Electronic Cigarette Information

Cost of Use

In this quick cost-of-use analysis, we're going to have to make some asumptions:

Use of equivalent to 20 regular cigarettes per day, 7300 per year.
$60 for inital kit of 1 atomizer, 2 batteries, 5 cartridges, and a charger.
Batteries cost $15, atomizers cost $10, cartridges are $4/5-pack, and liquid is $1/ml.
Batteries last 100 charges, atomizers last 6 weeks.
Cartridges and batteries last as discussed earlier.

For someone who plans on only using an electronic cigarette for a short time, the cost is easy to figure out based on their individual desires. This analysis is going to look at the long-term cost for someone who decides to use electronic cigarettes instead of regular cigarettes as a long-term smoking alternative. So we'll look at the cost for one year, based on model.

Initial Kit and Atomizer Cost

Initial Kit - $60
Atomizers, 8 @ $10 - $80
Total for all models - $140

Battery Cost

Model: cigs per year/cigs per charge/charges per battery = batteries per year * $15 each
103: 7300/ 5/50*15 = $438
401: 7300/ 7/50*15 = $313
901: 7300/ 9/50*15 = $243
801: 7300/11/50*15 = $199

Cartridge / Liquid Cost

Cartridges are expensive - throwing them away after one use makes no sense. It is much cheaper to buy the liquid and refill them. If you're rich enough to buy cartridges for long-term use, then you don't need to see a cost analysis. For the rest of us, I'm going to assume you are buying the liquid and using 1.5 ml/day. That's $1.50/day, or $547 for liquid for all models.

Total Cost per year for electronic cigarettes, by model

103: $140 + $438 + $547 = $1,125
401: $140 + $313 + $547 = $1,000
901: $140 + $243 + $547 = $ 930
801: $140 + $199 + $547 = $ 886

Total Cost per year for regular cigarettes, by pack price

@ $ 3/pack = $1,095
@ $ 4/pack = $1,460
@ $ 5/pack = $1,825
@ $ 6/pack = $2,190
@ $ 7/pack = $2,555
@ $ 8/pack = $2,920
@ $ 9/pack = $3,285
@ $10/pack = $3,650

I remember cigarettes used to be real cheap in the Southeast US, but I don't know if you can get them there at $3/pack. If you can, it would actually be more expensive to use a 103 model electronic cigarette than it would be to use regular cigarettes. But I think for most people it would be quite a bit cheaper to use an electronic cigarette. I wonder when government taxes will force cigarettes to $10/pack ?

I think it's pretty obvious that long-term use of an electronic cigarette is much less expensive than long-term use of regular cigarettes. But money is only part of the equation. Next we need to look at the health issues surrounding electronic cigarette use.