How Much Does DIY Vaping Cost? A Real Cost Breakdown

How Much Does DIY Vaping Cost? A Real DarkStar Breakdown

If you've ever looked at the price of pre-made 10ml bottles and thought, “there has to be a cheaper way”, you’re absolutely right.

DIY mixing is that way.

But how much cheaper is it really? And what do you actually need to buy to get started?

We’ve done the maths using real DarkStar prices, so you can see what you’d spend, what you’d save, and why DIY is going to matter even more when the UK vape tax lands in October 2026.

What You Actually Need

To mix your own e-liquid, you need four things:

- Base Mix, VG and PG blended to an appropriate ratio. We recommend Original (High VG) for higher powered sub-ohm devices, and 70/30 for lower powered, but whichever you choose is personal preference.

- Flavour Concentrate, either One Shots or Bottle Shots

- Nicotine Shots, if you want nicotine

- Bottles, unless you’re using Bottle Shots, because the bottle is included

That’s it.

No lab coat. No chemistry degree. No weird equipment. If you can pour liquid into a bottle and give it a good shake, you can mix.

The Example Vaper

For this breakdown, we’re using a regular vaper getting through about *80ml a week*.

That works out at roughly:

• 350ml a month
• 4.2 litres a year

That’s a fairly normal amount for someone using a sub-ohm kit regularly.

If you vape less, your costs will be lower. If you vape more, your savings will be even bigger.

Option 1: Pre-Made 10ml Bottles

Let’s start with the most expensive route.

If you buy ready-made 10ml bottles at £4.50 each, then 350ml a month means:

• 35 bottles per month
• £157.50 per month
• £1,890 per year

Yep. Nearly two grand a year on vape juice.

And honestly, £4.50 per 10ml is not even the highest price out there. If you do want cost effective 10ml eliquids, we recommend our POD FOG range at just £2.79 each, 4 for £8.95, or 12 for just £21.95!

Option 2: Shortfills

Shortfills are better value than 10ml bottles, especially if you want bigger bottles and fewer purchases.

Using a typical 100ml shortfill setup:

• 100ml shortfill: £12
• Nic shots: around £2
• Total: £14 per 100ml

At 350ml a month, that works out around:

• £49 per month
• £588 per year

Much better than 10ml bottles.

Still not cheap, though.

Option 3: DarkStar Bottle Shots

This is where DIY starts to pull away.

A Bottle Shot gives you the flavour concentrate already measured into the bottle. You just add base mix and nic shots, shake it, and let it steep.

No scales. No syringes. No maths.

A typical monthly DIY setup using Bottle Shots looks like this:

That order gives you enough flavour to make 750ml of finished e-liquid.

You’ll also have base mix and nic shots left over, because you don’t need the full litre of base or every nic shot to make those two bottles. That leftover base and nicotine rolls into your next mix, which is where DIY gets even better value.

For our 350ml-a-month vaper, Bottle Shots work out at around:

• about £27 per month
• about £325 per year

So compared with pre-made 10ml bottles, you’re saving roughly £1,565 a year, or 83%!

Not bad for pouring, shaking, and waiting.

Option 4: DarkStar One Shots + Base Mix

Once you’ve found flavours you love, One Shots are usually the best long-term value.

A One Shot is a recipe concentrate. You add it to your own bottle with base mix and nicotine, then steep as needed.

Example costs:

• 1L Base Mix 70/30: £8.95
• 30ml One Shot: £5.99
• Nic shots: under £1 each, depending on pack size

Depending on the recipe percentage, a 30ml One Shot can make a serious amount of finished liquid. For regular mixing, this route brings the cost down to around:

• about £19.77 per month
• about £237 per year

That’s roughly 87% cheaper than buying pre-made 10ml bottles.

Same idea. Much better maths.

Bottle Shots are still the easiest way to start, because they take the measuring out of the equation.

What About the Vape Tax?

From October 2026, the UK government is introducing Vaping Products Duty.

The current rate is £2.20 per 10ml, or 22p per ml, subject to any future HMRC updates.

That changes the maths.

A 10ml bottle that costs £4.50 today could end up closer to:

• Current price: £4.50
• Vape duty: £2.20
• VAT on duty: £0.44
• Estimated new price: £7.14 per 10ml

For our example vaper using 350ml a month, that becomes:

• £249.90 per month
• £2,998.80 per year

Nearly three grand a year. Painful.

Shortfills get hit too, because duty is based on the volume of vaping liquid. A 100ml bottle would carry £22 of duty before VAT on the duty is added.

DIY doesn’t make the tax disappear. But it does mean you can still get far better value by using concentrated flavour formats and mixing only what you need. By stocking up before the tax hits, you can continue saving money for years to come.

So What Should a Beginner Buy?

If you’ve never mixed before, we’d keep it simple.

A realistic first order could be:

That gives you enough flavour to make 500ml of finished e-liquid

At 80ml a week, 500ml is roughly six weeks of vaping.

Six weeks sorted for about £36, and your next order will be cheaper because you’ll already have some base left.

Good luck getting that from pre-made 10ml bottles.

What About Quality?

This is the bit people always ask.

“Sure, it’s cheaper. But is it actually any good?”

Absolutely!

Every DarkStar concentrate is developed by people who know e-liquid, tested properly, and built around recipes that actually work. These aren’t random flavours thrown together and hoped for the best.

When you mix a DarkStar Bottle Shot or One Shot, you’re making proper e-liquid using our recipes.

The only difference is that you’re doing the final five-minute bit yourself instead of paying someone else to do it for you.

The Bottom Line

DIY vaping with DarkStar is already massively cheaper than pre-made e-liquid.

For a regular vaper, the difference can be around £1,600 a year today. After the vape tax lands, that saving could be enormous if you’ve stocked up beforehand.

If you’re brand new to mixing, start with Bottle Shots. They’re the easiest way to get going.

If you already know what flavours you like, our One Shots and Base Mix will get your cost per ml as low as it goes.

Either way, the maths is pretty hard to argue with.