Almost no manufacturer publishes a pouch’s dimensions, so the only reliable per-brand figures come from regulatory filings and laboratory measurements. Filed with the FDA, every standard ZYN pouch is 0.40 g and 28 × 14 × 4.5 mm. Measured in one lab, seven brands ranged from 0.25 g to 0.69 g — a 2.8-fold spread that does not track nicotine content at all.
This page is about the pouch itself: how much it weighs and how big it is. Not how strong it is, and not how many are in the tin — how many pouches are in a can has that. And not the format vocabulary as a shopping guide, which is slim vs mini vs large. What I wanted was a table of actual numbers, brand by brand, each one traceable to a document. Getting one turned out to be much harder than it should be, and the reason why is the most interesting thing here.
Three numbers, and only one of them is ever on the tin
A pouch has a mass, a set of outside dimensions, and a density. The mass is the easiest to measure and the most often published. The dimensions — length, width, thickness — are what you actually feel under your lip, and they are almost never published. Density is the one that connects the other two, and it is the one the patent literature cares most about.
The only one of the three that reaches a consumer is the net weight of the can, which is the pouch mass multiplied by the count. A 6 g ZYN can holds fifteen 0.40 g pouches in FDA’s filing. That is arithmetic you can do, and it is about as far as the public information goes.
The one place pouch dimensions are actually published
They are in modified-risk tobacco product orders, because US regulation requires them. 21 CFR 1107.19 sets out what a manufacturer must file for a portioned smokeless tobacco product, and its field list reads:
—Portion count (e.g., 15 pouches, 20 pieces).
—Portion mass (e.g., 1.5 g/pouch, 1 g/piece).
—Portion length (e.g., 15 mm, 20.1 mm).
—Portion width (e.g., 10 mm, 15.1 mm).
—Portion thickness (e.g., 5 mm, 7.1 mm).
Those five fields are why FDA’s order letters contain numbers no brand website carries. The same regulation requires targets with upper and lower range limits for portion length, portion width, portion mass, pouch material thickness, pouch material porosity and — in the same list — —Nicotine dissolution rate (%/min) (if applicable).
A regulator grouping size parameters with release rate is a quiet statement that it treats them as related.
FDA issued modified-risk orders to Swedish Match USA for 20 ZYN products on 30 June 2026, and the appendix to that order carries the five fields for every one of them. The result is striking in its uniformity:
Portion Count: 15 pouches
— 20 times out of 20Portion Mass: 0.40 g
— 20 of 20Portion Length: 28 mm
— 20 of 20Portion Width: 14 mm
— 20 of 20Portion Thickness: 4.5 mm
— 20 of 20
Ten flavours at 3 mg and the same ten at 6 mg, every one of them the same physical object. The appendix is scanned text, so I checked the digits two ways: both pdftotext extraction modes agree 20 of 20 on each value, and FDA’s separately scanned decision summary repeats the same appendix with much worse character recognition and still yields the same numbers. Swedish Match’s own born-digital filing corroborates the mass in words — ZYN is a 0.4-gram tobacco-free sealed pouch containing nicotine bitartrate dihydrate, food grade
— and FDA’s review describes the products as 400 mg sealed pouches
.
One limit worth stating plainly: ZYN ULTRA is not in that order. It was authorised separately in August 2026 through a different pathway, and the word ultra
returns zero hits across the MRTP order letter, the decision summary and the applicant’s product description. So 0.40 g and 28 × 14 × 4.5 mm describe the standard 3 mg and 6 mg range and nothing else. I could not reach the ULTRA order letter — FDA’s document host returned a bot-protection page on every attempt.
A second FDA table, and it breaks the format vocabulary
The other complete dimension set I could reach is for snus rather than pouches: FDA’s 2024 renewal decision for General Snus, which files seven portioned products the same way.
| Product, as FDA names it | Count | Portion mass | L × W × T |
|---|---|---|---|
| General Dry Mint Portion Original Mini | 20 | 300 mg | 28 × 14 × 5 mm |
| General Portion Original Large | 24 | 1000 mg | 33 × 18 × 6 mm |
| General Classic Blend Portion White Large – 12ct | 12 | 900 mg | 34 × 14 × 5 mm |
| General Mint Portion White Large | 24 | 1000 mg | 34 × 18 × 5.5 mm |
| General Nordic Mint Portion White Large – 12ct | 12 | 900 mg | 34 × 14 × 5 mm |
| General Portion White Large | 24 | 1000 mg | 34 × 18 × 5.5 mm |
| General Wintergreen Portion White Large | 24 | 1000 mg | 34 × 18 × 5.5 mm |
Two caveats on that table. The scan quality is worse than the ZYN one and these values are not mutually corroborating the way twenty identical blocks are, so the 33 mm against the other six at 34 mm may be a character-recognition slip rather than a real difference. And the masses are independently confirmed by FDA’s separate 2019 review, which describes the same products in prose: 20 – 0.3g portions
for the Mini and 24—1g portions
for the Large.
Now look at what the word “Large” is doing. Two products both called White Large have different widths — 14 mm and 18 mm — and different masses, 900 mg and 1000 mg. Within one brand, in one regulatory filing, on one day. And General’s Mini has exactly the same 28 × 14 mm footprint FDA records for a standard ZYN. A “mini” snus and a “regular” pouch are the same size; they differ in how much is stuffed inside, 300 mg against 400 mg.
What the scales say: seven brands, one lab
The best per-brand mass data in the published literature is a 2026 physical-characterization study in Scientific Reports. It weighed twelve pouches of each of seven mint products. It was funded by Altria Client Services, which manufactures on! and which has signed an agreement giving an Altria subsidiary an ownership interest in the owner of the Loop brand — two of the seven products tested. That disclosure belongs next to every number below.
| Brand (product tested) | Pouch weight, g (n=12) | Labelled nicotine | Measured nicotine, mg/pouch | Nicotine released in 60 min |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| on! (Mint) | 0.25 ± 0.009 | 8 mg | 8.2 ± 0.07 | 98 ± 4% |
| Velo (Spearmint) | 0.33 ± 0.043 | 7 mg | 4.6 ± 0.54 | 88 ± 7% |
| Dryft (Spearmint) | 0.37 ± 0.015 | 7 mg | 5.7 ± 0.88 | 90 ± 7% |
| Zyn (Cool Mint) | 0.38 ± 0.002 | 6 mg | 5.4 ± 0.03 | 96 ± 2% |
| Loop (Mint Mania) | 0.60 ± 0.024 | 9.4 mg | 9.1 ± 0.01 | 38 ± 2% |
| Volt (Spearmint Breeze) | 0.64 ± 0.022 | 8.3 mg | 8.9 ± 0.01 | 89 ± 3% |
| Rogue (Spearmint) | 0.69 ± 0.043 | 6 mg | 6.2 ± 0.01 | 72 ± 5% |
A Rogue pouch weighs nearly three times what an on! pouch weighs. One SKU per brand, all mint, bought online at the same time, two lots each. The paper does not state whether “pouch weight” means the intact pouch or the filler alone, which is a real gap — and its own internal cross-check (it combined pouches to reach a 1.0–1.5 g target) is consistent with whole-pouch weights for the heavier brands and not for the lighter ones. Treat them as whole-pouch figures with that asterisk attached.
Two other published numbers are worth having, with their scope stated carefully:
- An independent, NIH- and FDA-funded chemistry study of ZYN found
Average total pouch mass for the Zyn pouches was 405±18 mg (n=12).
That is a pooled mean across six flavours at two strengths, not a figure for any single product. What makes it valuable is the convergence: 405 mg measured independently against 400 mg filed with the regulator, roughly a 1% agreement. - A CDC laboratory survey of 70 products labelled tobacco-free reported pouch weights with
pouches (298 mg, SE=85)
having the lowest mean of the product types it covered. That figure cannot be set against the other two: the survey sampled six manufacturers and Swedish Match was not among them, so no ZYN is in it, and it explicitly weighed something different —For pouch products, the pouch material (organic cellulose compounds that create a non-woven fleece) was cut open and the nicotine binder/filler was weighed.
Filler, not pouch.
That definitional difference is the single biggest trap in this subject. Three studies, three answers — 405 mg, 380 mg, 298 mg — and at least part of the spread is about what went on the balance rather than what came out of the tin.
“Slim”, “mini” and “large” are not specifications
No statute, standard or regulation on either side of the Atlantic defines any of them for a tobacco or nicotine portion. I searched the eCFR for a definition of each format word and found nothing; the UK’s principal tobacco regulations carry no portion-size provision; and neither of the two pouch-construction patents I read uses the vocabulary at all.
The makers themselves treat the words as words. ZYN’s own UK comparison page has a row headed Size of the pouch
, and what it puts in that row is Mini
for the dry range and Regular (Slim)
for the moist range, with the supporting descriptions Small, thin pouch
and Slightly larger pouch
. Not one millimetre, not one milligram — and note that the brand’s own site treats “regular” and “slim” as the same thing. Velo’s UK range page says Choose between mini and slim formats.
and carries them as purchasable options paired with a strength — a format is something you select at checkout, never something with a number against it.
The patents give the closest thing to a numeric specification, and it is about density rather than geometry. A Philip Morris Products application on nicotine pouch composition claims a filler wherein the pouch composition has a bulk density of at most 0.8 g/cm3
, with preferred ranges down to between 0.4 and 0.5 g/cm3
, and separately claims a pouch filled to at least 65% of said maximum inner pouch volume
. Its worked examples use a target fill weight 500 mg powder per pouch
— heavier than ZYN’s filed 400 mg. (A note for anyone who has read earlier pages here: this document is Philip Morris Products S.A., not Swedish Match. I had the attribution wrong and this run corrected it.)
A British American Tobacco patent on pouch fleece gives the one figure that puts the rest in proportion: an apertured viscose fleece has a thickness of 0.277 to 0.319mm which is similar to standard fleece having a thickness of 0.262 to 0.283mm
. Against FDA’s 4.5 mm filed thickness for a ZYN, the wrapper is something like 6% of the pouch. Everything else is filler. Pouch fleece materials goes into what that thin layer actually does.
Size tells you nothing about strength
This is the part worth internalising. In the seven-brand table above, the lightest pouch carried the most nicotine and the heaviest carried among the least: on! at 0.25 g measured 8.2 mg per pouch, Rogue at 0.69 g measured 6.2 mg. Mass ranged 2.8-fold, measured nicotine ranged 2.0-fold, and the two were not aligned.
The cleanest proof needs no arithmetic at all. All twenty ZYN products in FDA’s order are 0.40 g, and ten of them are 3 mg while ten are 6 mg. Swedish Match’s own filing explains the mechanism: Both the 3 mg and 6 mg strengths of each flavor contain the same ingredients and differ only in the amount of nicotine bitartrate dihydrate.
and The amount added is adjusted to achieve a target pouch weight of 0.4 g.
The pouch is held to a constant mass and the filler is the balancing item. Strength is formulation; size is construction.
FDA puts the general version of this in a sentence worth quoting: Nicotine exposure is influenced not only by a product’s labeled nicotine content, but also by its design, formulation, materials, and other characteristics that can affect the amount and rate of nicotine delivered to the user.
And the label is not the measurement either — in the same seven-brand study, the calculated nicotine content for Velo and Dryft (both labeled as 7 mg) was significantly lower than the target, measuring 4.6 mg/pouch and 5.7 mg/pouch, respectively.
That is a theme on this site; see measured vs labelled nicotine and pouch weight vs nicotine content.
Does size change anything you would actually notice?
Honestly: probably, and nobody has established it properly. A 2026 review in Materials puts the gap exactly where it belongs:
One further matrix-related parameter that warrants investigation is carrier bulk density. For a fixed pouch mass, carrier density influences pouch volume and geometry and therefore the contact area and nicotine loading per unit area presented to the oral mucosa. The relationship between these geometric parameters, nicotine release, and systemic uptake has not yet been adequately characterized.
Its sole author is a shareholder in a company developing nicotine pouch carrier technologies and the work was supported by that company, which I note because it shapes what a review chooses to call under-characterised.
What the data does show is that release tracks porosity and solubility rather than mass. In the seven-brand study ZYN had the highest porosity (63.2%) and the lowest bulk density of the set, and released 96% of its nicotine in an hour; Rogue, the heaviest and densest, released 72% and Loop released 38%. The authors credit solubility and surface area, not weight: Other factors aside from solubility, such as morphology and total active surface area (observed in this study as true density and porosity), contribute to the dissolution rate
.
The Philip Morris patent argues the same thing from the manufacturing side, and patents are usually the frankest statement of a trade-off you will find: a relatively low bulk density promotes effective salivation and thereby release of water-soluble ingredients of the composition
, and separately The present inventors have surprisingly found that by filling the pouch to close to its maximum inner volume, the mouthfeel is markedly improved.
Fullness is a design variable with a named consequence. So is the wrapper: BAT’s fleece patent is entirely about perforating the material to speed release, and it controlled for weight to isolate the effect.
And there is one documented instance of a manufacturer treating size as a user-facing choice. FDA’s 2019 General Snus review records that in two clinical studies, In both studies, subjects were given both small (0.5 g) and large (1.0 g) sachets and chose their preferred sachet size.
The review does not report which size they chose — so this evidences only that the question was asked, not what the answer was.
What nobody publishes, measured
I ran the same two searches over every manufacturer page I could reach: a pattern for any number followed by mm, and a pattern for a stated pouch mass. Across 3,769,438 bytes of brand pages — ZYN US and GB, Velo UK, Rogue, Nordic Spirit (two pages), GN Tobacco, Loop, Zone X and Swedish Match corporate — both patterns returned zero matches on every single page.
Eight brands. Not one dimension. Not one mass. The industry has the numbers — it files them with FDA and holds them to specification with upper and lower limits — and publishes none of them.
The sharpest illustration is Velo. Its own site states no mass anywhere. But its authorised US product names, as FDA lists them, read Velo Mini Pouch 400 mg Crema 4 mg nicotine (Container 1)
. FDA separates the 400 mg from the 4 mg of nicotine in the same product name. The natural reading is that 400 mg is the pouch mass, and I am flagging that as a reading rather than a quote, because FDA does not say so in words. If it is right, Velo’s “Mini” is the same mass FDA records for a standard, non-mini ZYN — and Velo tells the regulator a number it does not tell its customers.
Several brands I wanted in the table have no reachable manufacturer site at all: White Fox, Killa, FRE and Fedrs. The only sources carrying their specifications are retailers, and this site does not cite a shop for a fact. on! is a particular frustration — three candidate domains failed to connect, so the maker of the lightest pouch in the measured data publishes nothing I could read.
Frequently asked questions
How big is a standard nicotine pouch?
For the ZYN range filed with FDA, 28 mm long, 14 mm wide and 4.5 mm thick, weighing 0.40 g. That is the only brand whose dimensions are published at all, so treat it as one well-documented example rather than an industry standard.
Is a slim pouch smaller than a mini?
There is no definition that would settle it. ZYN’s UK site labels its mini range “Mini” and its larger range “Regular (Slim)”, so on that brand’s usage slim is the bigger of the two. Velo sells mini and slim as separate purchase options without publishing a dimension for either.
Does a bigger pouch mean more nicotine?
No. In the one lab study that weighed and assayed the same seven products, the lightest pouch carried the most nicotine. And all twenty ZYN products in FDA’s filing share an identical 0.40 g body across two different strengths.
Why do brands not publish pouch dimensions?
I do not know, and I am not going to guess at a motive. What I can show is that they hold the figures — US filings require portion length, width and mass with target ranges — and that none of the eight manufacturer sites I searched carries any of them.
How much of a pouch is the wrapper?
Very little. BAT’s patent gives fleece thicknesses of 0.262 to 0.319 mm, against a filed pouch thickness of 4.5 mm for a standard ZYN. Roughly six per cent of the thickness is material; the rest is what is inside. What is inside a nicotine pouch and fillers in nicotine pouches cover the filling.
Are snus portions bigger than nicotine pouches?
Generally yes, by a lot. FDA’s filed figures put a General Large at 1000 mg against a standard ZYN at 400 mg — but a General Mini at 300 mg is lighter than both, on an identical 28 × 14 mm footprint to the ZYN. Mini portion snus, slim portion snus and long vs regular portion cover the snus side; the difference between snus and snuff covers why the categories are drawn where they are.
Sources
- US Food and Drug Administration, modified risk granted orders to Swedish Match USA, Inc. for 20 ZYN products, 30 June 2026, and the accompanying technical project lead review. Appendix A of each carries the per-SKU portion specifications. Read 5 November 2026. Both documents are scanned rather than born-digital; digits above were cross-checked across two extraction modes and two separately scanned files.
- US Food and Drug Administration, General Snus modified risk renewal decision summary (7 November 2024) and the 2019 technical project lead review, for the seven portioned General products.
- 21 CFR part 1107, § 1107.19, and 21 CFR part 1114, § 1114.7 — the filing requirements that produce the figures above.
- US Food and Drug Administration, nicotine pouch products authorized by FDA, and FDA authorizes marketing of 24 Velo nicotine pouches, 30 October 2026.
- Platt TA et al. “Dissolution and physical characterization of oral nicotine pouch products.” Scientific Reports, 2026. Funded by Altria Client Services LLC, an affiliate of the manufacturer of on!, with a disclosed pending ownership interest in the owner of the Loop brand. PMC12864968
- Jabba SV et al. Tobacco Control, 2023. Supported by NIDA grant R56DA055996 and cooperative agreement U54DA036151 and the FDA Center for Tobacco Products; the funder had no role in the study. PMC10753027
- Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Division of Laboratory Sciences. “Total and unprotonated (freebase) nicotine content in new types of oral ‘tobacco-free’ nicotine products.” Tobacco Control, 2026. No specific grant declared. PMC12075619
- Engqvist H. Materials, 2026;19(20):4410. Review; supported by Emplicure AB, in which the author is a shareholder. PMC13707332
- European Patent Office publication server: EP 4 162 927 A1, applicant Philip Morris Products S.A., Nicotine pouch composition; and EP 2 692 254, applicant British American Tobacco (Investments) Limited, Fleece for smokeless tobacco.
- Manufacturer pages searched and found to carry no dimensions or masses, read 5 November 2026: ZYN US, ZYN GB, Velo UK, Rogue, Nordic Spirit, GN Tobacco, Loop, Zone X, Swedish Match.
Last verified: 5 November 2026.
