A vape feels cheap because you pay for it a few pounds at a time. Add it up and a pod a day is around £1,300 a year, and it just got more expensive.
- A pod a day comes to roughly £25 a week, or about £1,300 a year.
- A new tax on vape liquid started in October 2026, adding about 50p to a typical 2ml pod.
- The same money invested each month for ten years could be worth nearly £17,000.
Figures for the 2026/27 tax year · last checked 2026-10-09
What it actually costs
Nobody buys a year of vapes at once. You buy a pack of pods with your meal deal and it's a few pounds, so the total never shows up anywhere.
Here's a typical pod-a-day habit:
- Seven pods at about £3 each£21
- New vaping duty and VAT, about 53p a pod£4
Per week£25
Rough figures. Prices vary by brand and shop, and heavier or lighter use changes the total a lot. Rounded to the nearest pound.
That's about £25 a week, £108 a month and £1,300 a year.
Why it just went up
Two rule changes have pushed the price of vaping up:
- Single-use vapes were banned across the UK in June 2025. The cheap £5 disposable is gone, and what's on sale now is rechargeable devices with pods or refill liquid.
- Vaping Products Duty started on 1 October 2026. It's a flat £2.20 for every 10ml of vape liquid, whatever the nicotine strength, with VAT charged on top. On a 2ml pod that's about 53p extra.
Refilling from a bottle works out cheaper per ml than prefilled pods, but the duty applies to both.
What that money could do instead
- Invested at 5% a year
- £44,400
- Total you paid in
- £25,900
Illustration only. Assumes 5% a year growth before inflation and charges. Investments can fall as well as rise. About £16,800 after 10 years and £44,400 after 20, from £12,960 and £25,920 paid in.
Worked example
Priya gets through a pod a day, about £25 a week. She has been vaping since she was 19 and is now 24.
If she carries on until 34, the next ten years cost her roughly £13,000. Putting that £108 a month into a Stocks & Shares ISA instead could leave her with around £16,800, which is a house deposit in a lot of the country.
If you want to spend less
- Work out your own number. Count the pods or bottles you bought last week and multiply by 52.
- Cutting down counts. Halving a pod-a-day habit saves about £650 a year. It doesn't have to be all or nothing.
- Get free help to stop. Your GP, pharmacist or local NHS stop smoking service can help you cut down or quit, and it's free.
- Give the money a job. Set up a standing order on payday for whatever you've saved, so it doesn't just disappear into other spending.
Don't swap back to cigarettes. If you vape to stay off smoking, keep doing that. The NHS is clear that vaping is far less harmful than smoking, and a pack-a-day cigarette habit costs several times more.
Avoid the "cheap" ones. Illegal vapes sold under the counter skip the duty and the safety rules, so you have no idea what's in them.