Wegovy Doses: The Shot (0.25 to 7.2 mg) and the Pill (1.5 to 25 mg)

What are the Wegovy doses?

The shot starts at 0.25 mg once a week and steps up every 4 weeks through 0.5 mg, 1 mg and 1.7 mg. Most people then stay on 2.4 mg, and adults who need more weight loss can go up to 7.2 mg. The pill starts at 1.5 mg once a day and steps up every 30 days through 4 mg and 9 mg to 25 mg.¹

Elena Voss is a mother writing for mothers, not a treating clinician, and holds no medical license. Every clinical figure here is cited inline to its primary source, the trial or the FDA label, so you can check it. This is background reading, not medical advice.

Same molecule, two very different routines. One is a weekly injection you can take any time of day. The other is a daily tablet with rules about water, food and waiting. Which suits a mother's morning is not a small question.

Both ladders, with the price of each step

The table lines the two schedules up and adds Novo Nordisk's self-pay price for each step, read in October 2026.² A month means a box of four pens, or a bottle of 30 tablets.

The $199 introductory price covers two monthly fills of the 0.25 mg and 0.5 mg pens, for patients new to the offer, through December 31, 2026.² After that the pen is a flat $349 at every standard dose. For budgeting, that flat price is the useful fact. Climbing the shot ladder does not raise your bill until the 7.2 mg step, which is the opposite of Zepbound's self-pay pricing, where each step costs more.

What is 7.2 mg Wegovy, and who steps up to it?

The 7.2 mg dose is sold as Wegovy HD, a single-dose pen.¹ It is on the FDA label for weight reduction in adults. The rule: if you have tolerated 2.4 mg for at least 4 weeks and more weight loss is clinically needed, your prescriber may raise the dose to a maximum of 7.2 mg once weekly.¹

It is not a step everyone takes. For weight reduction, the label still calls 2.4 mg the recommended maintenance dose, with 1.7 mg as the alternative.¹ On self-pay, Wegovy HD is $399 a month, $50 more than the standard pen.²

Living with the pill: the morning routine

The tablet works only if you take it the way the label says. Take one tablet in the morning on an empty stomach with no more than 4 ounces of plain water. Swallow it whole. Then wait at least 30 minutes before you eat, drink anything else, or take other pills.¹

For a mother whose mornings start with a toddler at 6 a.m., that half hour is the real cost of the pill. Coffee waits. Breakfast with the kids waits. If you take levothyroxine for your thyroid, as many women do, note one interaction. In a study with the semaglutide tablet, levothyroxine exposure rose by 33%, and the label advises monitoring.¹ If that is you, tell the prescriber managing your thyroid before you start. Our thyroid guide covers the rest.

What if I miss a dose?

The rules differ by form.¹

• Shot: if your next dose is more than 2 days away, take the missed one as soon as you can. If it is less than 2 days away, skip it and keep your usual day.
• Two or more shots missed in a row: the label says to restart the climb at a lower dose to limit stomach side effects.
• Pill: skip the missed tablet and take the next one the following day. Never take two in one day.

Switching between the shot and the pill

There is no simple conversion between every rung of the shot and every rung of the pill. The label defines the switch only at the top. If you take 2.4 mg shots, you can move to the 25 mg tablet, starting one week after your last injection. Going the other way, you start the 2.4 mg shot the day after your last 25 mg tablet. If the 25 mg tablet does not agree with you, the label suggests the 1.7 mg shot instead.¹ For a fuller comparison, see the Wegovy pill vs the injection.

Breastfeeding, pregnancy and the pill

This is where the two forms part ways. The tablet contains an absorption enhancer called SNAC, which reaches breast milk. Because a baby may clear it more slowly than an adult, the label says breastfeeding is not recommended while you take Wegovy tablets.¹ The injection has no SNAC. There are no data on injected semaglutide in breast milk or on effects on the baby, and the label asks you to weigh the benefits of breastfeeding against your own need for the drug.¹ GLP-1s and breastfeeding has the detail.

If you plan to get pregnant, the label says to stop Wegovy at least 2 months before trying, because semaglutide lasts a long time in the body.¹ Unlike tirzepatide, Wegovy's label reports no meaningful change in the hormones from a combined oral contraceptive.¹

How solid is this?

The dose ladders, missed-dose rules and nursing guidance are FDA label text, which is as firm as this kind of information gets. The levothyroxine figure comes from one drug-interaction study, so it tells you to watch, not by how much your own levels will move. The prices come from Novo Nordisk's own page, read in October 2026. The introductory offer has a printed end date. Prices are the least durable data on this page, so treat every figure as a reading with a date on it.