Welcome to Vaping Hardware’s Nicotine Shot Calculator! If you want to know how many Nicotine Shots to add to your e-juice, you’re in the right place!
Just a word of warning before you use the nicotine shot calculator… Please be sure to handle your nicotine with care! It’s considered a toxic substance and dangerous if not used with precaution!
If you’re new to the concept of nicotine shots and shortfill bottles, take a look at our beginners guide to Nicotine Shots and Shortfill E-Liquid… Also, before you go any further, be sure you know exactly what nicotine strength you need…
To Use The Nicotine Shot Calculator
If you’ve already settled on a nicotine level, just select ‘Nicotine Shot’ below. Pop in your base nicotine, target nicotine and e-liquid volume and hit calculate. Our nicotine shot calculator will tell you how many nicotine shots to add to your nicotine free e-juice and you’re good to go!
The nicotine shot calculator will also allow you to increase the nicotine strength of your e-liquid. For example, if you want to increase from a 3mg nicotine strength to 6mg, 12mg or more.
To Use The Shortfill Calculator
If you’ve purchased a shortfill, select ‘Shortfill’ and input the size of your bottle. For example, a 100ml shortfill bottle will usually contain 80ml of nicotine free e-liquid. In that case you’d enter ‘100ml’ and hit calculate. Leave the rest up to us and we’ll tell you how much nicotine you need to add to your shortfill bottle to hit your target nicotine strength.
If you want to know the final PG/VG ratio of your mix if you add a Nic Shot, you can use our PG/VG Ratio Calculator to determine the effect on the final ratio if you add a PG base Nic Shot or a VG base Nic Shot or a combination of the two.
Finally, if you’re a DIY buff and you’re just looking to mix e-juice with your own base liquids, flavor concentrate(s) and freebase nicotine, you’ll want to use our E-Liquid Calculator!
Nicotine Shot Calculator
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Frequently Asked Questions
What is a Nicotine Shot?
A nicotine shot, or ‘nic shot’, is a 10ml bottle of flavorless nicotine suspended in PG, VG or a mixture of both. These 10ml nicotine shots are usually 18mg in strength if you’re buying within the EU, which is the maximum size and strength of nicotine you can purchase since the introduction of the TPD regulations.
Just add one or more 10ml nicotine shots to a bottle of nicotine free, flavored e-juice and you’re good to go. It’s super easy and the result is a bottle of flavored e-juice with whatever nicotine strength you need to satisfy your cravings!
If you have a batch of nicotine free e-juice and you need to know how many nicotine shots to add, our nicotine shot calculator will do all the hard work for you. It’s super easy to use – just pop in the amount of e-juice and your target nicotine and hit calculate!
What is a Shortfill bottle?
A shortfill is just a bottle of e-juice without nicotine. The e-juice will be some mixture of VG, PG and flavor but will always be nicotine free. They’re called shortfill bottles because they’re usually only filled to about 80% capacity, leaving you space to add one or more nicotine shots.
Our nicotine shot calculator will help you work out how many nicotine shots you need to add to each shortfill bottle. Just select ‘Shortfill’ – enter the total size of your shortfill bottle and the nicotine strength you need and hit calculate! If you have any issues, or just want to leave some feedback, please feel free to leave us a comment!
If you want to know more, we’ve written a detailed post about Nicotine Shots and Shortfill bottles so be sure to check it out!
How do I add Nicotine Shots to a Shortfill bottle?
Adding a nicotine shot to a shortfill bottle is really simple. Just unscrew the cap of both bottles, carefully pour the contents of your nicotine shot into the shortfill bottle and replace the lid. Make sure you dispose of the empty nicotine shot responsibly and wash your hands thoroughly!
All that’s left to do is give your shortfill bottle a good shake!
Can I mix higher than 6mg in a Shortfill bottle?
It’s tricky but not impossible! The idea of shortfill bottles is to leave space in the bottle, allowing you to add your nicotine shot(s). Your shortfill bottle is filled with PG, VG and flavor concentrate(s) to roughly 80% capacity. Therefore, you only have enough space for a maximum strength of 6mg nicotine before the bottle becomes full.
Achieving a higher nicotine strength would mean either removing some of your nicotine free juice from the shortfill bottle or adding your nicotine free e-juice to a larger bottle! Either way this increases the space you have available to add nicotine shots. However, the drawback is a reduction in flavor…
Regardless of which option you choose, you can use our nicotine shot calculator to work out exactly how many nicotine shots you need to add to your e-juice. Just input the amount of nicotine free e-juice you have and the target nicotine strength you want. Hit calculate and the nicotine shot calculator will tell you exactly how many nic shots to add.
If you do want to vape at higher than 6mg nicotine strength, it’s actually far easier mixing your own DIY e-juice, which we highly recommend!
Can I vape a Nicotine Shot?
We wouldn’t recommend vaping a nicotine shot straight! Although it won’t do you any harm, it’s purely just 18mg strength nicotine in either PG or VG. Not only will there be no flavor, it’s also likely to be pretty harsh!
Where can I buy Nicotine Shots?
With so many vape retailers offering nicotine shots and/or shortfill bottles, your options are almost endless! Prices and quality can vary considerably, meaning it’s well worth shopping around and doing your research.
However, we’ve personally used and recommend DarkStar, Just Vape 247 and Vampire Vape!
Do I need to steep my Shortfill e-liquid?
In most cases you don’t need to steep your shortfill bottle of e-liquid. This is because it’s probably had plenty of time to steep before it reaches you! As you’re only adding nicotine to the e-juice, giving it a damn good shake before vaping should mix it thoroughly!
That being said, steeping usually improves the flavor of your e-juice! If you want more info about steeping, check out our steeping guide!
Can I use a higher mg nicotine in a Shortfill?
While most nicotine shots will come in a 10ml bottle at a strength of 18mg/ml (damn the TPD restrictions in the EU), you might be one of the lucky ones who have a ‘stash’ of 72mg strength nicotine in the cupboard or happen to live outside the EU.
If this is the case, you can still use our nicotine shot calculator to help you add higher strength nicotine to a shortfill bottle. Just set your ‘nicotine base strength’ to the correct level and hit the calculate button!
Can I use Nicotine Salts instead?
Yes you can, the nicotine shot calculator works with freebase or nicotine salts, and both are great options. Simply input the strength of your nicotine shot and you’re good to go!
Can I use a Shortfill if I vape zero nicotine?
Yes of course! Your shortfill bottle will contain increased flavor concentrate to compensate when more base liquids are added. So if you don’t vape with nicotine, you can just top up the shortfill bottle with VG or PG.
We hope you’ve enjoyed using our Nicotine Shot Calculator!
If you have any problems, check out the Nicotine Shot/Shortfill Calculator Guide… Please also feel free to drop us a comment below as we would love any feedback!
Photo credit: Featured image courtesy of Vaping360
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Comments 36
Do you know how I can measure 1 mg of nicotine out of a 100 mg bottle that’s 120 Millileters?
Trying to find out before the vape ban, please. Which is in a few days.
Thank you,
Brooke
Author
Hi Brooke,
I don’t understand what you are trying to achieve? Your question is not clear. 120ml of 100mg nic gives you and overall value of 12000mg/ml. From your question 1mg of 120ml at 100mg = 1.2mg but i dont see how this helps you. Please expand what mix you are trying to achieve? Are you mixing shortfill bottles or DIY e-liquid mixing. What Nicotine base strength do you have and what final e-liquid strength and quantity of e-liquid do you want to mix?
Hi,
I’m trying to figure out how to buy a 500 millileter bottle of 100 mg nicotine to make possible to figure out how many milligrams of nicotine to add, where I’m buying 100 millileters and some are 3, some are 6, and some are zeros. How do I calculate to get 1 mg more per every 100 millileters? So I can just add 1 at a time? Like basically, how many millileters of a 500 millileter bottle of 100 mg nicotine equal 1 mg?
Please help me before the vape ban goes though, thank you thank you!!!!
Author
Hi Brooke,
Thank you for your question. Firstly, buy your nicotine now, dont wait. You would also need to buy a lot of PG or VG base mix to decant the nicotine down to 3mg or 6mg. I’m a little confused exactly what your after in terms of final nicotine strength.
Our calculator will work out how much PG or VG you would need to add to a new bottle with your 100mg strength nicotine to get the final strength you require. Select Shortfill, put 100 in Nic Base Strength, put 0 in Existing Strength, put your target nicotine strength in, put the size of bottle you want to decant in and hit the calculate button.
The result will show you how much of your 100mg nic you need to add to a new bottle with the amount of PG or VG that needs to be added to make your desired mix strength. Hope this helps. Come back to me if your still not sure.
I’ve got bottles of base in various strengths – not shots. Because I mix different amounts at different times I’m looking to calculate strength percentage of 2 mixed strengths – not in mgs and mls – just, say, x% of 3mg and x% of 36mg will give me 18 mg strength at any volume.
It’s not hard if I’m just diluting with 0mg pg/vg, just 50/50 with 36 mg, but I need to use this big bottle of 3mg (ordered by mistake) and I think one of 12mg.
And I don’t do math well – also the target strength *doesn’t) have to be exact, just rounded down as close to 18 as possible. I simply can’t do this, aagh. (Think, doable with measuring cups, or similar. ) Help?
Author
Hi Becca,
Thanks for your question. I wrote a guide a while ago which covers just this type of question. If you want to combine 2 or more different strength Nic bases, it shows you, with examples what the combined value of Nic strength you will have. The guide is: https://vapinghardware.com/combining-nicotine-strengths-calculating-mg/
Also you can still use our Nicotine Shot/Shortfill Calculator with a 36mg nic base, just input 36mg Nicotine Base Strength and it will calculate how much base you need to add to get your desired overall Nic strength mix.
Hope this helps? If not please come back to us.
Thanks for that very quick reply! I did see the guide, but what I’m wanting to do is calculate in parts so that I can mix any amount of liquid easily. This is not so hard to figure with a plain base – like, cut a 36 mg liquid in half with it and I’ve got my 18, etc. But I have 3 mg base (EXPENSIVE ordering mistake) that I need to alter using various other strengths (36 and 48). Since I’m not using pre-measured, fixed strength shots or zero base nicotine I can’t make out how to use either chart? And this old grandmother is horrible at math. Maybe you know how to do this simply – here’s a 1000 ml bottle of 48 mg liquid and here’s a 1000 ml bottle of 3 mg liquid. I want a parts-to-parts ratio so that I can mix close to 18 mg strength using any liquid volume measure. If that makes sense at all. Just how many parts 3mg to how many parts 36mg = closest to 18mg? Same for 46mg. Does this make sense? I have a feeling it’s actually too easy. I was a humanities major for a reason. 🙂
Author
Hi Becca,
Thanks again for your question and sorry for not answering it in full. It does make sense now and to your defence it’s not that easy to calculate.
To combine 48mg nic and 3mg nic to achieve 18mg nic you will need 1 part 48mg to 2 parts 3mg, i.e. 10ml of 48mg + 20ml of 3mg = 30ml of 18mg.
To combine 36mg nic and 3mg nic to achieve 18mg nic you will need 1 part 36mg to 1.2 parts 3mg, i.e. 10ml of 48mg + 12mg of 3mg = 22ml of 18mg.
You can use these ratios for each part to give you the results you require.
The guide I wrote on calculating combined nicotine does give examples but not quite what you were trying to achieve.
Hope this is what you are after.
Perfect. Thanks so much!
Author
Hi Becca,
Glad I could help and you’re happy with my answers. Thank you for your reply.
Hi all need help I have 1 liter bottle VG, 1 liter bottle PG and 1 liter bottle VG 9mg/ml nicotine.
I just like clear vape juice but I’m not sure how much notice to put in mix.
Can you give me a mix for 9mg nicotine strengh.
50vg
Author
Hi Roy, thanks for your question. The mix you’re after is not possible because your base nicotine is the same strength as your desired nicotine strength. You’ve said you have a bottle of VG nicotine at a strength of 9mg. You also want your final mix to be 9mg at 50VG. You need higher strength base nicotine to achieve this mix or a lower desired strength nicotine.
As your trying to mix using VG, PG and Nicotine with no flavor you should be using our https://vapinghardware.com/calculators/e-liquid-calculator/
With the PG, VG and Nic that you have you would only be able to mix non flavored e-liquid with a 50/50 VG/PG ratio at a strength at 4.5mg.
I add 30ml of 18mg nicshot to about 100ml of zero nicotine e-liquid, how much mg is that equivalent to?
Author
Hi Ekan, thanks for your question.
30ml of 18mg/ml nicotine shots will give you a total nicotine amount of 540mg. Adding that to 100ml of zero nic eliquid will give you a total eliquid amount of 130ml at an overal nic strength of 4.154mg. It’s worked out as follows.
30ml x 18mg = 540mg. 30ml + 100ml = 130ml. 540mg ÷ 130 = 4.154mg.
Use our nic shot calculator set to nicotine shot and put your desired nic strength to 4.154 and it will verify the result I’ve calculated above for you.
I bought some ejuice nicotine free(50 short fall it comes with free 10ml 18mg vg based nictione shot). Vg/pg ratio is 70/30. If i add 10ml of 18mg 100%vg nicotine wont the ratio change making it a higher ratio and mute the flavour. Should i add 70/30 nic 50/50 100%vg or the 100% vg nic supplied.
Thanx
Terry
Author
Hi Terry, thanks for your questions.
Firstly, shortfills come with increased flavour concentrate in the bottle to allow for a nic shot to be added so it won’t mute the flavour. Whether it’s a VG or a PG nic shot wont make that much difference to the flavour. Obviously adding more than 1 nic shot will start to dilute the flavour.
Secondly, your VG/PG ratio will change depending on the base of the nic shot. if you have 50ml of zero nic e-liquid at 70VG:30PG, your VG content is 35ml and your PG content is 15ml. Adding 10ml of any base nic will give you the following ratio’s with a total e-liquid of 60ml.
Adding 10ml Nic in VG base = 45ml VG, 15ml PG which gives a 75VG:25PG ratio.
Adding 10ml Nic in PG base = 35ml VG, 25ml PG which gives a 58.3VG:41.7PG ratio.
Adding 10ml Nic in a 50/50 base = 40ml VG, 20ml PG which gives a 66.7VG:33.3PG ratio.
Adding 10ml Nic in a 70/30 base = 42ml VG, 18ml PG which gives a 70VG:303PG ratio.
Hope this helps.
EXCELLENT article/ calculator!! I was having problems (in my mind) with the 100 ml/mg nic I bought when I began mixing my own juice and flavors. (Steeping makes a WORLD of positive Folks) This was a lifesaver. Thanks and good work!
Author
Hi IncredaBud,
Thanks for the really positive feedback. Glad you found our Nic Shot Calculator helpful.
When I ordered my short fill bottle it came with a full 30ml bottle of nicotine free ejuice, and the freebase nicotine at 6 is filled half way in a 60 ml bottle(so 30ml of base 6 in a 60ml bottle).. Do I just need to pour my flavor into the base bottle?!?! The top part of my base bottle has an arrow saying “max flavor here”.
Author
Hi Desiree, thanks for your question.
Yes. Pour your 30ml shortfill bottle (zero nic) into the half empty 60ml base bottle (6mg nic). This will give you a full bottle of 60ml flavoured e-juice at a nic strength of 3mg (0.3%).
We’ve not come across this method of supplying a full shortfill bottle and half empty base bottle before. Where did you buy this from?
I have 100ml vape juice no nic… I would like to make it 25 MG… How many nic drops should I use?
Author
Hi SJ,
Thanks for your comment. Unfortunately if you’re using 18mg or 20mg base nicotine, you won’t achieve 25mg nic strength. Even using 72mg base nicotine, you’d have to add approx 50ml of this nicotine to achieve an overall 25mg strength. This will dilute the flavor too much. For info, 1ml equates to approx 20 drops. Feel free to come back to us if you have any other questions.
Nice content.
Author
Hi there,
Thanks for the positive feedback! Really glad you like our nicotine shot calculator!
Hi ive got a 100ml no nicotine liquid however i want too add nicotine too make it 9mg so how many nicotine shots would i need please
Author
Hi Kevin,
Thanks for getting in touch. To make your 100ml of e-juice into a 9mg nicotine strength juice you’d need 10 x 18mg nicotine shots. This would double your amount of e-juice to 200ml. You might also want to consider the PG/VG ratio of your e-juice and do a mix of PG and VG nicotine shots to maintain your current PG/VG ratio.
It’s also worth considering that the flavor strength in your final e-juice could potentially be very weak. As you’d be adding another 100ml of PG/VG your flavor will be halved. The best way to avoid this would be to use a higher strength base nicotine. Hope this info helps Kevin. Anymore questions feel free to get in touch.
Using 10ml bottles of 18mg/18ml Nic Shots, how many would I have to add to my already 50ml of vape juice that’s already 3mg in strength?
Author
Hi there,
Thanks for the message. Unfortunately we can only advise you how many nicotine shots you’d need to add by knowing what strength you want to vape at. However, if you select the ‘nicotine shot’ option on the calculator and input the figures the calculator results will show you how much nicotine you have to add. We hope this helps. Any problems give us a shout.
Hi there, could you please help, Ive purchased120mls of 0% e liquid and some 15mg, 10ml nic shots, I desire to make my liquid 12mg and your calculator said that I need to add 48.0, 10ml bottles… How many bottles is this? Thank you in advance
Author
Hi Victoria,
The calculator has correctly worked out that you’d need to add 48 bottles of 10ml nicotine shots (15mg strength). Because the nicotine shots you’re using are not a particularly high strength, the amount you need to add to bring the entire mix to a 12mg strength is very high. Unfortunately adding this amount will heavily dilute the flavour of the juice as well.
There are only really a few options for you to choose from if you want to vape at 12mg. First you can go down the path of DIY e-liquid mixing using Flavour Concentrates, PG,VG and Nicotine. This is by far the cheapest and in our experience, most enjoyable method.
Secondly you can buy your e-juice at a pre-made nicotine strength of 12mg. However, this can be costly! The final option could be to look into nicotine salts. They’re becoming much more popular because they allow you to vape at a much higher nicotine strength. We hope this helps Victoria. Any more questions feel free to get in touch.
I think the calculator is incorrect because when I select 50ml shortfill with 0mg nic and the target is 6mg using 18mg nic shots, the result is add 25ml of 18mg nic shots.
However adding 10ml of 18mg to 50ml of nic free liquid will make it 3mg overall as (10×18)÷50 =3mg. So adding 20ml will make it 6 mg as (20×18)÷50 =6mg. And so the correct answer is 20ml not 25ml
Author
Hi Mo,
Thanks for the comment. Sorry to hear you’re struggling with the calculations for adding nicotine to your e-juice. We’ve double checked the figures you’re referring to and we’re confident that our calculator is correct. The problem seems to be the formula that you’re using to get your calculations.
The correct formula for working out the amount of nicotine shots to add is ‘Target Nicotine ÷ (Nicotine base strength – Target Nicotine) X Amount of E-Juice’. In your case, ‘6 ÷ (18-6) X 50 = 25(ml)’. We know how confusing it can get when it comes to adding nicotine shots to your e-juice. Feel free to check out our post, ‘Nicotine shots and shortfill e-liquid explained‘ for some further information on doing these calculations. Hope this helps Mo 🙂 Any problems feel free to get in touch.
When using the calculator and upping the mg of nicotine. For instance say I want 0.9mg strength it says add 5 10ml nicotine’s but that would make a shortfil bottle to 130m of juice as when buying them there’s 80m in a 100m bottle
The only way this would be correct is if there was less zero mg in the bottle to start with
The calculator is just assuming there’s less in the bottle to make it a 100m bottle after adding Nic shots but really when buying them there’s 80 m in them
Author
Hi Scott,
Unfortunately this is the problem with shortfill bottles when trying to achieve anything other than a 3mg or 6mg strength. The calculator works correctly and you are also correct in saying that there should be less zero e-liquid in the bottle to start with if you want anything above 6mg.
When using the ‘Shortfill’ option, our calculator will always work out the correct quantities to prevent you exceeding the bottle size. Use the other drop down option of ‘Nicotine Shot’ to work out the amount of Nicotine to add to your e-liquid to get your desired final strength. Remember though, you will have to decant your e-liquid into a bigger bottle as the results will exceed your shortfill bottle size.
Hope this helps Scott. Any problems feel free to get in touch.
Hi, I’ve been doing a ton of research on adding nicotine to my current all day vape. I’m a MTL vaper so throat hit is huge for me and my all day vape of 6 years was discontinued. It was 24mg nicotine. My new vape is 18mg nic and I want to be as safe as possible. So much bought 125ml of 100mg nicotine in PG from liquid barn ( nicselect brand). I created a thread on the ecig forum and I’ve got a lot of advice but I feel silly when I have to keep asking how to do this right. Someone gave me the link to your calculator and I think I have it all figured out I just really want to be sure. Long story sorry, so all I want is to make my 30ml bottle of 18mg nicotine into 24mg nicotine. Give or take, it doesn’t have to be exact. With your calculator I did nicotine shot, 18mg base, target 24mg and zero 30ml. I got an answer of 2.37ml to add to my 30ml making it 32.37ml total. So am I correct to say that I will add 2.37ml of my nicotine to my current 18mg 39ml bottle to make it 24mg? God this seems so lengthy and annoying. Any advice would be awesome! Thanks – kelly
Author
Hi Kelly,
Don’t worry we completely understand 🙂 You can never be too safe when adding nicotine to your e-juice and it can sometimes get a bit confusing!
We checked through your figures and you’re spot on! You’ve selected the correct options and the results you have will achieve your desired strength e-juice. With the 100mg nicotine you have, just add 2.37 ml to your existing 30 ml of e juice (18mg) and you’ll have 32.37 ml total e-juice at a 24 mg strength.
Hope this helps Kelly 🙂 Any problems let us know.