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Nic Shot Calculator

How many nicotine shots do I add to my e-liquid?

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The ultimate guide to shortfills & adding nicotine to ejuice

Vaping can be confusing when starting as there are lots of different types of e liquid and hardware. One specific type of juice which cause confusion are a shortfill.

Shortfill vape liquids are flavoured juices that contain no nicotine and require you to add nicotine shots yourself. They are called a shortfill as the bottle is not filled up to the top, leaving room for you to add nicotine to your ejuice and mix your desired overall nic strength.

These type of juices most commonly come in 50ml or 100ml volumes and allow you to mix nicotine levels of 1.5mg, 3mg and 6mg. Of course, you can vape the zero nicotine shortfill without adding anything.

Shortfill juices are generally cheaper per ml as they are purchased in much higher volume and are produced at a lower cost at scale.

So, how much nicotine do I put in the e juice?

As part of our specialist vape calculators, we've created a simple shortfill calculator to help you work out how much nicotine to add.

How to use the nic juice calculator:

  1. Volume of the zero nicotine juice - this is the amount of favoured juice in the shortfill BEFORE anything has been added
  2. Strength of the nicotine shot you have - this will be the strength of the 10ml nic shot and most commonly are 18mg or 20mg in strength
  3. Overall nic strength you want your final juice to be - this is e liquid strength you want your juice to be AFTER adding nicotine

Hit calculate and our nic shot calculator will tell you how much of the high nicotine strength shots to add.

To make life easier for you, we have used our e juice nicotine calculator to provide some of the most common nic calcs and tell you how much nicotine to add to your ejuice.

Number of nic shots to add to a 50ml shortfill:

Desired Nic StrengthNic Shot StrengthHow many 10ml nic shots to add?
1.5mg18mg0.45 shots
1.5mg20mg0.41 shots
3mg18mg1 shot
3mg20mg0.88 shots
6mg18mg2.5 shots
6mg20mg2.14 shots

Number of nic shots to add to a 100ml shortfill:

Desired Nic StrengthNic Shot StrengthHow many 10ml nic shots to add?
1.5mg18mg0.91 shots
1.5mg20mg0.81 shots
3mg18mg2 shots
3mg20mg1.76 shots
6mg18mg5 shots
6mg20mg4.29 shots

These reference tables will make it easy the next time you're wondering how many nic shots for 100ml to make 3mg.

This page can also be used as a nic salt shot calculator. Nic salt shots are just a different type of nicotine shot but still contain nicotine and as such, there is no specific nic salt calculator.

Nic salt shot and nic shots work in the calculator exactly the same way, just ensure you type the correct strength of the nicotine shot in step 2.

Always remember bottle size is important as the space left in the bottle will determine how much nicotine liquid you will be able to add. You can always try to add more liquid but you will not be able to mix it in the original bottle.

Simple Guide To Adding Nic Shots

When you purchase shortfills on IndeJuice, you will receive free nicotine shots. This is irrespective of any deals already applied.

The steps add nicotine to ejuice are:

  1. Use the calculator to work out how many 10ml nic shots to add
  2. Squeeze the nicotine shot slowly into the shortfill bottle
  3. Close the bottle and shake the shortfill
  4. Allow the juice to settle and taste test your vape juice
  5. Vape and enjoy!

History of Nicotine Shot Calculator

This nicotine shot calculator was created in 2017 by vapers for vapers. Since then, it has been used over 1 million times, helping hundreds of thousands of vapers craft the perfect juice.

We would love your feedback so please get in touch through our contact page if you have any ideas or suggestions.

Why are Nicotine Shots Required?

The first nicotine shots were made in 2016 as a reaction to the new Tobacco Products Directive law that started in May of that year.

The new laws stipulated that all nicotine could not exceed 10ml capacity and were limited to a maximum strength of 20mg.

The new law also created extra testing that had to be done for any nicotine containing vape juices, which increased in the cost of manufacturing straight away. To abide by these laws and save money while making the same volume of juices, manufacturers came up with the nicotine shot concept.

This new idea allowed manufacturers to make bottles that contained their desired flavour and a liquid greater than 10ml as long as these juices were zero nicotine.

Manufacturers then separated the nicotine into a separate bottle commonly known as a nicotine shot or nicotine booster.

Brands were able to avoid large testing costs by doing this as they only had to pay for testing the unfavoured and highly concentrated nicotine shot. This way they only reduced their cost to a single compliance test rather than testing an entire range.

At IndeJuice, we have a huge amount of nicotine shots in stock and we give include them free of charge with all IndeJuice shortfill orders. Simply select the overall nicotine strength you want when adding a product to your basket and we will work the right number of free nicotine boosters to send you.