Progesterone levels by cycle phase and after menopause

Progesterone is low in the first half of the menstrual cycle, higher in the second half, and low again after menopause. So there is no single “normal” number. Below is one published set of reference limits, split by phase, copied from the paper with its units.

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Published reference limits

The table is Table 2 of Schüring and colleagues (Annals of Laboratory Medicine, 2016), which gives progesterone on the Immulite 2000XP assay. The authors recruited healthy volunteers at a hospital in Münster, Germany. The limits are the 2.5th to 97.5th percentiles. Values are in ng/mL.

Group	Women (n)	Median, ng/mL	Lower limit, ng/mL	Upper limit, ng/mL
Follicular phase	139	0.46	-	<0.97
Luteal phase	87	8.01	0.55	17.5
Postmenopausal	103	0.1	-	<0.41

A dash means the source gives no lower limit.

Who the numbers describe

Follicular phase was defined as days 3 to 5 after the start of a period. Luteal phase was days 21 to 23 after the start of a period.
The women in those two groups were 25 to 44 years old, had regular cycles of 25 to 35 days, and had not used hormonal contraceptives or other regular medicines for at least three months.
Postmenopausal women were 49 to 66 years old and had gone at least 12 months without a period.
Ninety-six percent of all volunteers were of European descent. The authors note this limits how well the intervals apply to other groups, and that they recruited only a limited number of women in the luteal phase.

This source has no row for pregnancy, for days outside those windows, or for women using hormonal contraception or hormone therapy. If any of those apply to you, a clinician is the right person to read your result.

Why your lab’s range may differ

Ranges depend on the assay, the lab and the people used to set them. The same paper shows this. The same 87 luteal-phase volunteers were also measured on a second platform, the Advia Centaur, and the progesterone limits there were 1.14 to 20.6 ng/mL, not 0.55 to 17.5 ng/mL. Some labs also report in nmol/L, so check the unit on your report.

MedlinePlus says the meaning of a progesterone result depends on why you were tested, where you were in your cycle when the blood was drawn, and whether you are pregnant.

What to do with your number

Check the range and the unit printed on your report first. If your result is outside it, that is a reason to talk to a clinician, not a diagnosis. For what a low result can mean, read low progesterone. For why timing matters so much, read when to test progesterone. To get a result of your own, see the progesterone blood test.