Is Vaping Cheaper Than Smoking? 2026 Cost Per Year

Is vaping cheaper than smoking? For most people who switch completely, yes, and often by a wide margin. A pack-a-day smoker in the UK spends more than £6,000 a year on cigarettes, while a refillable vape can cost a few hundred pounds a year. The gap shrinks with prefilled pods, with heavy vaping, with new taxes, and above all with dual use. This guide shows the real 2026 numbers for the US and UK, the arithmetic behind them, and the one option that beats both.

Is vaping cheaper than smoking? The short answer

The answer depends on three things: which device you use, how much you vape, and whether you still smoke. Every price below was read on September 15, 2026, from the source named beside it. Where a figure is an estimate or rests on an assumption, it is labeled as one.

• Refillable devices with bottled e-liquid are the cheapest way to vape, even after the new UK duty.
• Prefilled pods cost several times more per milliliter than bottled liquid. A heavy pod user can end up paying a large share of what cigarettes cost.
• Dual use, meaning vaping and still smoking, usually costs more than smoking alone.

One honest caveat runs through all of this. There is no agreed conversion between milliliters of e-liquid and cigarettes, because nicotine strength, device power and puffing style vary so much. So the vaping figures below use clearly stated usage levels rather than a single “equivalent to a pack” number.

Cost of smoking per year (US and UK)

United States

The average US pack of 20 costs $10.15, according to the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids state cigarette tax fact sheet dated June 25, 2026. The same sheet puts Missouri, the cheapest state, at $8.01 and New York, the most expensive, at $14.83. The difference is mostly tax: the Tax Foundation lists New York’s state tax at $5.35 a pack and Missouri’s at 17 cents, on top of the $1.01 federal tax. For state-by-state detail, see our guide to cigarette pack prices.

United Kingdom

The Office for National Statistics recorded an average price of £16.60 for 20 king-size filter cigarettes in January 2025, the latest point in that series. Since then, duty has risen twice. The GOV.UK tobacco duty rates page says the November 2025 rise added 57p to a pack of 20. The rise from October 1, 2026, adds another £1.21. If both are passed on in full, a typical pack reaches about £18.38. That is an estimate, and real shelf prices vary by brand and shop.

The arithmetic is simple: price per pack multiplied by 365. Half a pack a day halves each figure. If you want to see your own number, our breakdown of money saved when you quit walks through it.

Cost of vaping per year by device type

Vaping costs are harder to pin down because people use very different amounts. To keep the math transparent, the table below uses two usage levels: 1 mL of e-liquid a day and 2 mL a day. These are assumptions for illustration, not measured averages.

UK prices used

• Prefilled pods: Vuse’s UK site lists its Extra Intense pods at £6.99 for a pack of two pods holding up to 2 mL each. That works out to about £1.75 per mL at full price, and less on subscription.
• Bottled e-liquid: UK retailer Vape Club lists 10 mL nicotine salt e-liquids in a 4 for £10 multibuy. That is about 25p per mL.
• Refillable kits and coils: The same retailer lists Vaporesso refillable kits from £10.95 to £24.99 and a five-pack of coils at £9.99.

Single-use disposables are no longer a legal option in UK shops. The UK government ban on selling single-use vapes took effect on June 1, 2025.

Refillable users also buy coils and the occasional device. If you change a coil once a week, 52 coils at £9.99 per five-pack cost about £104 a year, before the kit itself.

United States

US vape brand websites sit behind age checks, so the best independent US figure comes from vapers themselves. A nationally representative survey of 801 US adult e-cigarette users, run in April and May 2023 and published in Nicotine & Tobacco Research, found they spent an average of $82.22 a month on e-cigarettes. That is about $987 a year, roughly a quarter of the cost of a pack a day at today’s average price. The study also found that people who only used refillable tank systems spent less.

The UK vape duty and US vape taxes in 2026

UK Vaping Products Duty from October 1, 2026

From October 1, 2026, the UK charges a new excise duty of £2.20 per 10 mL on all vaping liquids, with or without nicotine. HMRC’s announcement of the new vaping duty says duty stamps will start appearing on retail packs from that date. It also notes that whether the duty is passed on is a commercial decision for businesses.

Here is what £2.20 per 10 mL means in practice. It adds 22p per mL, so a 10 mL bottle that sold at £2.50 could reach £4.70. At 2 mL a day, the duty alone adds about £161 a year. That matters far more to a bottled-liquid vaper than to a pod user, because it roughly doubles the per-mL cost of cheap liquid. Yet even with the duty, refillable vaping in our example stays far below the cost of cigarettes. The same October date brings the £1.21 rise on a pack of 20.

US state vape taxes

The Tax Foundation reports that 34 states and Washington, DC, taxed vaping products as of January 2026. The structures differ, so the Tax Foundation models one sample product: four 1.8 mL cartridges with an $18.84 wholesale price. On that product, tax ranges from $17.90, or $2.49 per mL, in Minnesota and Washington to $5.14, or 71 cents per mL, in New York.

That same model implies a pre-tax shelf price of about $25.72 for the pack, or $3.57 per mL, using the Tax Foundation’s own markup assumptions. At 1 mL a day, that is about $1,304 a year before tax and about $2,213 in Minnesota. At 2 mL a day in Minnesota it reaches about $4,425, which is more than a pack a day at the national average. High-tax states and heavy pod use can erase most of the saving.

A local NHS trust explains how vapes fit into a quit attempt, including why switching fully matters.

Hidden costs: devices, coils and dual use

The sticker price of a pod or bottle is not the whole bill. Three costs catch people out.

• Devices. Kits wear out, get lost or break. A replacement refillable kit in the £11 to £25 range is minor next to cigarettes, but it recurs.
• Coils and pods. Refillable users replace coils regularly, and how often depends on the liquid and how hard the device is used. Pod users pay for the pod every time, which is why pods cost so much more per mL.
• Dual use. This is by far the biggest hidden cost. In the 2023 US survey, dual users spent an average of $118.77 a month on cigarettes, about $1,425 a year, as well as buying vaping products.

Dual use is also where the health case falls apart. The NHS guidance on e-cigarettes is clear that you will not get the full benefit of vaping unless you stop smoking completely. For the harm side of the comparison, see whether vaping is worse than smoking.

Comparison table: 1 year, 5 years, 10 years

This table holds 2026 prices flat, so real costs over 5 and 10 years will likely be higher as taxes and prices rise. The UK refillable line assumes 2 mL a day with the new duty passed on, one coil a week and one £24.99 kit a year. The UK pod line assumes 2 mL a day with duty plus one £20 device a year.

The pattern holds across both countries. Switching completely from cigarettes to vaping saves money in almost every scenario, and a refillable setup saves the most. For how many people are making that switch, see our vaping statistics. Smoking habits also differ widely between countries, as our ranking of smoking rates by country shows.

The cheapest option: quitting both

Vaping can be a cheaper and less harmful stepping stone, but the cheapest outcome by far is no nicotine purchases at all. Help to get there is often free.

• UK: The NHS says local stop smoking services are free and can improve your chances of quitting for good. It adds that some services may offer a free e-cigarette starter pack, which can make switching cheaper still.
• US: Smokefree.gov offers its own app and texting programs, plus a page to speak with a quit smoking counselor.
• Plan the step down. If you are vaping now, our guide on whether vaping is harder to quit covers what to expect, and the cheapest quit method prices every option.

Seeing the money add up helps. iQuit’s dashboard shows money saved, cigarettes avoided and days smoke-free, and you can log cravings with their triggers to spot the moments that push you back toward buying. The core app is free on Google Play and the App Store.

Vaping vs smoking cost FAQ