,557 —
Milwaukee, WI $9,871 $7,973–$13,851 —
Birmingham, AL $9,993 $6,756–$16,342 —
Jacksonville, FL $9,993 $9,905–$13,462 —
Louisville/Jefferson County, KY $10,191 $6,376–$14,000 $26,157
Indianapolis, IN $10,655 $9,213–$11,500 —
Cleveland, OH $11,517 $7,040–$13,230 —
Pittsburgh, PA $11,817 $8,616–$17,162 —
Houston, TX $11,951 $8,737–$17,450 —
Memphis, TN $11,957 $1,650–$11,957 —
San Jose, CA $12,041 $4,527–$18,720 —
Riverside, CA $13,704 $3,577–$19,925 —
Dallas, TX $14,028 $2,816–$84,767 —
Chicago, IL $15,298 $13,342–$17,504 —
New York, NY $15,844 $14,757–$22,552 $44,212
Tampa, FL $15,992 $10,841–$18,176 —
Seattle, WA $16,266 $4,793–$18,736 —
Hartford, CT $19,332 $9,960–$19,332 —
Virginia Beach, VA $21,519 $1,854–$26,827 —
San Antonio, TX $41,922 $2,585–$41,922 —

Source: hospitals' own machine-readable Standard Charges files, published under the U.S. Hospital Price Transparency rule (45 CFR §180.50). Most recent hospital file in this dataset: July 2026. Prices are references, not quotes or bills, and never medical or financial advice — where a hospital reports no price, nothing is shown rather than a guess.

About C-Section pricing

A C-Section is billed as MS-DRG 786 / 787 / 788 and is usually a inpatient (a hospital stay) service. Prices vary widely by metro and by hospital, which is why every figure here is tied to a specific hospital's own published file. 4 of these 29 metros have at least one hospital publishing a self-pay cash price.

The chargemaster (list) price is the hospital's undiscounted sticker rate. Almost no one actually pays it — insurers negotiate it down and self-pay patients are usually offered the cash price — but it shows how large the discount off list can be.

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