hCG Levels by Week
The tables everyone posts - with the honesty everyone omits.
Every pregnancy site has an hCG-by-week table. Almost none tells you the truth about it: the ranges are so wide, and healthy pregnancies vary so much, that a single value almost never answers the question you are asking. A value of 200 and a value of 6,000 at 5 weeks can both be perfectly healthy. What separates healthy from concerning is the change over 48 hours — which is what our calculator measures. Use the tables below for orientation, never for verdicts.
This table comes from a published UK research cohort of 109 women who collected daily urine from before conception onward, measured with a laboratory assay (reported in Gnoth & Johnson 2014). Days count from ovulation. Note the 10th-90th centile spread — already enormous by day 14:
| DAYS PAST OVULATION | MEDIAN URINE HCG (mIU/mL) | 10TH–90TH CENTILE |
|---|---|---|
| 7 | 0.00 | 0.00–0.20 |
| 8 | 0.06 | 0.00–2.91 |
| 9 | 4.04 | 0.19–11.32 |
| 10 | 12.23 | 3.92–27.01 |
| 11 | 25.04 | 9.47–57.82 |
| 12 | 48.10 | 15.72–94.09 |
| 13 | 75.25 | 29.02–196.95 |
| 14 | 137.19 | 45.06–301.08 |
Notice: at 14 DPO (missed period), the normal range spans nearly sevenfold. And most home tests need ~20-25 mIU/mL — which the 10th-centile pregnancy doesn't reach until about day 12. This is the entire early-testing story in one table.
Comparison data: 109-volunteer daily-testing cohort (Gnoth & Johnson 2014). Urine values; serum runs somewhat higher. Orientation only.
Serum (blood) ranges by gestational week — counted from the last menstrual period, so “4 weeks” means around the missed period. These are commonly used laboratory reference intervals; they are assay-dependent approximations, not diagnostic boundaries:
| WEEKS (FROM LMP) | TYPICAL SERUM HCG (mIU/mL) |
|---|---|
| 3 | 5–50 |
| 4 | 5–426 |
| 5 | 18–7,340 |
| 6 | 1,080–56,500 |
| 7–8 | 7,650–229,000 |
| 9–12 | 25,700–288,000 |
| 13–16 | 13,300–254,000 |
| 17–24 | 4,060–165,400 |
| 25–40 | 3,640–117,000 |
Levels peak around weeks 8-10, then fall and plateau — normally. A dropping hCG in the late first trimester is physiology, not pathology. And because ranges overlap this much: a “low” single value is not a diagnosis, and a “high” one is not twins (see hCG and twins).