In the United States, the average wholesale price (AWP) is a prescription drug term referring to the average price for medications offered at the wholesale level. The metric was originally intended to convey real pricing information to third-party payers, including government prescription drug programs. Commercial publishers of drug pricing data such as Red Book have published AWP data since at least 1970. The pricing information is "based on data obtained from manufacturers, distributors, and other suppliers." However, despite the data source, published AWPs are generally inflated by 20% relative to actual market prices or wholesale acquisition cost for prescription drugs.