The 3 Best Premature Ejaculation (PE) Pills and How They Work

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Premature ejaculation (PE), sometimes called early climax, occurs when you ejaculate more quickly than you would prefer while enjoying solo play or sex with a partner.

There’s no exact amount of time before ejaculation that counts as premature. Some health experts define PE as ejaculation that happens within 1 minute of penetration (vaginal or anal). But it’s really a matter of preference and what works for you and those you have sex with.

Ejaculating too quickly can make masturbation or sex less pleasurable, affecting your satisfaction and relationships. Several reliable, credible companies sell PE pills that may be able to help you last longer.

Here are the top PE pills that we recommend:

• Best overall: Hims | Skip to review
• Best for PE + ED: Roman | Skip to review
• Most comprehensive outside PE: Lemonaid | Skip to review

Here’s a breakdown of each of the top PE pills so that you can decide how they compare and which one might work best for your sex life.

Best overall

Hims

Hims is a sexual health company that’s most known for providing prescription treatments for erectile dysfunction (ED), such as sildenafil (Viagra) and tadalafil (Cialis). But it also sells pills that may help with PE.

Hims sells two medications for early climax: sertraline and paroxetine, which are better known by the brand names Zoloft and Paxil. Both are selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs), which are often used to treat depression.

For $24, Hims offers enough 50-milligram (mg) tablets of sertraline or 10- to 40-mg tablets of paroxetine to use every day for a month. You can also order individual 50-mg tablets of sertraline as needed for $3 each.

Hims claims that a 50-mg tablet of sertraline can make you last up to 400% longer before ejaculation, but it bases this claim on an older 2014 review. The effectiveness of a tablet may vary depending on your overall health and lifestyle.

Hims cautions that its PE pills are not approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for treating PE. You’ll need to meet with a healthcare professional for an online consultation before you purchase medication from Hims, but you don’t need a health insurance plan to get a prescription.

Shipping is free, and there’s a 90-day money-back guarantee in case you’re unhappy with your results. Hims is a trusted and widely known company with many satisfied customers and only a few complaints related to side effects and a lack of effectiveness in some cases.

Best for PE + ED

Roman

Like Hims, Roman is a health services company that provides online consultations to receive prescriptions for medications that can treat ED, PE, and other conditions that specifically affect males.

Roman offers a month’s supply of the SSRI sertraline for $24 (about $0.80 per dose) as a prescription to treat PE. Roman offers sertraline in doses of 25, 50, or 100 mg.

The company also advertises ED medications called PDE5 inhibitors, including sildenafil and tadalafil, to treat PE. You can purchase generic sildenafil in doses of 20–100 mg for $4–$11 per dose or generic tadalafil in doses of 5–20 mg for $11–$44 per dose. Branded Viagra costs more, at $90 for each dose of 25–100 mg.

Roman doesn’t make any specific claims about the effectiveness of sertraline, sildenafil, or tadalafil for treating PE. Many of its pages advertising these medications caution that using them as PE treatments is considered an off-label use. This means the medications are not FDA-approved for this use and may cause some side effects in people who don’t have depression.

You don’t need health insurance for an online consultation with Roman. The company offers free 2-day shipping but does not accept returns for prescription medications.

Roman has many positive reviews. Any complaints are mostly related to unexpected auto-renewal for monthly supplies and slow shipping.

Most comprehensive outside PE

Lemonaid

Lemonaid is a medical services company that provides prescriptions for PE treatments. But unlike Hims and Roman, Lemonaid is a full-service telehealth primary care provider that offers consultations for various conditions beyond sexual health.

The company offers sertraline and PDE5 inhibitors, such as sildenafil and tadalafil, that can help treat PE. For both medications, this is an off-label use, not approved by the FDA, so be cautious about possible side effects and interactions with any medications you may already be taking.

Lemonaid doesn’t break down specific pricing or doses for its PE treatments. The company advertises that treatments start at around $1 per pill and require an online consultation for a one-time fee of $25. Your exact pricing and dosage will depend on a healthcare professional’s discretion.

Shipping is free, but you can also have your prescriptions delivered to a local pharmacy or sent to you through a mail-order pharmacy service.

Lemonaid isn’t as widely known as Hims or Roman for PE treatments. It has positive reviews from many customers but has received some complaints about slow, unresponsive customer service and the high cost of medications.

We vetted every pill or service we recommend with a team of internal experts and chose the top PE pills based on the following factors:

• How trustworthy or reliable is the product in treating PE?
• Are reviews generally positive for the product, with negative reviews mainly focused on customer service?
• Is it easy to regularly use the product to get the best results?
• Is it affordable to get regular doses of the product without straining your medical expenses?
• Does research support the use of these products for treating PE or ED?

A serotonin dysfunction in your central nervous system usually causes PE. Serotonin is a neurotransmitter — a chemical messenger that sends signals between nerve cells involved in many processes in your body, including your mood and sleep cycle.

Serotonin works alongside another neurotransmitter, dopamine, which performs many of the same functions. Serotonin and dopamine are both involved in dopamine pathways throughout your body that control physical and reward responses, including ejaculation.

Sertraline can help address disruptions in these dopamine pathways and reduce how quickly you ejaculate.

In a 2021 study, researchers found that sertraline helped with PE whether participants took it daily or as needed. Sertraline was more effective but also had more side effects when taken daily than when taken as needed.

PE can have both physical and psychological causes. Possible physical causes include:

• low or abnormal levels of hormones such as testosterone
• abnormal levels of neurotransmitters involved in arousal and ejaculation
• conditions that affect the prostate or urethra, such as benign prostatic hyperplasia and urinary tract infections

Some causes, such as performance anxiety and feelings of guilt during sex, may be temporary, and you may be able to address them with counseling.

However, some psychological causes may require treatment or long-term counseling, such as:

• depression
• stress
• low self-esteem or a negative body image
• experience as a perpetrator or survivor of sexual abuse
• concerns about your romantic relationships

PE can become more noticeable as you get older. PE may also happen with ED, as physiological changes in your body make it harder for you to get and keep an erection. This may make you feel like you have to rush through sex before you lose your erection.

When choosing the right PE pills for your needs, you might consider the following factors:

• Can you afford the medication?
• Do you trust the medical care you receive from professionals associated with the company?
• Are you satisfied with the service you’re receiving from the brand you chose?
• Can you take the PE pills regularly, considering the potential side effects?
• Are you willing to take PE pills regularly to get the best results, if needed?
• Have you consulted a doctor about using PE pills?

Here are some possible side effects of PE pills such as sertraline:

• nausea
• diarrhea
• headache
• restlessness
• anxiety
• insomnia
• suicidal thoughts
• lower sodium levels in your blood
• a specific type of glaucoma
• a sharp increase in serotonin levels in your body (serotonin syndrome)

Some of these side effects may become less noticeable or intense after you’ve used PE pills for a few weeks.

It’s advisable to seek medical advice if you’ve tried PE pills and they aren’t working as expected. Underlying medical conditions could also affect your ejaculation timing.

While the services listed in this article offer some access to licensed medical professionals, it’s always best to meet in person with an experienced healthcare professional who you trust and who understands the full picture of your health.

Pills aren’t always the best or only treatment option for PE, and you may need other treatments or visits with specialists, such as cardiologists or urologists, who can check for other health conditions that might affect your sexual performance.

Here are some of the most frequently asked questions about PE pills.

Do PE pills work?

Although PE is considered an off-label use of the medications used in treating it, there is some evidence that the pills work.

PE pills work best when used along with lifestyle habits that support healthy sexual function, such as limiting alcohol consumption and recreational drug use and addressing any possible causes of PE that could be related to your mental health.

How long should it take for PE pills to start working?

PE pills such as sertraline may start working immediately — an hour or less after you take them.

But with some pills, you may not notice the effects until you’ve taken them regularly for a few days. How long a PE pill takes to work can also depend on your:

• diet
• lifestyle
• underlying health conditions

Will insurance cover costs?

Insurance doesn’t cover the cost of prescriptions from Hims or Roman.

Lemonaid accepts most health insurance plans to cover the cost of prescriptions because it’s a primary care provider rather than just a health and wellness service provider. This usually applies only if you have the medication sent to your local pharmacy.

Is there anything I should avoid when taking PE pills?

You should avoid taking SSRIs such as sertraline and paroxetine if you are taking:

• monoamine oxidase inhibitors (due to the risk of serotonin syndrome)
• the antipsychotic medication pimozide
• the antibiotic linezolid

Also, don’t drink grapefruit juice while taking sertraline, as this can cause excessive sertraline to build up in your blood.

How can I last longer in bed for PE?

To manage PE, you can try exercising your pelvic floor muscles; wearing condoms, which can reduce sensation; and trying different sex positions that may not stimulate your penis nerves as much.

There’s no exact measurement for how quickly is too quickly to ejaculate. But if you’re concerned that you’re finishing too quickly, PE pills may help you last a little longer during masturbation or sex with a partner.

If you can, consult a primary care doctor or any other specialists you may already be seeing before you use online services for PE pills. A healthcare professional can help you avoid possible side effects or interactions with other medications.