Doses and injecting
The manufacturer's own ladder, week by week, and what each step costs.
Doses and injectingMicrodosing GLP-1s: what it saves you, and what it doesn'tMicrodosing is not a medical term, no dose below the label's starting dose has been studied, and the evidence is an open question rather than a finding. The money claim is checkable though, and it does not survive contact with our own data. Not one of the 39 programs we track charges less for a smaller dose. The two sellers who market microdosing as its own product charge $149 and $169 a month for it, both on long prepay commitments, against $119 for full-dose tirzepatide billed monthly at the cheapest sellers on our board.Doses and injectingThe semaglutide dose ladder, and what each step costsSemaglutide is titrated upward over months rather than started at the target dose, to let gastrointestinal side effects settle. For Wegovy the pen ladder runs 0.25 mg, 0.5 mg, 1 mg, 1.7 mg and 2.4 mg, with a 7.2 mg high-dose strength above it. The part most charts leave out is the money: Novo's own self-pay price is flat at $349 a month across every pen dose from 0.25 to 2.4 mg, so climbing the ladder does not raise the brand price, while many compounded sellers do charge more at higher doses. Here is the ladder, what each step costs at the cheapest verified seller, and which sellers hold one price the whole way.Doses and injectingWhere to inject a GLP-1, and the one thing the labels disagree aboutAll the weekly GLP-1 injections go into the same three places. The Wegovy label says to inject subcutaneously in the abdomen, thigh or upper arm, rotating sites with each dose, once weekly at any time of day with or without meals. Zepbound's label says the same about the abdomen and thigh but adds something nobody mentions: the back of the upper arm should be injected by another person. If you are on a compounded vial rather than a pen, the task is different again, because you are drawing the dose yourself.Doses and injectingThe Wegovy dosing chart, and what year one actually costsThe Wegovy pen ladder is 0.25 mg, 0.5 mg, 1 mg, 1.7 mg and 2.4 mg, with a 7.2 mg high-dose strength above it, stepped up over months rather than started at the target. Novo's self-pay price is flat at $349 a month across the whole standard range, so climbing costs nothing extra. What that flat number hides is the first year: a new self-pay patient gets two fills at $199 before the $349 starts, which works out at $3,888 for twelve months rather than the $4,188 the sticker implies.