Drug facts
Compounded tirzepatide dosage chart
If you have a vial in front of you and want the mark on the syringe, work it out here — it needs the concentration printed on your own label, because a compounded vial’s strength is set by the pharmacy that made it.
Quick answer
The approved schedule starts at 2.5 mg once weekly for four weeks, then moves to 5 mg once weekly. After that the dose may rise in 2.5 mg steps, no sooner than four weeks on the current dose, to a maximum of 15 mg once weekly.
The schedule1
- Weeks 1–42.5 mgStarting dose. Intended to reduce gastrointestinal side effects, not for weight reduction.
- Weeks 5–85 mg
- Weeks 9–127.5 mg
- Weeks 13–1610 mg
- Weeks 17–2012.5 mg
- Week 21 onward15 mgMaximum dose.
Compounded tirzepatide has no dosing label of its own, so this is the schedule a prescriber works from when writing for a compounded vial too: the approved product’s. What changes with a vial is not the dose but how you measure it, which is the section after next.
The starting dose1
2.5 mg once weekly, for four weeks. That is the only starting dose the label gives, and it is the same for everyone. In the label’s words it “is for treatment initiation and is not approved as a maintenance dosage” — a first step, taken so the gastrointestinal side effects can settle before the dose rises, which is why the four-week interval matters more than it looks.
A reader who has been on 2.5 mg for a month and lost little has not found that the drug is not working — that dose is a starting step, not one the label approves for staying on. What the evidence says about the doses that do is set out in does compounded tirzepatide work?
The maintenance dose1
The label names three: 5 mg, 10 mg or 15 mg once weekly. There is no single “right” maintenance dose. A dose that is working and tolerated is a dose to stay on, and a prescriber may hold at 5 mg or 10 mg rather than climbing to the top.
The highest dose1
15 mg once weekly is the maximum in the label, reached no sooner than twenty weeks in, after the full ladder. No weekly dose above it is approved. If a compounded vial or a seller’s plan appears to go higher, check what the number refers to: sellers sometimes quote the total milligrams in a vial or in a month of doses, which is not the weekly dose.
Why the steps are four weeks apart1
Each increase is permitted only after at least four weeks at the current dose. Moving faster is the most common way people run into nausea and vomiting severe enough to stop treatment altogether, and the schedule is built around that rather than around reaching 15 mg quickly.
What this means for a compounded vial1
On the label — Mounjaro / Zepbound
Supplied in single-dose pens and vials at fixed strengths, so the dose on the schedule is the dose in the device.
In a compounded vial
Concentration is set by the compounding pharmacy and is not standardized between sellers. The same “5 mg” can mean a different volume from a different vial, which is why the number on the syringe is not the number on the schedule. See units, milligrams and milliliters.
Each dose in units, and mixing a vial1
On a compounded vial, the schedule above becomes a set of syringe marks, and which marks depends on the vial’s strength. From a 10 mg/mL vial, the first four steps are 25, 50, 75 and 100 units, and 12.5 mg and 15 mg no longer fit in a 1 mL syringe. From a 20 mg/mL vial the same six steps run from 12.5 to 75 units.
| Dose | 10 mg/mL | 20 mg/mL |
|---|---|---|
| 2.5 mg | 25 units | 12.5 units |
| 5 mg | 50 units | 25 units |
| 7.5 mg | 75 units | 37.5 units |
| 10 mg | 100 units | 50 units |
| 12.5 mg | over 1 mL | 62.5 units |
| 15 mg | over 1 mL | 75 units |
If a vial comes as a powder, the water added sets its strength: a 10 mg vial with 1 mL is 10 mg/mL, with 2 mL it is 5 mg/mL, and every mark above doubles. That volume comes from the pharmacy or the prescriber. The reconstitution calculator works out any combination, and tirzepatide dosage in units has the chart at more strengths.
What each dose costs2
Sellers price these doses differently. Some charge the same at every dose; others raise the price as the dose rises, which means the figure quoted at 2.5 mg is not what a maintenance dose costs.
Questions
- What is the starting dose of compounded tirzepatide?
- 2.5 mg once weekly for four weeks. Compounded tirzepatide has no dosing label of its own, so prescribers work from the approved label, whose only starting dose is 2.5 mg. The label calls it a dose for treatment initiation, not a maintenance dose; it lets the side effects settle before the dose rises to 5 mg.
- What is the maintenance dose of compounded tirzepatide?
- The approved label names 5 mg, 10 mg or 15 mg once weekly as maintenance doses. Which one is a prescriber's decision, and a dose that is working and tolerated is one to stay on.
- What is the highest dose of compounded tirzepatide?
- 15 mg once weekly, the maximum in the approved label, reached no sooner than twenty weeks in. No weekly dose above 15 mg is approved.
- How often can the dose go up?
- In 2.5 mg steps, each no sooner than four weeks on the current dose: 2.5, 5, 7.5, 10, 12.5 and 15 mg.
- What is the compounded tirzepatide dosage in units?
- The dose is set in milligrams; the units depend on the concentration printed on your vial, which the pharmacy sets. Units on a U-100 syringe equal the dose in milligrams divided by the concentration in mg/mL, times 100. From a 10 mg/mL vial, 2.5 mg is 25 units and 5 mg is 50 units.
Sources
- FDA prescribing information for ZEPBOUND (tirzepatide), sections 2.1–2.2, revision 8/2026 DailyMed
- This site's price index, computed from sellers' published billing Read it
The approved schedule as published, not a dose for you: your prescriber sets it, and the pace of each step.