The biggest benefit of vaping compared to smoking – apart from the fact that you’re not inhaling tar or carbon monoxide – is that it costs dramatically less. Cigarettes are extremely expensive products, especially considering the fact that they cause you to die early when you use them as intended. Is vaping safer? Opinions differ on that, but saving a bundle of money is one thing that you can definitely count on if you make the switch.
How much do cigarettes cost? These days, people in the United States spend an average of $8.00 per pack on cigarettes. If you’re a pack-a-day smoker, that means you’re spending $2,920 on cigarettes per year. If you’re in one of the many states with more punitive tobacco taxes, you’re spending even more than that. Here are just a few prominent examples.
- New York: $4,365.40 per year at $11.96 per pack
- Rhode Island: $4,274.15 per year at $11.71 per pack
- Connecticut: $4,234 per year at $11.60 per pack
Other states with higher-than-average cigarette prices include Massachusetts, Minnesota, Alaska, Hawaii, Maryland, Illinois and Washington.
Wherever you live, though, the bottom line is that you can save thousands of dollars per year if you switch to vaping.
So, how much can you expect to save, exactly – and what can you expect if disposable vapes end up being your vapes of choice? How much do disposable vapes cost, anyway?
Here’s your quick answer: Disposable vapes cost an average of $13.80.
As you’re about to learn, though, giving that question a quick answer is almost impossible because much of it depends on how you vape. Let’s dig in.
How Much Does a Disposable Vape Cost?
Browsing the disposable vapes at prominent online vape shop VapeJuice.com, we see the following prices for a random sampling of well-known devices.
- Flum Pebble: $13.85 (contains 14 ml of e-liquid)
- Funky Lands TI7000: $13.89 (contains 12.8 ml of e-liquid)
- Geek Bar Pulse: $13.45 (contains 16 ml of e-liquid)
- Lost Mary OS5000: $12.95 (contains 13 ml of e-liquid)
- Lost Mary MO20000: $14.69 (contains 18 ml of e-liquid)
- Tyson 2.0 Heavyweight: $13.95 (contains 15 ml of e-liquid)
Based on this sampling of popular models, you can expect to pay an average of about $13.80 for a disposable vape. That breaks down to about 93 cents per ml of vape juice.
The price for a disposable vape is partially a function of how much e-liquid the device contains, with higher-capacity devices generally costing more than ones with less vape juice. There’s a price floor with disposable vapes, though, because you’re not just buying the e-liquid – you’re also buying a fully functional vaping device.
Knowing how much a disposable vape costs just in terms of buying the device, though, doesn’t really answer your question. What you really want to know is this: How long can you expect a disposable vape to last? Only by knowing the answer to that question can you know how much disposable vapes cost per day and per year.
How Long Does a Disposable Vape Last?
Although disposable vapes are always trending toward higher capacities, the average device on the market right now based on the random sample above has about 15 ml of e-liquid. The most common nicotine strength for a disposable vape is 50 mg/ml, so an average disposable vape contains 750 mg of nicotine in total.
What does that actually mean? To know the answer to that, we need to compare disposable vapes to cigarettes. According to a 1997 study comparing 33 different brands, the average cigarette contains 11.72 mg of nicotine before it’s smoked. Of that, approximately 1-2 mg will actually reach your bloodstream. Likewise, when you vape, not all of the nicotine that you use is absorbed by your body. For the sake of comparison, though, we’ll assume that the bioavailability is about the same.
Based on an average nicotine content per cigarette of 11.72 mg, you could say that a disposable vape containing 750 mg of nicotine is approximately the equivalent of 64 cigarettes or about three packs. Therefore, a disposable vape lasts three days on average.
So, let’s put it all together. Based on an average cost per device of $13.80 and an expected device lifetime of three days, disposable vapes cost $4.60 per day or $1,679 per year to use. That’s a savings of 42.5 percent compared to smoking.
How to Make Disposable Vapes Last Longer?
Do you already vape? If you do, does it seem about normal to expect your disposable vapes to last three days, or do you actually find that they don’t last anywhere near that long? If you fall into the second group, you need to examine the way you vape.
When a disposable vape doesn’t last as long as it should, it’s typically because you’re vaping almost non-stop and are rarely if ever putting your device down. It’s easy to fall into this vaping pattern for two reasons.
- A disposable vape doesn’t put itself out after a handful of puffs like a cigarette does.
- A disposable vape doesn’t make you inhale harsh smoke like a cigarette does. Most people can’t chain smoke because very quickly, their aching lungs tell them that they’ve had enough. Vaping doesn’t have the same harshness.
So, how do you get as many days out of a disposable vape as you possibly can? The answer to that question is actually quite simple: Don’t vape unless you would have smoked a cigarette.
Is It Possible to Spend Even Less on Vaping?
If you want to save money, it’s very important to understand one key thing about vaping: Disposable vapes cost a lot less than cigarettes, but they’re not the cheapest vaping devices on the market. If you want to spend as little on vaping as you possibly can, you really want to buy a refillable vaping device rather than a disposable one. That way, your only consumable items will be e-liquid and pods or coils. That’s much more affordable than buying disposable vapes because with disposables, you have to buy an entirely new vaping device every few days.
Try switching to a refillable pod system designed for high-strength nicotine salt e-liquid if you want to have an experience that’s similar to a disposable vape but much less expensive. Nicotine salt vape juice typically has a nicotine strength of 50 mg/ml – the same as a disposable vape – and it’s usually sold in 30 ml bottles. That means every time you buy a bottle of vape juice, you’re essentially buying the equivalent of two disposable vapes at a much lower price.