Every Approved GLP-1 Titration Schedule, Side by Side

Twelve GLP-1 products with current US labels publish a dose escalation schedule. No two of them are the same, and the spread between the fastest and the slowest is more than four months.

This page sets those schedules beside each other as a dated record of what the regulator-approved labels say. It is not a plan, a protocol or a recommendation, and no figure here is advice about what anyone should take. The reason each label gives for escalating at all is dealt with in one section because every label gives the same one; what varies is arithmetic, and the arithmetic is worth doing.

The schedules, read from the labels on 2026-09-19

The arithmetic the labels do not print

Each label gives a step interval. Multiplying it by the number of steps gives the shortest time in which a person following the schedule exactly could arrive at the maximum labelled dose. That figure is not on any label, and it is the number a reader usually wants.

Three observations follow from the column on the right, and none of them is obvious from reading any single label.

The daily products are the fast ones and the newest product is the slowest. Saxenda, licensed for weight management in 2014, reaches its only maintenance dose in four weeks. Foundayo, licensed in 2026, needs about twenty-two to reach its highest. Nothing about the class trends toward gentler onboarding over time; it tracks the dose range each product needs to cover.

Wegovy's 2026 extension added a month to the top of the ladder. The 7.2 mg dose is not a separate schedule but a fifth step available only to someone who has already tolerated 2.4 mg for at least four weeks, which puts the earliest arrival at week 20 — the same place Zepbound's 15 mg sits.

The two tirzepatide brands are identical on the way up and differ at the top. Both start at 2.5 mg and climb in 2.5 mg increments to 15 mg. Mounjaro's paediatric maximum is 10 mg; Zepbound's maintenance range for obstructive sleep apnoea begins at 10 mg. The molecule does not carry the schedule; the approval does. Which is also why a person moving between brands of the same molecule is moving between documents, something the Wegovy-versus-Ozempic comparison takes up in detail.

Why the schedules exist, in the labels' own words

Across twelve products and four manufacturers, the stated reason for escalating is the same and it is never efficacy.

"Follow the dosage escalation below to reduce the risk of gastrointestinal adverse reactions." — MOUNJARO

"Follow the dose escalation schedule presented in Table 1 to minimize gastrointestinal adverse reactions." — WEGOVY

"Follow the FOUNDAYO starting dosage and escalation described below to reduce the risk of gastrointestinal (GI) adverse reactions." — FOUNDAYO

"The 0.6 mg once daily dosage is intended to reduce the risk of gastrointestinal adverse reactions during initial titration." — VICTOZA

"The dose of BYETTA can be increased to 10 mcg twice daily … in order to reduce the risk of gastrointestinal adverse reactions." — BYETTA

The consistency is the finding. A titration schedule on a GLP-1 label is a tolerability device, and the labels say so without hedging.

The first rung is usually not a dose

Four labels state, in terms, that their starting dose does not do the job the drug is licensed for:

• MOUNJARO: "The 2.5 mg dosage is for treatment initiation and is not intended for glycemic control."
• ZEPBOUND: the 2.5 mg dosage "is for treatment initiation and is not approved as a maintenance dosage."
• RYBELSUS: "Recommended starting dosage is 3 mg orally once daily for 30 days (this dosage is not effective for glycemic control)."
• OZEMPIC tablets: the same sentence at 1.5 mg.

There is one exception in the class, and it runs the other way. Trulicity's 0.75 mg starting dosage is also its licensed paediatric maintenance dosage — the only first rung in the class that is a place a patient may be intended to stay.

That distinction matters for reading anything about low-dose use. What is being sold and discussed as a practice below these thresholds, and what the trials did and did not test there, is the subject of our page on GLP-1 microdosing. Per-compound dose questions — what the dose of a given molecule is — are covered by Peptifact's tirzepatide dosage page and its siblings, which are the right place for them.

The provisions for slowing down

Schedules are printed as ladders going up, and it is easy to read them as though that were the only direction on offer. Four of the labels provide otherwise:

• WEGOVY: "If patients do not tolerate a dose during dosage escalation, consider delaying dosage escalation for 4 weeks." And if two or more consecutive injections are missed, the label directs reinitiating escalation at a lower dosage.
• ZEPBOUND: "If patients do not tolerate a maintenance dosage, consider a lower maintenance dosage."
• SAXENDA: a paediatric dose "may also be lowered to the previous level," escalation "may take up to 8 weeks," and a paediatric patient who does not tolerate 3 mg daily may be reduced to 2.4 mg.
• WEGOVY tablets: a patient who does not tolerate the 25 mg maintenance dose may be switched to the 1.7 mg injection.

These are reported here because they are part of the published schedule and are routinely left out of summaries of it. What to do about a dose that is not tolerated is a question for the prescriber who wrote it.

Byetta, the one that does not fit

Exenatide is the oldest GLP-1 receptor agonist still marketed, and its schedule belongs to a different era of the class. It is injected twice a day, within the 60 minutes before the morning and evening meals — or before the two main meals of the day, at least about six hours apart — starting at 5 mcg and increasing to 10 mcg twice daily after one month, based on clinical response.

It is the only GLP-1 on the market whose dosing is anchored to meals rather than to a day of the week, and the only one measured in micrograms rather than milligrams. Anyone reading across from a weekly product's schedule to this one is reading across two orders of magnitude and a different dosing philosophy.

What this page is not

It is a record of published schedules and the arithmetic that follows from them. It is not a protocol, it contains no instruction to anyone about what to take or when, and a figure reported here is a record of what a regulator-approved document states rather than a recommendation. Which product, at which dose, is appropriate for a particular person is a clinical question and belongs with a clinician. Our methodology sets out the line this site holds on dosing content.

Sources

Labels read on 2026-09-19. Effective dates are those the label file carries.