Refillable Vape vs Disposable: How Each Works and What You Buy Again

A refillable vape is a device you fill with vape juice yourself, which is why it’s also called a reusable or non-disposable vape. A disposable, by contrast, comes prefilled and sealed. The disposable vs refillable vape choice comes down to what you buy next: another device, or a bottle and a few pods. Refillable disposables sit in between, and the cost per mL in our shop shows whether a pod kit or a disposable saves you more.

Disposable vs refillable vape: the difference

Both kinds turn e-liquid into vapor the same way: a battery heats a coil, and the coil sits in a pod full of e-liquid. What changes is what happens when that pod runs out. In a disposable, the pod and the battery are one sealed unit, so the whole device is finished. In a refillable vape, you open the pod and fill it again, and after several refills you swap in a new pod while the battery stays.

With a disposable, then, every purchase is a new device. With a refillable vape, the device is a one-time cost, and after that you only buy nicotine salts and pods.

How a refillable vape works

Most refillable vapes today are pod kits, and a pod kit is the reusable vape most people mean. Our best-selling pod kit, the Vaporesso XROS 6, has a built-in 1800mAh battery, a screen and a 3mL pod with the coil built in. To fill it, you open the fill port on the pod, add nic salt from a bottle and close it. Hold the button for three seconds, and its Smart Prime counts down 60 seconds while the coil soaks. You then vape it like a disposable: draw on it, or press the button.

The coil wears out over time, and once the taste turns burnt, you swap in a new pod. Vaporesso rates each XROS pod for 6 to 8 refills, and the pods come four to a pack. Every XROS pod fits every XROS kit too, and our XROS pod compatibility guide shows which draw each pod gives. The battery just recharges over USB-C.

Some reusable vapes make refilling even simpler. The SMOK SINCH 150K Kit has a 6mL pod that fills straight from a standard 30mL bottle: screw the bottle into the base, turn the kit over and press FILL. To compare more non-disposable vapes, browse all our vape pods.

How a disposable vape works

A disposable skips everything a refillable vape asks of you. It comes prefilled, so there’s nothing to set up. Most of ours hold 16 to 40mL of 5% nicotine, and most recharge over USB-C, so a flat battery doesn’t mean it’s empty. The pod is still sealed, though. Once the e-liquid runs out or the coil burns out, the device is done, and you recycle it as a battery.

That’s the trade-off. You give up the choice of flavor and strength that a bottle gives you, but you skip the filling, the priming and the spare pods. Disposables also come in very large sizes now. The HorizonTech 100K, for example, holds 40mL, which is more than a 30mL bottle of nic salt. Our guide to the most popular disposable vapes ranks the ones our customers pick most.

Refillable disposables: a disposable you can refill

A newer kind sits between a refillable vape and a disposable. A refillable disposable comes prefilled like a disposable, but it also comes with a refill bottle, so you fill it at least once more before it’s finished. You get more e-liquid for the price that way, though you still replace the whole device or its pod in the end.

The EVR Fog 100K Kit is our best seller of this kind. It’s a 1200mAh battery plus a pod prefilled with 15mL and a 15mL refill bottle, so that’s 30mL in all. When both fills are gone, you keep the battery and buy a new pod, which comes with its own bottle. The Pod Monster x SMOK 80K works much the same: 10mL prefilled, plus a 30mL bottle of the same flavor for refills. The Kong by Zilla goes one step further, since a 30mL bottle screws into the device and feeds a 2mL tank. When it’s empty, you screw in another 30mL bottle of salt nic.

What a refillable vape and a disposable cost per mL

Price per milliliter is the fairest way to compare them, since each type holds a different amount. Here’s the math for our best sellers, using the prices on their pages when we published this guide. For the reusable vape, we used a 30mL bottle of nic salt, which is $12.99 for most of the 30mL bottles we carry, plus a pack of XROS pods.

Two things stand out in the disposable vs refillable vape math. A big disposable like the HorizonTech 100K is hard to beat per mL, because 40mL for $17.99 works out cheaper than a bottle plus pods. A small disposable like the RAZ LTX 25K, though, costs about twice as much per mL as a refillable vape, so the savings are real if you’d otherwise buy small ones. The pod kit itself is a one-time cost too: $31.99 for the XROS 6, or $12.99 for the SINCH. Our guide to disposable vape prices compares every brand we carry.

Disposable vs refillable vape: which one fits you?

Here’s how we’d choose:

• Pick a disposable if you want zero setup, you vape now and then, or you want a 40mL device for the price of a bottle.
• Go with a refillable vape if you want a reusable vape with hundreds of flavors, a lower strength than 5%, or a device that stays in your pocket for months.
• Try a refillable disposable if you like disposables but want the extra 15 to 30mL that the refill bottle adds.

Whichever you pick, the strength works the same way: a 5% label means 50mg per mL. Our guide to how much nicotine is in a vape shows the totals for each size, and our freebase vs salt nicotine guide explains which e-liquid suits a pod kit. Every disposable, pod and battery holds a lithium-ion cell, so the EPA says to recycle them as batteries, not in household trash.

Disposable vs refillable vape FAQ

This guide shares general facts. The prices and the per-mL math are from our product pages when we published this guide, and they can change. Pod refill counts and puff counts are the makers’ ratings. Vape products contain nicotine, which is addictive. You must be 21 or older to buy them, under the federal Tobacco 21 law. Some states limit vape sales and shipping, so check our vape shipping guide before you order.