How Much Nicotine Should I Vape? Strength Guide for UK Vapers

• Start from how many cigarettes you smoked a day. Up to 5 a day points to 3mg to 6mg, 5 to 10 a day to 5mg to 10mg, 10 to 15 a day to 10mg to 12mg, a pack or more to 18mg to 20mg.
• 20mg/ml is the UK legal maximum and nicotine-containing bottles are capped at 10ml. Anything stronger is not legal to sell here.
• Nic salts are for pod kits and high strengths. They stay smooth at 10mg and 20mg. Freebase gets harsh above 12mg, so it’s the better choice for 3mg to 6mg in bigger kits.
• Strength and device go together. Low-power pod kits suit 10mg to 20mg. Sub-ohm kits push out far more vapour per puff and need 3mg to 6mg.
• Adjust after a week, not a day. Headaches or nausea mean go down a step. Still craving cigarettes means go up a step or switch to salts.

What the mg number on the bottle means

Every bottle of nicotine e-liquid sold in the UK is labelled in milligrams per millilitre (mg/ml). A 10ml bottle at 10mg contains 100mg of nicotine in total. Some brands print it as a percentage instead: 1.0% is 10mg/ml, 2.0% is 20mg/ml. They are the same thing written two ways.

UK law caps strength at 20mg/ml and caps bottles that contain nicotine at 10ml. That’s why every nic salt and every 10ml e-liquid on the site tops out at 20mg, and why bigger shortfill bottles leave the factory with no nicotine at all. If you see anything sold above 20mg it isn’t compliant with UK vape law. Our guide to the strongest nic salt you can buy in the UK covers what 20mg actually feels like.

The number on its own doesn’t tell you how much nicotine you’ll actually get. That depends on how much vapour your device makes per puff and whether the nicotine is freebase or salt, which is why the rest of this guide looks at all three together.

Strength by how much you smoked

The most reliable starting point is your old cigarette habit. Nobody gets the exact same nicotine from a vape as from a cigarette, but the table below is the range that works for most people switching in the UK, and it’s the one we give customers in the shop.

Freebase and salt columns are alternatives, not a combination. Pick the column that matches your device, then the row that matches your habit.

Two things skew the table. Roll-ups usually count as heavier than the number suggests, because hand-rolled tobacco tends to be smoked harder, so a 10-a-day roll-up smoker often does better in the moderate row. And if you were a social smoker who only lit up with a drink, the low row is right, but expect to find that a strong hit from a 20mg pod feels like far too much.

Nic salt vs freebase: same nicotine, different feel

There are two forms of nicotine in UK e-liquid and they behave very differently at the same mg figure. This matters more than most beginners realise, because a 20mg nic salt and a hypothetical 20mg freebase would feel like two different products.

The practical rule: if you need 10mg or more, buy salts. If you’re happy at 3mg to 6mg and you like a bit of throat hit, freebase is cheaper per bottle in multi-packs and gives a more gradual release that suits all-day vaping on a bigger kit. Our guide to the top nic salt e-liquids in the UK covers the ranges worth trying first.

One warning that gets repeated for good reason: never put 18mg or 20mg in a sub-ohm kit. A high-powered device delivers several times the vapour of a pod per puff, so a 20mg salt in a 0.2Ω coil will leave you dizzy, coughing and nauseous within minutes. Salts belong in low-power pods.

Match the strength to your device

Nicotine per puff is strength multiplied by vapour. A small pod kit running a 1.2Ω coil at 10W produces a tight, cigarette-sized draw. A box mod on a 0.15Ω coil at 80W produces a cloud that fills a room. Put the same 10mg liquid in both and the mod hands you many times the nicotine. That’s why the strength that suits a pod is wrong for a mod, and vice versa.

If you’re not sure which draw you prefer, our guide to MTL vs DTL vaping explains the difference in two minutes. For most ex-smokers a pod kit is the right answer, and the pod kits that work best with nic salts are the ones with coils between 0.8Ω and 1.2Ω.

A pod kit we’d point a new vaper towards for salts is the Vaporesso Xros 4 Mini, which peaks at 16W and takes Xros pods from 0.4Ω to 1.2Ω, so fit the 0.8Ω or 1.2Ω pod if you are running a 10mg or 20mg salt. If you’d rather skip refilling altogether, a prefilled pod kit comes with nic salt already in the pod, usually 20mg, which is the closest legal replacement for the disposables that were banned on 1 June 2025.

How to find your strength in a week

Nobody nails it on the first bottle every time, and that’s fine. A 10ml bottle is a cheap experiment. Here’s the process we recommend to anyone switching.

1. 1
   Start one step lower than the table if you’re unsure. It’s easier to go up from 10mg than to recover from a 20mg headache on day one. The exception is a heavy smoker with a pod kit, who should start at 20mg salt straight away.
2. 2
   Vape it like a cigarette, not like a mod. Short draws, a few minutes at a time, then put it down. Chain vaping a pod for twenty minutes will make any strength feel too strong.
3. 3
   Give it three to five days. Your body is adjusting to a new delivery method. Judge the strength on how you feel across a normal day, not the first hour.
4. 4
   Move one step. Still thinking about cigarettes an hour after vaping? Go up a strength or switch from freebase to salt. Dizzy, headachy or queasy? Go down a strength or take fewer puffs per session.
5. 5
   Mix two strengths of the same flavour to fine tune. Half a 10mg and half a 20mg salt gives you 15mg. Half a 3mg and half a 6mg freebase gives you 4.5mg. Ranges like Hayati Pro Max come in 10mg and 20mg for exactly this reason.

Signs your strength is wrong

A separate problem that gets mistaken for a weak liquid is vaper’s tongue. If you’ve vaped the same flavour for weeks and it suddenly tastes of nothing, the strength hasn’t changed; your taste buds have tuned it out. Swap to a different flavour for a few days, drink more water, and it comes back. Don’t respond by going up in strength.

Which strengths each range comes in

Not every range is sold in every strength, which can catch you out when you change strength. The nic salt ranges that came out of the disposable era mostly stick to 10mg and 20mg, with a few offering 5mg. Traditional freebase 10mls cover the low end.

Strengths as listed on each product page at the time of writing. Check the dropdown before you order.

Strength has a cost angle too. From 1 October 2026 the Vaping Products Duty adds £2.20 per 10ml plus VAT, and it’s charged on volume, not on nicotine, so a 20mg bottle and a 5mg bottle carry the same £2.64. Vaping a strength that actually satisfies you means fewer bottles a month, which is the simplest way to soften the vape tax. Whichever strength you settle on, every £1 you spend earns 1.8 reward points.

Changing your strength

Plenty of vapers stay at their first strength for years and that’s fine. If you do change strength, change one thing at a time. Don’t change your device at the same time, because a new kit with a bigger coil can deliver noticeably more nicotine per puff.

If a range you like only comes in 10mg and 20mg, blend the two 50/50 to make 15mg as a halfway house. Below 5mg, most people move from salts to freebase, either 3mg 10mls or a shortfill with a single nic shot, which our shortfill vs 10ml guide walks through. Zero-nicotine liquid exists for the hand-to-mouth habit once the nicotine itself is gone.

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