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Peptide Calculator

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Peptide reconstitution and dosage calculator

Research reference only. This tool performs arithmetic. It is not medical advice and it is not a substitute for a licensed clinician.

Reconstitution calculator

Your vial

mL

Optional inputs

Your inputs stay in the address bar, so a bookmark reopens this exact calculation. Nothing is sent anywhere.

Results

Syringe units
10 units

Rounded to the nearest half unit: 10

Draw volume
0.1 mL
Concentration
2.5 mg per mL
Per syringe unit
25 mcg
Whole doses in the vial
20
Left over after the last dose
0 mcg
Show the formulas
  • Concentration = peptide in the vial / bacteriostatic water
  • Per unit = concentration in mcg per mL / units per mL of the syringe
  • Draw volume = target dose / concentration
  • Syringe units = draw volume x units per mL of the syringe

The calculator above turns a vial size, a bacteriostatic water volume and a target dose into concentration, draw volume and the reading on an insulin syringe, with the arithmetic shown in full.

This is the central calculator on the site. It takes the mass printed on a vial and the volume of bacteriostatic water you add to it, and returns the three numbers everything else depends on: the concentration of the reconstituted solution, the volume that contains a target amount, and how many units of that volume measures on an insulin syringe.

The arithmetic is three divisions and no model whatsoever. That is the point of putting it on the homepage. Reconstitution is bookkeeping, not inference, and if the arithmetic is right the answer is right regardless of what the peptide is.

It also computes what is left in the vial after the draw, and how many theoretical doses a vial contains, because those are the two questions that follow immediately from the same division.

The mass is fixed and the volume is the only free variable

Dissolving a peptide in water does not add anything to it. The dry mass in the vial is the amount you have, and the only thing water changes is the volume that mass is spread through. Concentration is a way of reporting those two numbers against each other, not a property the vial possesses. A vial of a given mass is that mass at every concentration on this page. Nothing about the volume of water added changes what is in the vial, and nothing about it changes how much peptide there is to work with in total.

That asymmetry is why the calculation on this page is so easy to state. The mass is known, because it is printed on the label, and the volume is chosen, because the volume is the thing you control. The concentration is then not an input but a consequence of those two. It also explains why asking for a more concentrated preparation means less water rather than more peptide, which is worth sitting with, because the two requests sound superficially similar and they differ by the whole vial. If you ever catch yourself solving for the mass from a concentration, the inputs have almost certainly been swapped, and the reverse calculator will show you so at once.

Why one vial has many concentrations and only one mass

The relationship between volume and concentration is strictly inverse, because the mass in the numerator is a constant and the denominator is yours to pick. Double the water and the concentration halves, exactly, with no approximation and no drift over repeated steps. That linearity is worth relying on: it means a result can be scaled without being recomputed, and it means a relative error in the volume you measured becomes the same relative error in the concentration, because a division passes relative error straight through. What it does not mean is that every concentration is equally usable. Some are too low for a peptide to dissolve at, and no arithmetic available here can notice.

There is a second view of the same thing, through ratios. Since concentration is mass over volume, a target concentration requires a volume in direct proportion to the mass. Two vials of different sizes can only reach the same concentration if their volumes stand in the same ratio to their masses, and when they do, every number downstream comes out identical. That is a useful coincidence and a decent check rather than a general rule. The dilution factor calculator works in ratio language when that is how a method states the dilution, and the C1V1 dilution calculator is the right tool when the starting point is already a solution rather than a solid.

A syringe reading is a volume wearing a disguise

On a U-100 syringe the barrel is divided so that the printed number equals the volume in microlitres, one marking being ten of them. The unit count this page returns is therefore not an independent measurement. It is the draw volume re-expressed, and it inherits exactly the resolution of the barrel, because nothing in the arithmetic can add precision that the instrument does not have. Treat the unit count as a volume and the chain stays consistent from end to end. Treat it as an amount and a factor of ten appears with no warning at all.

On a U-40 syringe the same liquid reads a quarter as many units, because the calibration is coarser rather than because anything about the solution changed. That single selection is worth more than every other input on the page combined, which is why the comparison of U-100 with U-40 syringes is worth reading before any numbers are trusted. The remaining trap is early rounding: rounding the concentration before the draw division puts a proportional error into the draw volume, the unit count, the remaining amount and the dose count simultaneously, and since all four come from the same numerator it does not average out. The guide to rounding and small volumes covers that arithmetic.

Checking the answer without a second calculator

Dimensional analysis is the check. A mass divided by a volume must come out in mg per mL. An amount divided by a concentration must come out in mL. A volume multiplied by markings per millilitre must come out in markings. Each step fixes the units of every step after it, so if any result does not carry the units it should, the fault is upstream and there is no need to look further down the chain. The value of this check is that it does not depend on trusting the calculator, which matters, because a check that uses the same tool it is checking is not a check.

There is also a round trip available. Take the concentration this page produces, offer it to the reverse calculation as the target concentration, and the vial mass should come back out of it unchanged. A result that fails to survive that journey has a transposed mass and volume somewhere inside it, which is the most common fault in this family and the easiest one to make twice. The same idea appears in the dose count: multiply the amount drawn by the number of doses reported and you should land back on the vial mass, to within whatever was rounded. The molarity calculator runs the same division in molar terms if the units need changing, and doses per vial works through the second check in more detail.

How this calculator works

Adding water to a dry peptide does not change the amount of peptide, only the volume it occupies. So the amount in the vial is fixed, and the concentration is that amount divided by the volume you added.

Once the concentration is known, a target amount is converted to a draw volume by dividing the amount by the concentration. On a U-100 insulin syringe, which carries one hundred unit markings per millilitre, one unit is exactly ten microlitres, so the draw volume in mL multiplied by one hundred gives the unit count directly.

On a U-40 syringe the same volume reads as a quarter as many units, because the calibration is coarser. This is the single most common source of a factor of four error in this field, and it is entirely a syringe choice rather than a calculation error.

Remaining amount is the vial amount minus the amount just drawn, and the number of theoretical doses is the vial amount divided by the target amount. Both are exact arithmetic on the assumption that nothing is lost, which in practice is never quite true.

The formulas

  • concentration = vial amount / diluent volume

    vial amount
    the mass of peptide in the vial, in mg
    diluent volume
    the volume of bacteriostatic water added, in mL

    The master calculation. Every other output on this page follows from it.

  • draw volume = target amount / concentration

    Both in compatible units, which means mg and mg/mL giving mL.

  • syringe units = draw volume in mL x syringe units per mL

    One hundred on a U-100 syringe, forty on a U-40.

  • remaining = vial amount - drawn amount

    After the draw.

  • theoretical doses per vial = vial amount / target amount

    A whole number is a whole number of doses; a fraction is the last partial dose.

Worked example

A 5 mg vial reconstituted with 2 mL, and a 0.25 mg target

Illustrative example. The numbers are chosen to make the arithmetic easy to check. They are not a dose, a protocol or a recommendation.

Given

Vial amount
5 mg
Bacteriostatic water added
2 mL
Target amount
0.25 mg
Syringe
U-100
  1. Concentration
    Substitution
    5 mg / 2 mL
    Result
    2.5 mg/mL
  2. Amount in the target draw volume, taken as given
    Substitution
    0.25 mg
    Result
    0.25 mg
  3. Draw volume
    Substitution
    0.25 mg / 2.5 mg per mL
    Result
    0.1 mL
  4. Syringe units on a U-100, that is 10 units
    Substitution
    0.1 mL x 100 units per mL
    Result
    10 units
  5. Remaining in the vial
    Substitution
    5 mg - 0.25 mg
    Result
    4.75 mg
  6. Theoretical doses per vial
    Substitution
    5 mg / 0.25 mg
    Result
    20

What this shows

The whole chain in six lines. Twenty theoretical doses at exactly 0.25 mg each uses the vial up completely, which is a good sanity check on the arithmetic: the last dose of twenty is a full dose, not a fraction of one. The numbers in this example are invented for the arithmetic. They are not a dose, and they are not a recommendation.

Understanding the inputs

vialAmount
The mass of peptide in the vial, from the label. This is the mass of active peptide, not the gross weight of the vial with its stopper and cap.
Watch for: A gross vial weight, typically 0.1 g or more, typed into this field. That is the largest and most common error on this page, and it produces a concentration that is wrong by an order of magnitude or more.
vialUnit
The unit the vial amount is in: mg or mcg. Choose it deliberately rather than accepting the default.
Watch for: Entering 2500 when the label says 2.5 mg. A value that looks plausible in mcg but is a thousand times too large is the classic mg versus mcg error.
waterLabel
The volume of bacteriostatic water added to the vial, in mL.
Watch for: This is the volume added, not the capacity of the vial and not the volume of the finished solution. Adding 2 mL to a vial that holds 5 mL gives 2.5 mg/mL, not 1 mg/mL.
doseLabel
The target amount you want in the syringe.
Watch for: This is an amount, not a volume and not a syringe reading. A quantity of units belongs in the syringe field instead.
syringe
The syringe calibration: U-100, one hundred unit markings per mL, or U-40, forty per mL.
Watch for: The most consequential single choice on the page. The same draw volume reads ten units on a U-100 and two and a half on a U-40. Reading a U-40 marking as a U-100 one gives a fourfold overstatement.

Understanding the results

concentration
The concentration of the reconstituted solution in mg/mL. The single number the rest of the site is built on.
draw
The volume of solution containing the target amount, in mL. This is a volume of solution, not of peptide.
units
The draw volume expressed in units on the selected syringe. On a U-100 this is simply the volume in microlitres, since one unit is ten microlitres.
remaining
The amount left in the vial after the draw. It does not account for dead volume in the syringe or for anything left in the vial that will not be drawn.
dosesPerVial
The number of times the target amount can be taken from the vial. A fraction means the final dose is smaller.

Units explained

mg
Milligram. One thousandth of a gram, and the unit vial labels use.
mcg
Microgram, one thousandth of a milligram. A thousandfold smaller than mg, and the two are constantly confused.
mL
Millilitre. The unit of diluent volume and of concentration.
mg/mL
Milligrams per millilitre. Mass concentration, and the unit a reconstitution result is expressed in.
Syringe unit
A marking on an insulin syringe. On a U-100 syringe one unit equals 10 microlitres, so the unit count reads the volume in microlitres directly.
U-100
An insulin syringe with 100 unit markings per mL. One unit equals 10 microlitres.
U-40
An insulin syringe with 40 unit markings per mL. One unit equals 25 microlitres, so the same volume reads a quarter as many units.
IU
International unit, a measure of biological activity. Deliberately absent from this calculation, because an IU is substance specific and there is no universal conversion to a mass. See the unit converters page.

Common mistakes

  • Confusing milligrams with micrograms, a factor of exactly one thousand.
  • Reading a U-40 syringe as a U-100, a factor of exactly four in the other direction.
  • Entering the gross weight of the vial rather than the labelled mass of the peptide.
  • Using the vial capacity as the diluent volume.
  • Entering the volume of diluent you intend to add as the target draw volume, or the other way round.
  • Rounding the concentration early. Rounding 2.5 to 3 before dividing gives a 20 percent error in every downstream number.
  • Reading the syringe unit count as a dose. It is a volume, expressed in the calibration of the syringe you selected.
  • Treating any of these numbers as medical guidance. This page does arithmetic and nothing else.

Important limitations

  • It assumes the peptide dissolves completely. A vial that will not dissolve properly has a lower effective concentration than this division suggests, and no arithmetic can detect that.
  • It assumes no loss. In practice a reconstitution loses a little peptide to the filter, the vial wall and the syringe dead volume, so a vial yields slightly fewer real doses than the theoretical count.
  • It is not temperature aware. Peptide handling guidance is a matter for the relevant product documentation, not for this calculator.
  • It is arithmetic. It does not recommend an amount, a frequency, a compound or a treatment, and the example above is invented for the sake of showing the arithmetic.

What is peptide calculation?

Peptide calculation is the arithmetic between what a vial label says and what a syringe barrel can measure. Almost all of it is division.

Peptide mass is how much substance there is, measured in milligrams or micrograms
It never changes on its own. A 5 mg vial still contains 5 mg after you add water to it, which is the single fact that most of this site is built on.
The milligram and the microgram differ by exactly one thousand
A milligram is a thousand micrograms, and mixing the two up is the most common error in this field. Every calculator here asks you to state the unit next to the number, because a bare number has no meaning.
A millilitre is a volume, not a mass
One millilitre of solution is not one milligram of anything. Volume and mass share a unit prefix ladder, but they measure different things and neither converts into the other without a concentration.
Concentration is mass per volume, written mg/mL, and it is the number that ties mass to volume together
It is also the number a reconstitution produces, and every draw volume, dose and syringe unit on this site follows from it.
An insulin syringe is graduated in units rather than millilitres
A U-100 syringe has one hundred markings per millilitre, so one unit is ten microlitres. A U-40 syringe has forty per millilitre, so the same volume reads a quarter as many units. That is a factor of four, chosen on the syringe rather than calculated.
An international unit measures biological activity, not mass, and it cannot be converted to a mass without a factor specific to the substance and often to the batch
There is no universal IU to mg conversion, which is why the unit converters on this site ask you to supply the factor rather than assuming one.

Dose, concentration and volume

Three different quantities get confused constantly. Keeping them apart is most of what this site is for.

A dose is an amount. It is what you intend to use, and it is the one of the three that is a clinical decision rather than arithmetic.
A dose is a quantity, and it is the one of the three that is a decision rather than arithmetic. Nothing on this site decides it for you.
A concentration is mass per volume, and it describes the vial rather than the dose. Doubling the water halves the concentration while the dose stays the same.
A concentration is mass per volume, and it describes the vial rather than the dose. Adding more water halves it while the amount in the vial is unchanged.
A volume is what you draw, and it is the bridge between the other two. Volume equals dose divided by concentration.
A volume is what you draw, and it is the bridge between the other two. Volume is the dose divided by the concentration.

Every one of these is a different kind of quantity, and the conversion between any two of them needs the third. That is why a calculator that takes a concentration and a dose has to return a volume: the arithmetic does not close without it.

The reconstitution arithmetic

Reconstitution is adding a known volume of liquid to a known mass of dry peptide. The peptide amount is fixed, the volume is chosen, and the concentration is whatever falls out.

  1. First, the concentration. Divide the mass in the vial by the volume of liquid you added. That single division is the master calculation, and everything else on this site is a rearrangement of it.

  2. Second, the draw volume. To know how much solution contains a target amount, divide the amount by the concentration. This is the same relationship read backwards.

  3. Third, the syringe reading. Multiply the draw volume in millilitres by the number of markings per millilitre on your syringe. On a U-100 syringe that factor is one hundred, so the reading in units is simply the volume in microlitres.

  4. Fourth, the vial yield. Divide the vial mass by the amount you intend to take, and the result is how many times the vial can be drawn from in theory. Real yields are lower, because a little is always left behind.

The full chain, end to end

Every calculation on this site is a step in the same chain. Once you can follow it once, you can check any of the calculators yourself.

  1. The vial amount is fixed by the label. It is a mass, and it does not change.

  2. The dilution volume is chosen by you. It is the only free variable in the calculation.

  3. Those two give the concentration, by division.

  4. The concentration and a target amount give the draw volume, by division the other way.

  5. The draw volume and the syringe calibration give the reading in units, by multiplication.

What this shows

The check that catches almost every error: multiply the concentration by the draw volume and you should get back the amount you wanted. If those three numbers do not satisfy that, one of them is wrong, and the arithmetic will tell you which way to look.

The mistakes worth knowing about

Almost every wrong answer on this kind of calculator comes from one of a small number of causes. They are listed here because they are the ones that actually happen.

  • Confusing milligrams with micrograms. The two differ by exactly a thousand, and nothing on a label tells you which one you are looking at, so the calculator asks every time.

  • Reading a U-40 syringe as a U-100, or the other way round. The same volume reads a quarter as many units on one and four times as many on the other.

  • Mixing millilitres with syringe units. A unit is a volume only in the context of a known calibration, and on a U-100 syringe one unit is ten microlitres.

  • Treating an international unit as a mass. An IU measures biological activity, and there is no universal conversion to a mass without a factor specific to the substance.

  • Rounding the concentration before using it. Rounding 2.5 to 3 puts every downstream number out by twenty percent, and the result still looks entirely reasonable.

  • Entering the gross weight of the vial instead of the labelled mass of the peptide. The difference is the vial, the stopper and any excipients, and it can be a large multiple.

  • Confusing a concentration with a total amount. Ten milligrams per millilitre says what is in each millilitre, not what is in the bottle.

  • Using the vial capacity as the diluent volume. A 10 mg vial is not 10 mg/mL, and adding 2 mL to it does not make it so.

  • Reading any result as guidance. Every calculator here does arithmetic on the numbers you type, and not one of them knows anything about you.

Explore the calculators

Everything on this site is grouped by the problem it solves rather than by the compound it is aimed at. The same arithmetic applies whatever is in the vial.

The three calculators that turn a vial and a volume into a syringe reading, in both directions. Start here if you are holding a vial.

Per compound pages that preset the calculator and quote the dose schedules that appear on approved product labels, naming the label every time.

Concentration maths: the dilution equation, serial dilutions, mixing several solutions, and the differences between them.

Sequence derived properties: mass, composition, charge, isoelectric point, hydropathy and the absorbance tools that need them.

The half-life family, all of it one exponential model rearranged ten ways. Read the model limitation before using any of them.

Conversions within each unit family, and the two that cross between families. Every one states which family it is in.

Cost per milligram, per micromole, per dose and per sample, with the caveats about what those figures leave out.

Guides and background reading

Longer explanations of the ideas behind the calculators, from unit conversion through to the mathematics of exponential decay.

Why there is no account

Every calculation on this site runs in your browser, on your device. Nothing you type into a calculator is sent anywhere, which is why there is no account, no login, no API key and nothing gated. The numbers never leave the page.

What this site does

Arithmetic you can audit, and nothing you did not ask for.

  • The formula is on the page

    Every result has a toggle that shows the substitution, so you can check the arithmetic instead of trusting it.

  • Nothing leaves your browser

    Inputs are computed on your own device. No account, no upload, and no server ever sees a dose.

  • Cited, or absent

    A dose schedule appears only when an approved product label states it. Where no label exists, the page says so rather than inventing a range.

How to use it

Three inputs, one reading.

  1. Enter the vial

    Type the peptide in the vial in mg or mcg, exactly as the label reads.

  2. Enter the water

    Type the bacteriostatic water you added, in millilitres. That volume sets the concentration.

  3. Read the units

    Enter your target dose and read the draw volume and the units on your syringe scale.

Guides

How the arithmetic works, one question at a time.

Blog

Frequently asked questions

The questions people actually ask about vials, water and units.

How do I work out the concentration of a reconstituted peptide vial?

Divide the peptide in the vial by the bacteriostatic water you added. A 5 mg vial reconstituted with 2 mL of water is 2.5 mg per mL, which is 2500 mcg per mL. Every other figure follows from that one: the draw volume for a dose is the dose divided by the concentration, and the units on the barrel are that volume multiplied by the units per mL of your syringe scale.

How many units is 0.25 mg of semaglutide on a U-100 syringe?

It depends entirely on the concentration of your vial, which is why no single answer exists. If a 10 mg vial was reconstituted with 2 mL of bacteriostatic water it holds 5 mg per mL, so 0.25 mg is 0.05 mL, which reads as 5 units on a U-100 barrel. Change the water volume and that unit count changes with it.

How much bacteriostatic water should I add to a 5 mg vial?

This site does not recommend a volume, because the right one depends on the product you have and its own labelling. Arithmetically the volume only decides how large the draw is: 1 mL makes a 5 mg vial twice as concentrated as 2 mL, so the same dose is half the volume and half the units, which is harder to measure accurately. Larger volumes give bigger, easier readings for the same dose.

What is the difference between a U-100 and a U-40 syringe?

The scale printed on the barrel. A U-100 syringe is graduated at 100 units per millilitre and a U-40 syringe at 40, so the same 0.1 mL reads as 10 units on one and 4 units on the other. Reading a U-40 barrel as if it were U-100 changes the amount drawn by two and a half times, which is why this calculator asks which one you have instead of assuming.

Does this site store the doses I type in?

No. Every calculation runs in your own browser and nothing you enter is sent to a server. The inputs are mirrored in the address bar so a bookmark reopens the same calculation, which stays on your device; clear the query string and it is gone. See the privacy policy for what the hosting provider and analytics can see, which is ordinary request data and never a dose.

Why does this site publish no dose range for BPC-157 or TB-500?

Because there is no approved product label to quote one from. This site publishes a dose schedule only when a regulator has approved the product and the schedule is printed on its label, as with semaglutide and tirzepatide. For compounds sold for research use there is no such document, and inventing a plausible looking range would be worse than leaving the space empty.

How does the reverse peptide calculator work?

The reverse calculator takes syringe units and concentration (or vial amount plus diluent volume) and computes the peptide amount delivered. It multiplies the draw volume in mL by the concentration in mcg per mL to get the peptide amount in mcg, then converts to mg. The draw volume comes from dividing syringe units by units per mL of your syringe scale.

What does the BAC-water diluent solver calculate?

The BAC-water solver calculates the diluent volume needed to produce whole-number syringe units for a given dose. It divides the desired units times the vial mass by the dose mass times units per mL, producing a diluent volume that lands on clean syringe readings. This is pure arithmetic, not a medical recommendation.

What is a peptide calculator and how accurate is a peptide dosage calculator?

A peptide calculator is arithmetic, not a medical device: it turns a vial mass, a diluent volume and a target dose into a concentration, a draw volume and a syringe reading. Given those three numbers it is exact, limited only by how precisely you measured the mass and the water; it cannot correct a mislabeled vial or a wrong assumption about purity. This peptide dosage calculator is free, runs in your browser, and works the same way whether you call it a peptide calc, a peptide dose calculator or a reconstitution calculator.

How is peptide concentration calculated?

Concentration is mass divided by volume. Add a known volume of liquid to a vial of known mass and the two numbers give it directly: a 5 mg vial with 2 mL of diluent becomes 2.5 mg/mL. Nothing else is involved, which is why every other quantity on this site follows from that one division.

How do I read my dose in units on a syringe?

Multiply the draw volume in millilitres by the markings per millilitre on your syringe. A U-100 syringe has 100 markings per mL, so 0.1 mL reads as 10 units. A U-40 syringe has 40, so the same 0.1 mL reads as 4 units. The volume is identical either way; only the reading changes.

Why can I not convert IU to mg on this site?

An international unit measures biological activity rather than mass, and the number of units per milligram belongs to a specific substance and often to a specific batch. The unit converters here ask you to supply the factor for the substance you actually have, because a factor borrowed from another one produces a confident, wrong answer.

How do I convert between mg and mcg?

Multiply by one thousand going from milligrams to micrograms, and divide by one thousand going the other way. One milligram is exactly one thousand micrograms. Both directions are separate calculators here, which is quicker than doing the arithmetic and quicker than risking the reversal.

Why does rounding the concentration cause errors?

Every later step divides by the concentration, so an error in it is inherited by everything downstream. Rounding 2.5 mg/mL to 3 mg/mL puts every draw volume and syringe unit twenty percent out, and the result still looks entirely reasonable. Keep full precision until the final display.

Why does my vial hold fewer doses than the calculator says?

The arithmetic assumes nothing is lost, so real yields are always slightly lower. Filter retention, solution left on the vial wall, and dead volume in the syringe all account for material that the calculation treats as delivered. Small draw volumes make this proportionally worse, because the dead volume is a fixed amount.

What is the difference between a dose and a volume?

A dose is a mass, such as 0.25 mg. A volume is how much solution contains it, such as 0.1 mL. One follows from the other through the concentration, and neither is the other: they are different kinds of quantity, and every calculator on this site makes you state which one you mean.

Does a U-100 syringe hold more than a U-40 syringe?

They hold the same volume. U-100 and U-40 describe the calibration, not the capacity: the U-100 is marked in hundredths of a millilitre and the U-40 in fortieths. The finer scale gives more numbers to read and a smaller step per marking, which is why the two are not interchangeable on the same reading.

Check the arithmetic yourself

Open a compound page for a preloaded example, or start from your own vial.