How Many Cigarettes Are in a Vape?

A standard prefilled vape pod holds 2 ml of e-liquid at 20 mg/ml, which is 40 mg of nicotine. A smoker absorbs somewhere between 1 and 2 mg of nicotine from each cigarette, so 40 mg is worth somewhere between 20 and 40 cigarettes. We use the cautious end of that: roughly a pack of 20. That applies to an Elf Bar, a Lost Mary, a Hayati, an IVG, or almost any other prefilled pod sold legally in the UK, because 20 mg/ml is the legal maximum and 2 ml is the standard pod size.

So the honest answer to "how many cigarettes is an Elf Bar" is: about twenty. The brand on the front makes almost no difference. What follows is why that is, what the puff numbers really mean, and where the figures stop being reliable.

How many cigarettes is each vape?

Vape	Liquid	Nicotine	Cigarettes, roughly
Elf Bar (standard pod)	2 ml at 20 mg/ml	About 40 mg	About 20, a pack
Lost Mary (standard pod)	2 ml at 20 mg/ml	About 40 mg	About 20, a pack
Hayati (standard pod)	2 ml at 20 mg/ml	About 40 mg	About 20, a pack
IVG (standard pod)	2 ml at 20 mg/ml	About 40 mg	About 20, a pack
Vuse ePod (not stocked at Ecigone)	1.9 ml, up to 18 mg/ml	About 34 mg	About 17
Any 600-puff vape	2 ml at 20 mg/ml	About 40 mg	About 20, a pack
10 ml bottle at 20 mg/ml	10 ml	200 mg	About 100, five packs
10 ml bottle at 10 mg/ml	10 ml	100 mg	About 50

The sums behind it are simple. Multiply the millilitres by the strength to get the nicotine, then divide by about 2, because a smoker takes in roughly 1 to 2 mg of nicotine from each cigarette. A 2 ml pod at 20 mg/ml gives 40 mg, and 40 divided by 2 is 20. If you want to run it for your own setup, our vape to cigarette calculator does it for you.

Why the puff count on the box is a red herring

This is the part that confuses almost everyone. A 600-puff vape and a 6,000-puff vape can contain exactly the same 2 ml pod at exactly the same 20 mg/ml. The nicotine comes from the liquid, not from the number of puffs, so a bigger number on the box does not mean more nicotine sitting in the device.

What the bigger puff count usually means is that the device is designed to be refilled from a prefilled container, or that it draws less liquid per puff. Puff counts are also measured in a lab under ideal conditions, and almost nobody matches them in real life. Treat them as marketing, not as a measurement.

What about big-puff kits?

Big-puff kits are the devices that replaced disposables after the UK ban in June 2025. They still use a 2 ml pod, because that is the legal limit for the tank itself, but the pod is topped up from a prefilled refill container that comes with the kit.

So the nicotine adds up across the refills rather than sitting in the device all at once. If a kit comes with a 10 ml refill container at 20 mg/ml, that container holds 200 mg of nicotine, or roughly 100 cigarettes' worth, on top of the 40 mg in the pod itself. Work it out by counting the total millilitres you get through, not the puffs claimed on the packaging.

How accurate is any of this?

It is a guide, not a measurement, and it is worth being straight about why.

A cigarette contains far more nicotine than you actually absorb. A typical one holds 11.9 to 14.5 mg, but a smoker only takes in about 1 to 1.5 mg of it, because most is destroyed by the burning or lost in the smoke. Vaping is different again: how much nicotine you absorb depends on the device, the coil, how deeply you inhale and how often. Two people can get through the same pod and end up with very different amounts of nicotine in their blood.

That is why every figure here says "roughly". The comparison is useful for getting a sense of scale, especially if you are switching and want to know whether you are in the right ballpark. It is not a dose. If you want the full explanation of the numbers, we have a detailed guide to how much nicotine is in a cigarette and how a vape compares.

Is 20 mg a lot, then?

It is the UK legal maximum, and it is the standard strength for prefilled pods precisely because it is aimed at people coming off cigarettes. If you smoked twenty a day, it is the strength most likely to keep you comfortable. If you were a lighter smoker, 10 mg often suits better. We cover this properly in our guide to choosing between 5 mg, 10 mg and 20 mg, and in our strength guide for smokers switching over.

What this means for what you buy

If you're on a prefilled device, the thing to watch is how many refill pods you're getting through in a week, because that's your real nicotine intake, not the number on the box. Our prefilled pod kits all list their total e-liquid volume on the page, so you can work it out yourself.

If you want more control over strength, a refillable pod kit with 10ml nic salts lets you pick your own milligrams and step down when you're ready. That's the route most people end up on.

One thing worth being clear about: nicotine is what makes smoking addictive, but it is not what makes it deadly. That comes from the tar and the carbon monoxide in the smoke. So a nicotine comparison is not a harm comparison. The NHS position is that vaping poses only a small fraction of the risks of smoking, that it is not risk free, and that if you have never smoked you should not start.

How many cigarettes in a 5000 or 6000 puff vape?

Big-puff devices don't hold 5,000 or 6,000 puffs' worth of liquid in one pod. UK law caps a prefilled pod at 2ml, so these vape kits work by pairing a 2ml pod with a refill container that tops it up as you go. What matters is the total e-liquid, not the puff number on the box. A device advertising 6,000 puffs typically holds 12ml in total, which at 20mg is 240mg of nicotine, or somewhere around 120 to 240 cigarettes' worth of absorbed nicotine, depending on which absorption figure you use.

That's why we list the total e-liquid volume on every prefilled pod kit page. The puff count is marketing. The millilitres are the fact.