What does microdose GLP-1 mean
You are trying to work out how much to draw or when to step up.
Reference and calculator, not medical advice. Dosing figures below are transcribed from FDA-approved prescribing information and link back to it. Last reviewed August 2026.
"Microdosing" has no clinical definition and appears in none of the seven labels. It is an informal term for staying at or below the lowest step of the published schedule, and because there is no standard, two people using the word can mean quite different amounts.
The only fixed reference point is the labelled starting dose, which is a real number: 2.5 mg weekly for tirzepatide, 0.25 mg weekly for semaglutide injection. Anything described as a microdose is being measured against those, and every one of them is off-label by definition.
Side-by-side
Structural facts from each product’s prescribing information.
| Product | Active ingredient | Indication | Frequency | Start | Max labelled | Steps to max |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Zepbound Eli Lilly | Tirzepatide | Weight management | Weekly | 2.5 mg | 15 mg | 6 |
| Wegovy Novo Nordisk | Semaglutide | Weight management | Weekly | 0.25 mg | 2.4 mg | 5 |
Compounded vs brand-name: what actually differs
Current as of August 2026.
- Prepared by a pharmacy, not the original manufacturer — so there is no FDA-approved label for the exact preparation you receive.
- Much more restricted than during the 2024–25 shortages. Supply is smaller and less predictable than it was.
- Brand-name self-pay programmes have narrowed the price gap that made compounding attractive.
Compounded is usually cheaper but can change with the rules; brand-name costs more and is more predictable. Worth raising with whoever writes your prescription. FDA’s compounding pages have the detail if you want it.
mg → syringe units converter
U-100 syringe. Formula: (dose ÷ concentration) × 100.
Check the concentration printed on the vial you are actually holding. The same dose in milligrams is a completely different mark on the syringe at a different concentration. If the number here does not match what your prescriber told you, trust your prescriber.
Common questions
- Is a lower dose safer?
- Not established, and not something the labels address. Lower doses of these products exist only as steps on the way up, so no dataset describes staying at one indefinitely.
- Why do people do it?
- The reasons usually given are tolerability and cost. Both are real motivations; neither has been tested as a dosing strategy in a trial.
- Is it the same as splitting a dose?
- Often what is meant in practice, yes — and that is where the milligram-to-units arithmetic becomes the thing that goes wrong. Convert against the concentration on your own vial, every time.
Sources and last review
Every dosing figure on this page is transcribed from an FDA-approved label and links back to it. Conversions are arithmetic you can repeat by hand. Nothing here is reviewed by a clinician, and this site does not employ one — which is exactly why what I do publish stays traceable to its source.
- Zepbound (Tirzepatide) prescribing information — Eli Lilly, label revised 6 May 2026, checked 7 August 2026
- Wegovy (Semaglutide) prescribing information — Novo Nordisk, label revised 30 June 2026, checked 7 August 2026
Transcribed from the labels above and checked by me — Gavin, who builds this site, takes a GLP-1, and is not a clinician. Last reviewed August 2026. Found an error? [email protected] — I treat corrections as bugs. How this site is built and funded.
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