UNITED STATES—Monthly searches for “510 thread battery” have overtaken “disposable vape,” according to a New Jersey retailer tracking how cost and waste are reshaping buyer habits.

A small but telling milestone has appeared in US vaping search data: the reusable battery has pulled ahead of the throwaway pen.

According to a new analysis by Discount Vape Pen, a New Jersey online vaping retailer that specializes in refillable 510-thread cartridge batteries, the search term “510 thread battery” now draws about 30,500 clicks a month across the United States, just ahead of “disposable vape” at roughly 29,500. The reusable term has climbed about 20% since 2021, while searches for disposables are down about 36% from their 2022 peak. It is a narrow lead, but the company sees it as a marker of where buyer attention is drifting. A 510-thread battery is a one-time purchase that recharges and refills for months. A disposable is a sealed device that is used briefly and then thrown out, which means the spending and the discarding both repeat.

“A reusable battery overtaking disposables in search would have sounded unlikely a couple of years ago,” said Marc Pitts, co-founder of Discount Vape Pen. “What changed is that people started paying attention to what the throwaway habit costs them across a year, both at the till and in the bin.”

Price has been the disposable’s main selling point, and it has only sharpened. Research from Truth Initiative found disposable e-cigarettes fell in price by close to 70% between 2017 and 2022, with their price per milligram of nicotine now about 3.7 times lower than prefilled cartridge products. Yet a low price per unit, the company points out, says nothing about the cost of buying a fresh one every week.

The waste question sits behind the trend as well. Each disposable is a small electronic device with a non-removable lithium battery, binned the moment its e-liquid is spent. Disposables still lead where it counts on the balance sheet. Figures compiled by the CDC Foundation put them at 58.1% of US e-cigarette units sold by mid-2024, up from around 26% in early 2020. Discount Vape Pen stresses that the category is not about to vanish.

The company’s case is simply that search runs ahead of sales.

“What people look for today tends to show up in what they buy tomorrow,” Pitts said. “Right now the search trend is pointing toward refillable hardware and away from throwaways.” Whether the buying follows the searching remains to be seen. For now, the data offers an early hint that the disposable boom may be approaching its ceiling.