The UK Vape Price Index 2026: What 31,080 Products From 10 Retailers Show
Published 6 August 2026. Data collected 3 August 2026.
We read the full public catalogues of ten UK vape retailers — 31,080 product listings with prices — to answer one question properly: what does vaping actually cost in Britain right now, and how much of what you pay is just which shop you happened to open?
The short answer is that the spread is far wider than most people assume. The same bottle of e-liquid sells for £2.49 in one shop and £3.99 in another. The same replacement pods sell for £10.75 and £23.95. And on 1 October 2026 a flat tax lands on every millilitre of e-liquid sold in the UK, which will hit the cheapest products hardest by a wide margin.
Method, stated plainly
On 3 August 2026 we read the public product catalogues of ten UK vape retailers, giving 31,080 listings with prices. Every figure below is a median of listed prices including VAT, before multi-buy discounts. Medians, not averages, because a handful of £150 devices and £0.60 clearance bottles would otherwise drag an average somewhere useless.
This is a snapshot of one day, not a live tracker. Prices move. We have published the date on every number so you can judge how stale it has become by the time you read it.
What each category costs
| Category | Listings | Cheapest | Median | Dearest | Spread |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 10ml nic salt e-liquid | 9,693 | £0.60 | £3.49 | £56.99 | 95× |
| Refillable pod kits | 2,926 | £1.99 | £9.99 | £147.99 | 74× |
| Replacement pods | 1,412 | £0.60 | £5.99 | £79.99 | 133× |
| Replacement coils | 781 | £0.95 | £9.99 | £25.00 | 26× |
| Nicotine pouches | 974 | £0.99 | £3.95 | £28.95 | 29× |
Two things stand out. First, a refillable pod kit and a tin of replacement coils sit at the same median — £9.99 — which tells you how much of a modern kit's price is the disposable part rather than the electronics. Second, replacement pods have the widest spread of any category at 133×. Some of that is multipacks versus singles, but it also reflects a simple behavioural fact: people price-check devices and then stop price-checking the consumable they buy every week.
The same product, ten different prices
This is the part worth acting on. We isolated individual products stocked by most of the ten retailers and compared the median price each shop charged for the identical item.
| Product | Shops stocking it | Cheapest shop | Dearest shop | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Elf Bar ElfLiq 10ml nic salt | 10 | £2.49 | £3.99 | 60% |
| Elux Legend 10ml nic salt | 9 | £2.49 | £3.99 | 60% |
| Vaporesso XROS replacement pods | 9 | £10.75 | £23.95 | 123% |
Identical products. Same manufacturer, same pack size, same country. The XROS pods figure is the one that should make you check your receipts: a 123% difference on a consumable you replace every few weeks compounds into real money over a year.
There is no recommended retail price enforcement in UK vaping, and shops buy at very different volumes, so spread is inevitable. A 60% spread on a £3 bottle is annoying. A 123% spread on pods you buy monthly is a different order of problem.
What the October 2026 duty actually does to these numbers
From 1 October 2026, Vaping Products Duty applies. HMRC's guidance is unambiguous about the rate:
“Vaping Products Duty will be set at a single flat rate of £2.20 for a 10ml bottle on all vaping liquid.”
— HMRC, Prepare for Vaping Products Duty
Three details people keep getting wrong:
- It is flat, not a percentage. Every 10ml carries the same £2.20 whether the liquid cost 60p or £6.
- It applies to nicotine-free liquid too. Shortfills are not exempt.
- It applies to liquid already inside a device. A prefilled kit holding 15ml carries roughly £3.30 of duty.
Applied to our measured prices, the effect is not evenly distributed at all:
| 10ml bottle today | After £2.20 duty | Increase |
|---|---|---|
| £0.60 (cheapest listing) | £2.80 | +367% |
| £2.49 (cheapest shop, ElfLiq) | £4.69 | +88% |
| £3.59 (measured median) | £5.79 | +61% |
| £6.00 (premium 10ml) | £8.20 | +37% |
A flat tax on a category where the median is £3.59 is a regressive tax. The cheapest products — the ones bought by people with the least to spend, and often by people who have most recently stopped smoking — take a 367% increase, while premium liquid takes 37%. Whatever you think of the policy, that is the arithmetic.
What that means over a year
Duty is easy to shrug off at £2.20 a bottle. Annualised against our measured median of £3.49, it stops being a rounding error. These are straight multiples of the median, before any multi-buy discount:
| If you get through… | Bottles a year | Cost today | After 1 Oct 2026 | Extra per year |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 bottle a week | 52 | £181 | £296 | +£114 |
| 2 bottles a week | 104 | £363 | £592 | +£229 |
| 1 every 3 days | 122 | £426 | £694 | +£268 |
| 1 every 2 days | 183 | £639 | £1,041 | +£403 |
Worth putting beside the other number in this study: the gap between the cheapest and dearest shop for the identical ElfLiq bottle is 60%, or about £1.50. At two bottles a week that shop choice alone is roughly £156 a year — comparable to what the duty will add. Shopping around is not a small lever here; it is the same size as the tax.
Where the money actually leaks
Putting the two findings together gives a fairly blunt conclusion for anyone who vapes regularly.
- The device is a one-off; the consumable is the cost. Median kit £9.99 against a bottle every few days at £3.49. Within two months the liquid has cost more than the device.
- Consumables are where the price spread is worst (pods 133×, and 123% between shops for the identical item), and they are exactly what people stop price-checking.
- Prefilled devices carry duty on their full liquid volume. After October, a 15ml prefilled device carries around £3.30 of duty, where refilling the same 15ml from bottles carries the same £3.30 — but the bottles were cheaper to begin with.
If you are still using prefilled or single-use devices, our guide to prefilled versus refillable pods covers the switch. If you already refill, the ratio on the bottle matters more than the brand — see VG/PG ratio explained.
Caveats we are not going to hide
- We are a vape retailer. We sell some of the products measured here. The dataset is every listing from ten shops including competitors, and the medians are what they are — but you should weigh the source.
- One day's snapshot. 3 August 2026. Not a live tracker.
- Listed prices, not paid prices. Multi-buy deals are common in this category and will pull real basket prices below these medians.
- Category matching is by product title, so a small number of unusual listings will sit in the wrong bucket. With 31,080 rows the medians are robust to that; the minimum and maximum figures are not, which is why we lead with medians.
Frequently asked questions
How much does vape e-liquid cost in the UK in 2026?
Across 31,080 products listed by ten UK vape retailers in August 2026, the median price of a
10ml nicotine salt e-liquid was £3.49. Prices ranged from £0.60 on clearance to £56.99 for
multi-bottle listings, so the median is a far more useful guide than either extreme.
Why is the same vape product a different price in every shop?
Because vape retail has no recommended retail price enforcement and margins vary widely by
how shops buy. In our dataset the same Elf Bar ElfLiq 10ml bottle ranged from £2.49 to £3.99
across ten shops, a 60% difference, and Vaporesso XROS replacement pods ranged from £10.75
to £23.95, a 123% difference, for identical products.
How much will the October 2026 vape tax add?
Vaping Products Duty is a flat £2.20 per 10ml of e-liquid from 1 October 2026, and it
applies to nicotine-free liquid too. Applied to our measured median 10ml price of £3.59,
that is a rise to £5.79, or 61%. The cheapest bottles are hit hardest: a £0.60 clearance
bottle becomes £2.80, a 367% increase.
Does the vape tax apply to disposable or prefilled pod devices?
Yes. The duty is charged on the vaping liquid, so it applies to liquid already inside a
prefilled pod or device as well as to bottles sold separately. A device holding 15ml of
e-liquid carries roughly £3.30 of duty.
Are refill pods actually cheaper than buying a new kit?
In our dataset, yes, consistently. Median replacement pods came in at £5.99 against a median
refillable pod kit at £9.99. The saving compounds because one kit body is reused across many
pods, but only if your kit takes replaceable pods in the first place.
Which vape category has the widest price spread?
Replacement pods, at 133× between the cheapest and most expensive listing. That is
partly multipacks versus singles, but it also reflects that shoppers rarely price-check
consumables the way they price-check devices.
How was this data collected?
We read the public product catalogues of ten UK vape retailers on 3 August 2026, giving
31,080 product listings with prices. Figures are medians of listed prices including VAT,
before any multi-buy discount. This is a snapshot, not a live tracker, and prices move.
Using this data
The figures in this study may be quoted freely with attribution to Vape7Store and a link to this page. If you are a journalist or researcher and want the category breakdown in more detail, the methodology above should be enough to reproduce it against any set of public catalogues.
Related reading
- Vaping Products Duty October 2026 — the full guide to what the duty is and how it is collected
- VG/PG ratio explained — matching the bottle to your coil, which decides whether you waste liquid
- Prefilled vs refillable pods — where the duty lands hardest
- When to change your vape coil — coil life is the other half of running cost