How far into your
course are you?

Cumulative dose is the least mysterious number in all of isotretinoin treatment. It's your dose multiplied by the number of doses you actually took, added up across your whole course. Take 40 mg a day for 60 days and then 60 mg a day for 30 days, and you're at (40 × 60) + (60 × 30) = 4,200 mg.

The only real decisions are bookkeeping ones, and this tracker makes the same ones the Cleyra app does:

• Treatment months are 30 days, not calendar months. Isotretinoin is prescribed in 30-day scripts and iPLEDGE windows run in 30-day blocks, so a fixed window keeps the arithmetic honest. Calendar months would lose two days every February.
• The month you're living in only counts days that happened. If you're eleven days into month four, month four contributes eleven days — and you can lower that number if you missed doses or paused.
• Doses are counted, not days. Each month has its own schedule — every day, every other day, or every few days. A month of 20 mg every other day counts 15 doses, not 30, because counting it as daily would double your real total.
• One dose and schedule per month is close enough. Mid-month changes get rounded to whatever you were on for most of the block. If you need day-level accuracy, you need a daily log, not a calculator.

Dermatologists usually talk about this total relative to body weight — milligrams per kilogram. That's just your total divided by your weight in kg, which is why the tracker asks for weight if you don't already have a goal from your derm.

If you've read anything about Accutane, you've seen the number: a “full course” is 120–150 mg per kilogram of body weight. It comes from decades of studies looking at how often acne comes back after treatment, and higher cumulative doses have generally been associated with lower relapse rates.

Three things worth knowing about it:

• It's a population average. It describes what tended to work across groups of people in studies. It is not a target that was calculated for you, your acne, or your tolerance.
• Lower can be deliberate. The 2024 American Academy of Dermatology acne guidelines note that low-dose isotretinoin can treat acne effectively while limiting side effects. A derm keeping you at 20 mg is not shortchanging you.
• Nobody stops purely on a number.Real decisions get made on clear skin, labs, side effects, and how you're doing — not on a milestone being crossed. Hitting 150 mg/kg doesn't mean you're done, and being under it doesn't mean you failed.

So treat the range as context for a conversation, not a finish line. The genuinely useful thing you can do with your cumulative dose is say it out loud at your next appointment and ask your dermatologist what they're aiming for.

Further reading: Making sense of the effects of the cumulative dose of isotretinoin in acne vulgaris · Acne relapse and isotretinoin retrial

Not medical advice. This page is provided for general informational and educational purposes only. It does not provide medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment, and it does not create a clinician–patient relationship of any kind. It performs arithmetic on values you enter and compares the result to a general, published population range.

Always talk to your dermatologist. Your prescriber is the only person who can tell you what your target cumulative dose should be, whether your current dose is right, and when your course should end. Always seek the advice of your dermatologist or another qualified health professional with any questions about your treatment. Never disregard professional medical advice, delay seeking it, or start, stop, or change a dose because of something you read or calculated here. If you think you may be having a medical emergency, contact your doctor or emergency services immediately.

Not a medical device. This tool is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease, and it is not intended to guide or replace clinical judgment. It is not registered with, cleared by, or approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration or any other regulator.

Estimates only.The output depends entirely on what you type in. It assumes fixed 30-day treatment months, one dose and one schedule per month, and perfect adherence across the days you report — and for a non-daily schedule it counts doses at an even interval from day one rather than tracking which specific days you actually took. It cannot know about missed doses, pauses, partial pills, or mid-month changes you don't tell it about. It may be inaccurate or incomplete, and it is provided without warranty of any kind. See our Terms of Use for the full disclaimer of warranties and limitation of liability.

Pregnancy and iPLEDGE. Isotretinoin causes severe birth defects. Everyone taking it in the United States must be enrolled in and comply with iPLEDGE, the FDA-mandated Risk Evaluation and Mitigation Strategy. Nothing on this page is part of, affiliated with, or a substitute for iPLEDGE, its testing requirements, or its pregnancy-prevention requirements.

Trademarks. “Accutane” is a registered trademark of its respective owner and is used here only to refer to the medication that people searching for this tool are taking. Cleyra is an independent app and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by any pharmaceutical manufacturer, the FDA, the iPLEDGE program, or the American Academy of Dermatology.