For the hypergeometric spectral curve and its confluent degenerations, we obtain a simple formula expressing the topological recursion free energies as a sum over BPS states (degenerate spectral networks) for an appropriate quadratic differential. In doing so, we provide a complete description of the corresponding BPS structures over a generic locus in the parameter space. In particular, we count degenerations of spectral networks occurring for the nine examples considered. We conjecture that a similar relation should hold more generally whenever the corresponding BPS structure is uncoupled.