Well below the label dose. In a survey of 767 Danish adults collecting a semaglutide weight-management prescription, 45% were currently taking 1 mg and only 8% expected ever to reach the 2.4 mg label dose. Ten per cent reported dosing by counting clicks on the pen, against official prescribing guidance.
The pattern repeats for the other molecule. Among tirzepatide buyers, most stayed under 10 mg [2]. And the maintenance dose people settle on in practice is lower than the approved labeling describes, which matters commercially: a flat rate is worth more than it looks when most buyers never climb.
Every price this desk publishes is attached to a dose, and the dose a seller quotes is usually the top of the ladder. This survey caught people at the pharmacy counter and asked what they were actually taking. Across n = 767 respondents the split was 45% vs 8% — on 1 mg now, against ever expecting to reach 2.4 mg [1]. That mismatch is what the dose people stay on is about, now with a national sample behind it.
Self-reported weight loss rose with treatment duration: a median of 6% at one to three months, 12% at three to six, 17% at six to twelve and 20% beyond a year. Among people on 1 mg the figures were similar. The authors read that as some users obtaining the effect they want without escalating further.
One finding this desk reports without elaborating: 10% of respondents said they dose by counting clicks on the pen, which the authors note is contrary to official prescribing guidance. It is recorded here because it is what people said they do, and because a page that prices doses should know that a tenth of users are not taking the dose the box says. This site does not describe how it is done and does not treat it as a way to reduce cost.
The knock-on medication finding is the most economically interesting. Twenty-four percent reported reducing or discontinuing another medication after starting, most often for muscle or joint pain (30%) and blood pressure (24%). Those are prescriptions with their own monthly cost, and nothing on a GLP-1 price page accounts for them — a gap of the same kind this desk found in what the supplements cost.
Among 42 first-time users followed for six months, 83% were still taking it, usually at 1 mg, and 17% had stopped, with side effects the most common reason. Forty-two people is a very small group and this desk would not build a persistence estimate on it — the larger figures sit in what six-month discontinuation does to a prepay. What the survey adds is the dose picture. It says a buyer comparing 2.4 mg prices may be comparing a product most people never buy — the mismatch behind the oral dose against the injection.