Methods, systems, and devices for wireless communications are described. A user equipment (UE) may be scheduled to send uplink data to a base station using a particular transmission length provided by the base station. The UE may send multiple repetitions of the uplink data to the base station using transmissions that have varying lengths. The UE may determine a transmit power based on the length provided by the base station and use that transmit power for transmitting the repetitions, regardless of the actual lengths of the repetitions.