September 14, 2026
In April 2026, disposable vapes took more than half of U.S. cannabis vape dollars for the first time, and by May they held 51.1 percent. Over the trailing twelve months, disposables grew 41 percent to $3.8 billion while 510-thread cartridges fell 14 percent to $4.1 billion. The category as a whole grew 6 percent to about $8 billion, or 26 percent of legal retail, so the growth is real. It is just moving from one piece of hardware to another.
That swap is the cannabis vape trend for 2026, and it touches everything downstream: what a store's buyer orders, what a brand's co-packer needs, which battery and tank suppliers get the purchase order, and how many brands survive the reset.
Disposables did not win on convenience alone. They won on price per gram. A 2-gram disposable retails around $39 against roughly $30 for a 1-gram unit, which works out to $19.71 a gram versus $30.04. The 2-gram format doubled from 16 percent to 35 percent of disposable dollars in two years, and Greentank's retail data has the 3-gram format up 190 percent while 300-milligram units are "basically disappearing."
The brands that got there first built their lines around it. Select runs 86 percent of its disposable sales through 2-gram units. Dime Industries, Fernway, &Shine, Savvy, and Rythm each do more than 60 percent. Headset's category page shows the same gradient: a half-gram cartridge runs about $46 a gram, a full gram about $20, and a 2-gram about $16.
Cartridges are not dead. Headset still has them at 51 percent of vapor-pen dollars in its tracked markets, at an average of about $18 per item against $27 for an all-in-one. The point is direction. The cartridge's share was 61.4 percent a year ago in Greentank's data and is now 50 percent, and every format below a gram is losing.
The second shift is inside the device. Live resin and rosin together reached 32 percent of vape revenue, up from 28 percent. Live resin alone is a $2.1 billion segment that hit 28 percent share in May. Rosin is $442 million and growing 19 percent a year. Distillate, the base of the cheap cartridge, fell from 59 percent to 55 percent.
Put the two trends together and the winning product is a 2-gram live-resin disposable at a price per gram that a 1-gram distillate cartridge cannot match. That is a manufacturing problem for anyone still tooled for half-gram distillate carts, and it is the reason the brand count is collapsing.
BDSA's trailing-twelve-month count of vape brands fell 17 percent, from about 6,600 to 5,500. Mature markets show the pattern clearly: California shed brands while vape sales rose 16 percent, and Pennsylvania saw a double-digit decline in brands with sales up 4 percent. The exceptions are new markets. Minnesota's vape brand count nearly quintupled since September 2025, and New York added more than 60 brands year over year.
Headset names STIIIZY as the single largest brand in the category, and its customer profile explains why the category keeps growing: Gen Z accounts for 32 percent of vapor-pen dollars, the highest of any cannabis category, while Baby Boomers are under 7 percent.
Which format a store stocks depends heavily on the state, and the spread is wide.
| State | Disposable share of vape, May 2026 |
|---|---|
| Oklahoma | 79% |
| Arizona | 79% |
| Utah | 72% |
| New York | 66% |
| Michigan | 64% |
| California | 46% |
| Pennsylvania | 39% |
| Florida | 32% |
Source: BDSA.
Vape has already passed flower in Washington, at 32 percent of sales against 26 percent, and is level with it in California and Arizona. Nationally flower still leads, 40 percent to 26 percent, but the states where it does not are the ones with the most stores per capita and the most price pressure.
Hardware vendors are selling into a different bill of materials. An all-in-one needs a battery, a tank, and a charging port in every unit, and the 2-gram and 3-gram formats need larger tanks and coils rated for thicker live-resin oil. A supplier still quoting 510 cartridges and separate batteries is quoting last year's shelf.
Brands and co-packers face a margin squeeze on the small end and a capex bill on the large end. The 17 percent drop in brand count is the market clearing out companies that could do neither.
Retail buyers are choosing a disposable-first or cartridge-first shelf based on their state, and the table above says which. A brand pitching 1-gram cartridges in Oklahoma or Arizona is pitching into a 21 percent slice of the category.
The stores making those decisions are identifiable: the ones in disposable-first states, the ones in markets where vape has passed flower, and the ones adding manufacturing to produce their own. Reaching the owner who sets the vape planogram is the shortest path to a facing before the next reset.
Are disposable vapes outselling cartridges in 2026? By monthly share, yes, since April 2026. Over the trailing twelve months, cartridges still edge disposables in total dollars, $4.1 billion to $3.8 billion, but the gap closed fast.
Why is the 2-gram vape growing so fast? Price per gram. A 2-gram disposable runs about $19.71 a gram against $30.04 for a 1-gram, and shoppers are trading up in size to trade down in unit cost.
Which extract types are gaining in vapes? Live resin and rosin, now 32 percent of vape revenue combined. Distillate fell to 55 percent.
How many cannabis vape brands are there? About 5,500 on a trailing-twelve-month basis in BDSA's tracked markets, down 17 percent from roughly 6,600, with about 4,225 active in a given month.
The vape shelf changed hardware in one year, and the vendor list changed with it. See verified, owner-level dispensary contacts across six states, refreshed weekly. Free preview at holdenleads.com.
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