Vape Juice Is Cheaper Than Ever – And That’s a Good Thing

In the early days of vaping, e-liquid was a very expensive commodity. No one noticed, though, because the price of cigarettes was the only point of comparison that anyone had. Smokers have become so conditioned to paying punitive tobacco taxes that, when vape juice debuted with a price often exceeding $1.00 per millilitre, no one batted an eye. It was still a lot cheaper than smoking. That quickly changed, though, when refillable vape tanks were invented and increased in popularity. Refillable vape tanks were more efficient than the single-use cartridges that the earliest e-cigarettes used, and having a more efficient vape tank means that you’re using more e-liquid. Suddenly, vape juice prices didn’t seem so reasonable anymore.

What Has Caused Vape Juice Prices to Come Down?

The first factor that triggered price cuts across the vaping industry was, as mentioned above, the introduction of vape tanks. The earliest vape tanks were small plastic items that didn’t produce enormous clouds, although they were certainly more powerful than the disposable cartridges that had come before. By the middle of the 2010s, though, vape tanks and mods had become significantly more powerful. Box mods and sub-ohm coils weren’t niche products for vaping enthusiasts anymore; they had become mainstream products that a huge percentage of the vaping community used every day. When a huge number of vapers are using upwards of 10 ml of e-liquid – or more – per day, clearly a price anywhere in the neighbourhood of $1/ml is not going to fly for most people.

Vape juice was always a product that, thanks to automation, was relatively inexpensive for large companies to make. As soon as automatic mixing and bottling machines became available, vape juice makers had the ability to offer e-liquid at lower prices. It took a while, though, for one brand to be the one to step forward and exchange a portion of its profits for higher sales volume. Naked 100 was one of the first brands to do it, offering vape juice in bigger bottles and at lower prices per ml than anyone had previously seen. Prices began to even out, and even the heaviest vapers were once again able to say that they were definitely spending less on vaping than they would spend to smoke.

Today, vape juice continues to be incredibly inexpensive, as e-liquid makers compete with one another to increase the efficiency of their production lines and offer vape juice at lower and lower prices. In the mid-2010s, a 60 ml bottle of vape juice was considered quite large. Today, though, it’s increasingly common to see e-liquid sold in 120 ml bottles. E-liquid makers also transitioned from glass to plastic bottles, further reducing costs and helping vapers get more for their money.

Are There Any Negative Aspects of Using a Large Amount of E-Liquid?

If you’re a mainstream hobbyist vaper who uses a cloud chasing setup like a box mod with a mesh coil tank, you’re probably pretty thankful about the fact that vape juice is cheaper today than it’s ever been before. It’s also very likely that you use a pretty large amount of e-liquid each day. It’s not uncommon for people with high-end vaping equipment to use 10-15 ml of vape juice – or even more – per day.

So, is it actually okay to use that much vape juice?

One of the things that’s always been true about nicotine use is that people tend to do a pretty good job of managing their own nicotine intake. In other words, people generally use only as much nicotine as they need. When their needs are met, they stop. It’s true that you’ll go through a lot of e-liquid if you use a low-strength vape juice and have a high-end vaping device. The nicotine strength of your vape juice is so low, though, that you’ll need to use a lot more of it to meet your nicotine needs than someone who uses, for example, a pod-based system with a nicotine strength of 50 mg/ml.

You’re well aware of the benefits of using a lower-nicotine, higher-output vaping setup. You get to enjoy bigger clouds and bolder flavours than someone using a lower-output pod system – but are there any drawbacks to using so much vape juice?

The only real drawback of using a large amount of vape juice every day is the fact that you’ll pay a fairly high price to vape. As cheap as e-liquid has become, it’s still going to be fairly expensive if you go through a huge bottle every few days – and when you consider the cost of coils, the real price that you pay to vape is even higher. High-end coils cost several dollars each, and nobody sells coils in packs of five anymore. These days, you’re lucky if you get four coils in a pack.

Combine the cost of coils with the poor coil longevity caused by sweetened e-liquid and coil gunk, and you could be looking at some serious expenses – especially if you hate the flavour of a gunky coil and find yourself installing a new coil in your tank every day or two.

Will Nicotine Salt Vape Juice Ever Decrease in Price?

You’ve probably noticed that, so far, this article has only focused on the price of mainstream freebase nicotine e-liquid. If you use nicotine salt vape juice, you’re still waiting to see the discounts that the other members of the vaping community are enjoying. Nicotine salt vape juice is typically sold in smaller 30 ml bottles, which is perfectly acceptable because it’s intended for use in lower-output vaping devices.

However, the fact that nicotine salt is the hot new thing in vaping has allowed vape juice makers to sell it at higher prices per millilitre than freebase nicotine e-liquid. After the price cuts that have swept across the rest of the e-liquid industry, vape juice makers have a strong incentive to keep prices high and protect their profits. As long as nicotine salt e-liquid remains popular, though, lower prices are almost certainly on the horizon. As we’ve seen from examining the history of e-liquid prices, all it takes is one company that’s willing to sacrifice some of its profits for higher sales volume.