Save Money by Switching to Refillable Vapes

Independent of legal wrangling, flavor bans and PMTAs there is an exceedingly strong economic case to be made for the products sold at vape shops. It is an argument that is so strong that it simply cannot be refuted. There is an ethical case too, as the prefilled vape pods sold at gas stations are manufactured by the tobacco industry, their partners, and subsidiaries. 

Wholesale vapes customers and vape shop owners know just how much money can be saved by switching to bottled vape juices. It is just a matter of making that case to the paying customer.

In the event of a post-flavor vaping apocalypse, vape shop owners will still have the far superior and more affordable product. Advances in technology have made refillable vape pods easier to use that ever. 

It is time to hammer out the case for refillable/open vape devices. It is an open and shut case. Even in areas with a flavor ban. Refillable vapes save money and give vapers the flexibility to reduce their nicotine intake with a wider range of e-liquid options. 

Case For Vape Wholesalers: Switch to Refillable and Save Money

If you are a vape wholesaler in an area with a flavor ban, the economic case for a refillable device is your only card because you are also limited to only tobacco flavors.

Fortunately, this card is a trump card. The amount of money that can be saved over a single month of vaping is staggering. The quality of tobacco vape juices and nicotine salts has never been better. 

A vaper using a box mod and high-VG vape juices is pretty much limited to ordering online or buying from a vape shop. But there are countless adult vapers and future vapers who are looking for satisfying, easy to use, and flavorful vapes. They may not even know that the same nic salt potency of a gas station pod system can be enjoyed in a refillable device.

There are also legacy vapers who never moved beyond cigalikes or cartomizer style devices. They have had the rug pulled out from under them by the PMTA process, even though these devices were on the market long before 2016. 

Since the ban on prefilled vape pod flavors in the winter of 2020, vape shops and online vape wholesalers are the only game in town when looking for sweet characterizing flavors.

But what about the vaping initiates and those who are using the c-store bestsellers such as Vuse, MyBlu, Juul, and even Posh disposables? 

Dollars and Sense

With an understanding of local sales taxes and price points, it is possible to provide an exact number for how much a vaper can save switching to a refillable device. It will be based on your own price wholesale vape price point.

This number should be set in stone and recited to any employee or potential customer who walks through the door! It is likely you do some form of this, but it is worth taking an extra minute to nail it down to the last cent.

The key is to convert the price of a prefilled device into 30ml increments, the volume of a salt nic vape juice bottle. Multiplying the price savings in this manner is the most accurate indicator and converts the price savings into a rather large number.

It is also an easily visualized comparison. Extrapolating prefilled pods into 30ml increments is especially important in areas where the local authorities tax vape juices by the milliliter. 

If it costs $300.00 vape 30ml of Juul Tobacco e-liquid in your area and $75.00 to buy a new Vaporesso XROS and bottle of salt nic juice, these are the numbers the customer must be made aware of. That $225 dollars saved per 30ml bottle likely translates to a couple thousand dollars per year. 

Once you figure out the exact price difference for your area, this information can be passed down the chain.

Refillable Vape Pods versus Prefilled Pods

A Juul pod holds 0.7ml of vape juice. There are four in a pack. That is 2.8ml for approximately $20 before tax. The Juul device itself is not free either. It runs $10. With a 200mAh battery an avid vaper will need more than one to make it through the day.

We are talking about a ten-fold difference in price. A Juul pod costs $5 without tax and 43 are required to equal a 30ml of salt nic e-juice. Local taxes vary but this will run well over $250 per 30ml. 

Daily Vaping Expenses

When looked at as a daily vaping habit, it takes three Juul pods to equal the capacity of the Smok Novo series, Vaporesso XROS Mini or whichever comparable autodraw vape pod kit you are purchasing wholesale. Many prefilled pod vapers don’t want to think about how many pods they are tearing through. Yet the expense is so great that they surely have some idea. 

A customer can buy a nice refillable vape pod kit for $30 or 40 dollars with tax. After they finish vaping a bottle of salt nic vape juice, they could pitch what is still a new device into the trash. Even with shipping landed, taxes and no discounts they have spent less than $100 and saved a significant amount of money.  

Pitching money in the trash is essentially what every prefilled vape pod user is doing. A lot of money. Well over $100 a month. Probably closer to $200 or more in most cases.

Realistically, the average person is not throwing away their old Suorin Air or Novo 3 every time they finish a bottle. They will probably need a new pod. A picky vaper might even go through 3 refillable pods to optimize their flavor. This is another $10 expense, depending on the device.

The price advantage of a refillable vape pod kit over the 1.8ml Vuse Alto and 1.5ml MyBlu is a bit less but still significant.

MyBlu Pods are sold in 2-packs and ten of these packages would equal one bottle of nic salt vape juice. It takes about eight 2-packs of the 1.8ml Vuse Alto pods to equal a single nic salt bottle. 

Convenience of Refillable Vape Pod Kits 

A prefilled vape pod like a Vuse Alto, MyBlu or Juul is easier to use only in the sense that you do not have to squeeze a bottle into a pod every day or two. Squeezing a bottle only takes a few seconds and the much longer lasting batteries of a refillable vape pod kit more than offset this difference.

A Vuse Alto and MyBlu both have approximately 350mAh in battery capacity and are estimated to work at around 10-12 watts. Unlike a Juul with its meager 200mAh battery, it is conceivable for these devices to make it through a day. The lack of a standardized charger hinders their convenience as well.

An old UWell Caliburn had a 540mAh battery but today the industry norm in autodraw vape pod kits is closer to 800 to 1000mAh.

While the gas station vape pods are unchanged, refillable vape pods have been upgraded substantially in the last few years. The fill ports on refillable vape pods are larger and more reliable. Vape wholesalers can always emphasize how much more leak proof modern vape products are.

There is no such thing as entirely leak proof due to user error or wear and tear. Even the once notorious Smok products have really gotten their act together.

Vape Pod Technology

The biggest performance advantage for a refillable vape pod is coil design. They have improved monumentally, and mesh coils generate impressive vapor. Every refillable pod has a low-resistance coil that can even handle high-VG/low nicotine juices in a pinch. No small deal for someone looking to save money and reduce nicotine levels.

“Vape pod” is an expansive term. There are some amazing Mod Pods, Pod Mods, Real Pod Mods, and Mini Mods on the market that can do anything. But the basic Caliburn, Novo, XROS, Suorin type autodraw device is the one-to-one equivalent to a gas station closed vape pod kit.

E-Cig Users

Legacy users of cigalikes, vape pens, and e-cigs would surely benefit from the improved designs of refillable vape pod kits. Vapers who never moved far beyond the old eGo Twist style cartomizers have pretty much been left behind by the PMTA process. They are generally older users who prefer tobacco vape juices. Nic salts may even have a scary ring to some of these loyal customers.

The incredible upgrade in ease of use that a Vaporesso XROS Mini or similar device represents is undeniable. They are so much easier to fill and the pods last incredibly long before losing flavor when compared to an old clearomizer. While they still require coil priming, it is not as touchy of a process. The threat of dry hits is much reduced as the size of these vape pod coils and the amount of wicking has been substantially increased over the years.

The style of vaping provided by an autodraw vape pod kit will otherwise be familiar to an e-cig or vape user. Someone who hasn’t upgraded their gear in 6 years may not embrace change, but an economic argument is likely to resonate.

Vape wholesalers should keep in mind that elderly vapers may have difficulty manipulating some of the smaller silicone stoppers on refillable vape pod kits. If there is a preferred hack that allows easy access to the fill ports, such as a paper clip, it is good to keep one on hand. If a device has larger fill ports or an easier to access top fill design like XROS or Caliburn, that is a feature worth mentioning.

Disposable Vapes versus Refillable Vape Pod Kits

Disposable vapes filled the gap left when prefilled vape pods were stripped of their most popular flavors. Disposables are autodraw devices and even easier to use than a prefilled vape pod. Interestingly, they cost less per milliliter than a prefilled pod. But they are more expensive to operate than a refillable pod kit.

Disposable vapes started as stick shaped disposables which were nothing more than an old fashioned cigalike with a new shell that had its cotton polyfill soaked with flavored salt nic juice instead of freebase tobacco e-liquid. Crack open a Posh and Puff Bar and compare the innards to an old Fuma or Jaxx. The technology is identical. The Posh and Puff Bar just smartly changed the form factor to that of a Juul or XROS. 

Despite the humble stick bar origins, disposable vapes have since grown to monumental proportions. Some are flashlight sized and hold 8.5ml or more e-liquid. The original models held 1.3ml on average.

This increase in e-liquid volume has begun to make disposable vapes unwieldy. A switch to rechargeable disposables has begun. Only a large battery can burn through 8.5ml of e-liquid. Switching to a smaller rechargeable battery saves space and guarantees that all the e-liquid enclosed in a disposable can be vaped before the device gives up the ghost. 

Even the longest lasting disposable vape still costs more per ml than filling your own device. Prices vary but the cost per 30ml is not going to dip much below $75. Smaller disposables are more expensive still.

Then there is the matter of waste. Refillable vape pods have begun to shift towards coils that can be swapped, rather than the whole pod getting tossed once the coil is dead. Disposable vapes have edged towards gigantism and waste. The flavors may be there. But the economic case and environmental expense are not.

Nicotine Strengths

The most disheartening aspect of US vaping restrictions is the fixation on flavors and failure to consider nicotine strength levels. In fact, the independent vaping industry is punished for offering more nicotine strength options as each of strength requires their own PMTA.

Most bottled nic salt juices are available in strengths between 25 and 50mg. This is parallel to the strengths offered by Juul. Vuse has done a better job, with a 1.8, 2.4 and 5.0 percent nic strength options. The MyBlu Intense series come in 20 and 40mg strengths. Where available, they have freebase nicotine options as well.

Disposable vapes especially fail on the nicotine strength front. The standard nicotine strength in a disposable is 50mg. The cruder coil technology and lower wattage would not provide a satisfactory performance without this elevated potency. Lower the strength down to 20mg and you are back in the 2015 boat when disposables simply didn’t cut it for most vapers. 

This may sound like an indictment but same holds true for the gas station vape pod kits as well. Cut their nicotine strength to less than 20mg, which is the case in the EU and UK, and suddenly you have a less compelling product.

The goal of most vapers is to gradually reduce their nicotine intake. The pursuit of a lower nicotine intake is certainly complicated when the available strengths are limited.

The advantage of a refillable device is that you can switch from nicotine salt vape juices to lower strength freebase nicotine. Most vape pod kits come with a lower resistance pod for this exact purpose. And vape wholesalers carry plenty of more vape mods and Pod Mods that are optimized for vapor production and lower nicotine vape juices. 

Nicotine strength options are the strongest case against disposable vapes, but the savings are also significant.

Tobacco Vape Juices

The advantages of a refillable vape pod kit are at their greatest when the vape juice flavors that most adults prefer are not banned.  

This does not mean there are not plenty of great tobacco flavored e-liquids available. Tobacco nicotine salt juices, such as Sweet Tobacco from I Love Salts, is a direct competitor with prefilled vape pods. It comes in similar nicotine strengths and offers a comparable flavor profile. There are some outstanding bottled tobacco nic salts.

Before the PMTA and PACT Act hit there were an extraordinary number of tobacco e-liquids with freebase nicotine on the market. These regulatory pressures have pared down the field a lot. But there are still many great tobacco flavors. The availability of more nicotine strength options is a feature that prefilled vape pods and disposables simply cannot match.