The GLP-1 Dosage Chart: How Semaglutide and Tirzepatide Compare

GLP-1 dosing chart: how semaglutide and tirzepatide schedules compare at a glance

Type "GLP-1 dosage" into a search bar and you'll land on four or five different numbers depending on which drug the page happens to be about — because there isn't one dosing chart to memorize, there are several. Semaglutide and tirzepatide are each sold under multiple brand names, for different medical uses, and every version carries its own FDA-evaluated starting dose, step size, and ceiling. The chart below lines up the whole class so you can see it side by side before drilling into any single drug.

Two patterns hold across almost every row. Every drug starts at its lowest listed dose regardless of how much weight loss or glucose control someone eventually needs, and every drug steps up gradually rather than all at once. Where the rows split is the ceiling itself, and how it's counted — 15mg on a tirzepatide label isn't stronger or weaker than 2.4mg on Wegovy's; they're different molecules, measured on different scales, evaluated in separate trials.

One older GLP-1 belongs in the full picture even without a dedicated dosing guide of its own here: liraglutide, sold as Saxenda for weight management and Victoza for type 2 diabetes, climbs in weekly 0.6mg increments — faster titration than any semaglutide or tirzepatide product — from a 0.6mg starting dose to a 3mg daily maintenance ceiling. It's a once-daily injection, largely eclipsed by the once-weekly options since 2021, but still FDA-approved and still prescribed.

Is there a GLP-1 dose conversion chart? Why doses don't convert 1:1 between drugs

Search for one and you'll find plenty of results claiming to answer it — clinics and compounding-pharmacy blogs publish tables pairing, say, 0.5mg of semaglutide with 2.5mg of tirzepatide as roughly "equivalent." None of that comes from the FDA. No prescribing label for any semaglutide or tirzepatide product includes a milligram conversion to the other molecule, because they aren't interchangeable the way two brands of the same generic drug are. Semaglutide activates one receptor pathway — GLP-1. Tirzepatide activates two — GLP-1 and GIP. A number on one drug's scale doesn't translate mathematically to a number on the other's.

What happens in practice when someone switches is closer to a restart than a conversion. A prescriber typically begins tirzepatide at its own 2.5mg starting dose regardless of what semaglutide dose the patient was previously on, then re-titrates upward on tirzepatide's own schedule — not a formula that maps the old dose onto a new one. The same logic runs in reverse when switching from tirzepatide back to semaglutide. This isn't a gap in the research so much as a structural fact: two different drugs get two different starting points.

The "equivalence charts" that do circulate — mostly from compounding pharmacies and weight-loss clinics rather than manufacturers or medical societies — are built from clinical observation and trial comparisons, not a validated conversion formula. Treat any chart claiming a precise milligram match between semaglutide and tirzepatide as a marketing simplification rather than a clinical standard, and bring it to your prescriber as a question, not a plan.

GLP-1 dosage chart by drug: Wegovy, Ozempic, Zepbound, Mounjaro, and compounded versions

Each of these has its own full breakdown — every step, missed-dose rules, and current pricing. This is the short version, to help you find the right one.

• Wegovy climbs five steps from 0.25mg to a 2.4mg maintenance dose over at least 16 weeks, with a newer 7.2mg strength available for patients who've plateaued on 2.4mg. The full ladder, plus the separate oral-tablet schedule, is in the Wegovy dosage guide.
• Ozempic uses a shorter four-step ladder that tops out at 2mg — a number people frequently confuse with Wegovy's 2.4mg, since both are semaglutide. The Ozempic dosage guide untangles that mix-up and covers the diabetes-specific titration logic.
• Zepbound and Mounjaro share one ladder: 2.5mg up through 15mg in 2.5mg steps, with 5mg, 10mg, and 15mg all recognized as legitimate maintenance doses. The tirzepatide dosage guide has the full step-by-step chart and the unit-conversion math for compounded vials.
• Compounded semaglutide, Rybelsus, and the oral Wegovy tablet each run their own schedules and unit-conversion details, covered in the semaglutide dosage guide.

Why do GLP-1s all start so low, and how fast does the dose climb?

The slow start isn't caution for its own sake — it's how these drugs limit the nausea, vomiting, and other GI side effects that are the single biggest reason people reduce or stop a GLP-1 early. Every starting dose across the class, from Wegovy's 0.25mg to tirzepatide's 2.5mg, is explicitly labeled as a tolerability dose rather than a treatment dose. It isn't expected to do the job it was prescribed for.

The pace is remarkably consistent for a class with such different milligram numbers: nearly every weekly injectable steps up no sooner than every four weeks, whether it's semaglutide or tirzepatide, weight-management or diabetes-labeled. Liraglutide is the exception — its daily-injection schedule climbs in weekly increments instead, reaching its ceiling in about five weeks rather than several months, a difference tied to how quickly the older molecule clears the body compared with the newer once-weekly drugs.

None of these timelines are fixed floors that force a rush. A prescriber can hold any step longer if side effects haven't settled, and every label treats that as a normal, expected adjustment rather than a deviation from plan.

GLP-1 dose for weight loss vs. for diabetes — does the chart change?

The milligram numbers on the label don't change based on why a drug gets prescribed, but the target does. Wegovy and Zepbound were built and tested around a fixed weight-management target — 2.4mg and the 5/10/15mg tier, respectively — as the dose most likely to produce meaningful weight loss, and most patients on those labels are guided toward it. Wegovy's 7.2mg HD strength sits above that target rather than replacing it: the label reserves it for people who have tolerated 2.4mg for at least four weeks and still need more weight reduction.

Ozempic and Mounjaro run on a different logic entirely. Their ceilings — 2mg and 15mg — exist because a prescriber might need them, not because everyone should reach them. Dose changes are driven by blood sugar response, measured through labs, and plenty of people on either drug stay at an intermediate dose indefinitely because that's already where their glucose control sits. Off-label use of Ozempic or Mounjaro for weight loss borrows the diabetes ladder without a validated weight-focused endpoint behind it, which is part of why patient experiences at any given dose vary so widely.

GLP-1 dosing in perimenopause and menopause: does hormone status change the plan?

No label for any GLP-1 — semaglutide, tirzepatide, or liraglutide — recognizes a separate dosing schedule based on reproductive stage. The starting doses, step sizes, and ceilings above apply the same way at 32 or at 55.

What's shifted is the research on how well a given dose performs. A 2024 study in Metabolic Syndrome and Related Disorders looked at low-dose semaglutide specifically in menopausal women, and a separate 2024 analysis in the journal Menopause found postmenopausal women combining semaglutide with hormone therapy lost meaningfully more weight than those on semaglutide alone. More recent work on tirzepatide points in the same direction — larger reductions when hormone therapy is part of the picture. None of these findings change what dose to start at; they're about how the body responds to a given dose, and estrogen appears to be part of that story.

The more common reason a GLP-1 enters the conversation in midlife isn't diabetes at all — it's the abdominal fat redistribution and insulin resistance that declining estrogen drives. That's worth naming directly with whoever is prescribing, since it changes how eligibility and expectations get framed even though it doesn't change the numbers on the ladder. For a fuller look at where GLP-1s fit among the other options, weight loss medication for perimenopause covers the whole landscape, medication and otherwise.

Compounded GLP-1 doses: why the vial math differs by pharmacy

Every dose in the chart above assumes a branded pen — pre-measured to the exact milligram, no math required. Compounded semaglutide and tirzepatide work differently: a pharmacy mixes the drug into a vial at its own chosen concentration, and the dose gets drawn with an insulin syringe that measures in units, not milligrams. Two pharmacies compounding the identical prescribed dose can hand a patient two very different-looking vials.

That's the whole reason vial math varies by pharmacy — not inconsistent medicine, just inconsistent concentration. Confirming your specific vial's mg-per-mL concentration, rather than assuming it matches a chart you found online, is the difference between drawing the right dose and drawing the wrong one. The full current landscape of compounded pricing and legal status across pharmacies is in the compounded GLP-1 comparison; this page sticks to the dosing side of that picture.

Where to get your exact GLP-1 dose schedule

Nothing above replaces the number your own prescriber sets for you. Every dose on every ladder is a prescription decision, weighed against your health history, tolerability, and — for the diabetes-labeled drugs — your labs. Use this comparison as a cross-check for that conversation, not a plan to build on your own.