How to Calculate How Many Puffs in E-Liquid

Key Takeaways

Estimating the number of puffs per milliliter of e-liquid depends on several factors, including device type, coil resistance, and individual vaping habits. On average:

• Low-powered devices (e.g., pod kits): Approximately 300 puffs per 1ml of e-liquid.

• High-powered devices (e.g., sub-ohm kits): Approximately 100 puffs per 1ml of e-liquid.

The Rise of Disposables

Disposable vapes have drawn people's attention to how many puffs they can get per device. 600 puffs used to be the magic number, but you can now get up to 20,000 with the latest big puff pod vapes. You may be curious to know how puff count translates to e-liquid bottles used in refillable vape kits -it’s not an exact science as there are a number of variables involved, including the frequency and duration of your inhale. Even disposable vape manufacturers who use machine testing, round off to the nearest hundred while inserting the word ‘approximately’ somewhere in the small print.

But we can get a pretty good idea of how many puffs you can get from vape juice bottles. In this blog we'll show you how to work out the puff count for any sized bottle of e-liquid, so let's dig in.

How Are Vape Puffs Calculated?

It's easier if you start with your vaping style as this will dictate all the other factors involved.

Mouth-to-Lung Vaping

Let's look at refillable MTL vaping kits that use either freebase or nic salt e-liquid at a 50/50 PG/VG consistency. We can use disposable vapes as a baseline as they have a 2ml capacity that delivers about 600 puffs, and they use the same type of e-liquid that refillable kits do.

All vape kits in the UK have a 2ml e-liquid capacity, so you can work out that a 10ml bottle of 50/50 e-liquid should give you about 3000 puffs.

But here’s where things can get tricky. The wide range of coils on offer for MTL vapes can have an impact, lower resistant coils like 0.8ohm, offer an airier vape that will use more power and vape e-liquid at a faster rate. Disposable vapes generally contain a 1.2ohm or 1.6ohm coil. So even though you are using an MTL vape, you may be using more e-liquid if you opt for a lower resistance coil.

How Long Does 10ml Vape Juice Last?

How much time this lasts you is a different story, it depends on how regularly you are using your vape. Ideally, you should be matching your nicotine level to satisfy your cravings and if you find that you are constantly vaping, you may need to up your nicotine strength.

To give you a better idea, disposables that contain 20mg of nic salts are marketed as being equivalent to over 40 cigarettes. So a 10ml bottle with the equivalent nicotine strength should equate to about 200 cigarettes or 10 packs.

How You Draw Matters

Another factor worth noting is the duration of your inhale. All MTL vape kits have a cut-off of 6-8 seconds. If you max that out on every puff then you are probably not getting a full 3000 puffs out of your 10ml bottle. Some MTL kits also offer restricted direct-to-lung style vaping (RDTL), which allows you to take a deeper, longer inhale which is going to use up more e-liquid.

Direct-to-Lung Vaping

DTL or sub-ohm vaping uses thicker high VG e-liquid, which is available in 10ml bottles of premixed nicotine, or the more popular and economical 50ml & 100ml shortfills, that start out with 0mg of nicotine and leave room for an additional nic shot.

Here you are inhaling deep lungfuls of vapour through a kit that pumps out double or even triple the amount of power to that of an MTL kit.

You can see where we are going with this.

These high VG e-liquids can contain up to 3mg or 6mg of nicotine, but quite often people vape for the rich flavour and sheer recreational fun of blowing out massive clouds of vapour - so things can get a bit carried away.

More power means bigger clouds carrying denser & more complex flavours. So you can bet that those sub-ohm coils will be drinking up your e-liquid fast.

Saved by Technology!

The good news is that a lot of sub-ohm vape kits display their own puff counter, so you can set it to zero, top up and vape until you are empty (just don’t burn your coil) and check the number at the end.

Which is exactly what we decided to do here at Vape Superstore. Using the Drag H80S with a mid-range 0.3ohm coil and a bottle of Blow! e-liquid, we filled and vaped 3 tanks worth and found that on average we emptied the 2ml tank in 60 puffs.

This means you get, on average, 1500 puffs per 50ml and 3000 puffs per 100ml shortfill bottle. If you are adding nic shots to your shortfills it works out to about 1800 puffs per 50ml and 3600 puffs per 100ml shortfill.

Puff Counts by E-Liquid Type Explained

Disposable Vape

1 x Disposable Vape = 600 puffs (approx.)

Nic Salts & Freebase E-Liquids

1.2ohm mesh coil + 50/50 10ml = 3000 puffs (approx.)

0.8ohm mesh coil + 50/50 10ml = 2000 puffs (approx.)

Shortfills

0.3ohm mesh coil @ 45W + 70/30 50ml = 1500 puffs (approx.)   / 100ml = 3000 puffs (approx.)

Which Vape is Better Value?

By now you may have realised that vaping 10ml bottles or shortfills with a refillable kit is by far better value for money than disposables. And with the deals on offer here at Vape Superstore it’s a no-brainer in terms of savings - and better for the environment too!

*If you're new to vaping, we have everything you need to know about vapes and e-liquids in our guides section.

MTL Vaping

Sub-Ohm Vaping