A NAD⁺ shot and a NAD⁺ injection are the same thing — a subcutaneous dose of compounded NAD⁺, prescribed after an online visit and shipped to you to administer yourself. If you want what that means legally and regulatorily, that is the injections explainer. This page answers the practical questions people actually type after it.
How often do you take one?
Most telehealth protocols land on one or two shots a week, some on daily microdosing, and the providers we track do not agree with each other. That disagreement is the finding. There is no consensus frequency because there is no outcome trial to derive one from — so a schedule is a prescriber's judgment, not a standard.
What you can reasonably ask before paying: how many shots does the monthly price cover, and how many milligrams is each one? A price quoted per month tells you nothing until you know how many doses are in it.
Where do you inject it?
Subcutaneously — into the fat layer rather than muscle — with the abdomen and the outer thigh the two sites providers name most often. System Labs, for instance, says the stomach or thigh explicitly.
We are not going to publish an injection-technique walkthrough. The provider who prescribes it is obliged to show you, their kit arrives with instructions, and a website that teaches you to inject an unapproved drug it cannot see you use is not being helpful.
Does it hurt, and what does it feel like?
The commonly reported experience during and just after a NAD⁺ shot is flushing, a warm or tight sensation in the chest, mild nausea and occasional cramping — which is why IV infusions are run slowly over hours. Providers generally manage it by starting low and increasing gradually. System Labs describes exactly that in its own FAQ, noting discomfort is more likely at higher doses.
Injection-site soreness and bruising are ordinary for any subcutaneous shot. None of this is unique to NAD⁺, and none of it is a sign the product is working — a common and expensive misreading, since there is no established relationship between what you feel and any outcome.
How fast does it work?
The honest answer is that “work” has not been defined for this product in a trial, so nobody can tell you a timeline for it.
What has been measured is the molecule, not the feeling. Oral precursors reliably raise blood NAD⁺ in randomized trials — in a dose-ranging trial of 80 healthy middle-aged adults (n = 80), blood NAD⁺ rose significantly in every NMN group at day 30 and day 60 against both placebo and baseline (all p ≤ 0.001) [1]. That is a blood marker moving on a known schedule. It is not a report of how anyone felt, and it is not even the format being discussed here.
Sellers commonly promise something noticeable within days or weeks. Treat that as a marketing timeline. If you want to judge it for yourself, decide in advance what you are measuring and when you will check — before-and-after galleries exist precisely because “do I feel better?” after spending money is the least reliable instrument available.
What a shot costs, and what to ask
Published monthly prices among providers we have verified run from $93 to $249. Almost none state a milligram dose, which makes those numbers formally incomparable — our price table marks who does and who does not, and the honest summary is that only a handful will tell you.
Two questions settle most of it before you pay: how many milligrams per shot, and how many shots a month. A seller who answers both has given you something you can compare. A seller who answers neither has given you a subscription.
Is a shot better than a capsule?
It delivers more NAD⁺, and it costs several times as much. Whether that produces a better result is not established — injections have no controlled outcome trials, while oral precursors have the randomized human data at roughly a quarter of the price. The full comparison, with prices, is in the guide to all five formats.
If you have already decided on a shot, that is a legitimate choice made on convenience and preference. Our injections ranking compares the sellers on what they actually disclose, which turns out to be the thing that separates them.