Vape Starter Kits

What Is a Vape Starter Kit?

A vape starter kit is a complete first vape in one box: the device, a pod or coil already fitted, and on most kits a charging cable. There is nothing to build and nothing to set up.

You will see the same thing sold as a beginner vape kit, a vape starter pack or an e-cigarette starter kit. All three mean this. Nearly all are pod kits that fire when you inhale, so there is no button to hold and no wattage to choose.

We stock over 40 of them, starting at £3.99, and they are the same thing people mean by a vaping starter kit or vape kits for beginners. The wider pod kit range sits behind this one, and every kit we stock, beginner or not, is in the vape kits hub.

What Comes in a Vape Starter Kit

Every starter kit here arrives with the device, one pod or coil fitted ready to go, and the instructions. Most also include a USB-C cable.

• The device, with the battery built in. Nothing to buy separately and nothing to charge outside it.
• One pod or coil, already fitted. Refillable kits take a second one when it wears down.
• A USB-C cable on most kits. The Elf Bar 600 and the Geekvape Sonder Q2 leave it out, on the basis that everyone owns one.
• No e-liquid in a refillable kit. That is the one thing you buy alongside it.

Which is why every refillable starter kit in this collection comes with a free 10ml nic salt. Prefilled kits are different: the pod arrives sealed and already filled, so the kit is everything you need on its own, and there is no free nic salt with those because there is nothing to fill.

How Much Is a Vape Starter Kit?

A vape starter kit costs between £3.99 and £30 in the UK, and most new vapers spend £10 to £20.

• £3.99 to £5, prefilled kits. The device does less, so it costs less. Elf Bar 600 at £3.99, Lost Mary BM600 at £4.99.
• £6.99 to £17, refillable pod kits. This is where most people land and where the choice is widest.
• £20 and up, a bigger battery, a screen or adjustable airflow. A first kit needs none of it.

After the kit, e-liquid is the only ongoing cost. A 10ml bottle of nic salt is about £3 and lasts most people a week, so a refillable kit works out at roughly £1 a day. Last season's models sit in the clearance section if budget is the deciding factor.

E-Cigarette Starter Kits and Vape Starter Kits

An e-cigarette starter kit, an e-cig starter kit and a vape starter kit are all the same thing under different names. E-cigarette was the usual word when the first devices were thin tubes shaped like a cigarette.

The hardware is what moved on. A modern kit is a pod kit with a mesh coil and a rechargeable battery, and it holds flavour and nicotine far better than the cigalikes those searches were about. If you came here looking for electronic cigarette starter kits or e-cig starter kits, every kit on this page is one. Our plain English vape glossary untangles the rest of the wording.

Vape Starter Kits for Switching from Smoking

If you are coming off cigarettes, choose a mouth-to-lung kit and a 10mg or 20mg nic salt. The tight draw and the quicker nicotine hit are what make the change hold, and MTL is how almost every kit on this page is set up.

On strength, 10mg suits under ten a day and 20mg suits more. Our nicotine strength guide goes through it properly.

Tobacco flavours help in the first fortnight because the taste is familiar, and most people move to fruit or menthol once the cravings settle. If you are planning to stop in October, the Stoptober guide sets out the first month. For the kits we hand to smokers most often, see the best starter kits to quit smoking.

Refillable and Prefilled Starter Kits

The choice is whether you fill the pod yourself or click in one that is filled already. Both are in this collection.

Refillable kits take any bottle of e-liquid. That opens up thousands of flavours, lets you pick your own strength, and works out cheaper after the first month.

Prefilled kits arrive with the pod sealed and filled. Nothing to pour and nothing to spill, but you stay inside that brand's flavour list.

Coming off disposables, the prefilled route feels closest to what you already had. The guide to switching from disposables weighs up the two.

Which Starter Vape Kit Should You Buy?

For most people the answer is a refillable pod kit between £9 and £13, because it is cheap to keep topped up and there is nothing to learn. Six we point beginners at most often, all in stock today. The cheapest of them has its own Elf Bar 600 review if you want the detail before you buy.

Three of those belong to families worth seeing in full. The Xlim GO Lite is the pocket model in the OXVA XLIM series, where the Pro and Ultra kits step up to a bigger battery for a few pounds more.

The XROS 5 Mini is the compact one in the Vaporesso XROS series. The G4 Mini is the smallest of the Uwell Caliburn kits, a line that has been a first vape for a lot of people since 2019.

If what you want is the slim pen shape rather than a boxy pod, that is a separate collection: vape pen kits covers the pen-style devices, including the ones with a small tank rather than a pod. And when a starter kit is no longer enough, sub-ohm kits are the step up, with more power and a bigger cloud.

How Long a Vape Starter Kit Lasts

A starter kit lasts around a year of daily use before the battery begins holding less charge. The parts wear out well before the device does.

• A refillable pod or coil, one to two weeks.
• A prefilled pod, about a day for most people, roughly a pack of cigarettes.
• The battery, about a year of daily use. Charging is USB-C on every kit here, under an hour on most.

When a pod stops tasting right it is the pod, not the kit, and a fresh one puts it back to normal. Refilling a pod takes about a minute once you have done it once, and the beginner's guide to vaping walks through the first week from scratch.