There has been much debate about the topic of vape and traditional combustion tobacco products. Today we are going to visit the monetary cost of vape vs traditional cigarettes. The cost of these products is commonly glossed over but a highly important comparative factors between vape and traditional cigarettes.

We will break down the cost by using consumer usage averages, cost averages of both vape and traditional cigarettes, and finally draw our most accurate comparison between cigarettes and the various nicotine vapor products on the market.

What’s the cost of cigarettes?

According the University of Massachusetts Medical School, the average smoker will spend nearly $1900 a year on their habit, with an average cost per day of $5.17. With a monthly cost over $150 smoking traditional cigarettes is far from cheap. It's important to not that according to sharecare.com the average smoker smokes between 10 and 20 cigarettes per day. Now let’s compare the average costs of cigarettes to the average costs of vaping.

What’s the cost of vaping?

The cost of vaping heavily depends on the type of nicotine vaping device the consumer uses most often. For example, consumers that purchase a typical refillable tank nicotine vaping device will spend between $35-$50 one time for the device. After the device is purchased, the consumer will then refill their tank with e-liquid or e-juice which on average will set them back $15-$25 for a 30mL bottle. The average vaper uses between 3-6mL of e-liquid per day. 

With all of these numbers in mind, we can safely estimate that the total monthly e-liquid cost for the average vaper will be about $90. When you add the cost of a vaping device or tank and maintenance, the total cost of vaping (refillable tank) is estimated at $1,150 per year.

Where will you save the most?

It is very difficult if not impossible to compare how many individual traditional cigarettes there would be in 1mL of e-liquid. However, liberal estimates and vaping community data have estimated that one traditional cigarette is equivalent to 2mL of e-liquid.

With that conversion in mind we can safely estimate a 30mL bottle of nicotine e-liquid would be about 15 packs of traditional cigarettes. Because we know the average price of a pack of cigarettes in the United States we can estimate that a 30mL bottle of e-liquid priced at $19.99 is equivalent to about $1.30 per pack.

No matter how you cut it users of nicotine vape devices will save more money than traditional cigarette users on average.