On! vs Zyn: Strength, Size, Price & FDA

On! is the pouch you buy when you don't want anyone to know you use pouches. It is Altria's brand, it comes in a small can of twenty mini pouches, and it is usually the cheapest thing in the case. Zyn is the one everyone has heard of. Under the lip they are more different than they look, and the differences are the ones people ask about: which is stronger, which is smaller, which is cheaper, and what the formaldehyde question is about.

Here is the comparison with the measurements where they exist.

The quick comparison

	On! (classic)	On! PLUS	Zyn (classic)	Zyn Ultra
Strengths	2, 4, 8 mg	6, 9 mg (12 mg sold, not authorized)	3, 6 mg	9, 11 mg
Pouches per can	20	14	15	20
Pouch	Mini, dry	Slim, moist	Mini, dry	Slim, moist
Nicotine	Tobacco-derived salt	Tobacco-derived salt	Tobacco-derived salt	Tobacco-derived salt
FDA status	4 products authorized Aug 2026, rest pending	6 products authorized Dec 2025	20 authorized Jan 2025, modified-risk claim June 2026	11 authorized Aug 2026
Owner	Helix Innovations (Altria)	Helix Innovations (Altria)	Swedish Match (PMI)	Swedish Match (PMI)
Made in	Richmond, VA (reported)	Richmond, VA (reported)	Owensboro, KY and Sweden	Owensboro, KY and Sweden

Zyn's parent is Philip Morris International; On!'s is Altria, the company that sells Marlboro in the US. The two split from each other in 2008, so this is a family feud.

Which is stronger?

On! goes higher on the label. Classic On! tops out at 8 mg where classic Zyn stops at 6, and On! PLUS reaches 9 mg, with a 12 mg sold at retailers that the FDA has not authorized. Zyn Ultra matches that top end at 9 and 11 mg.

The clinical data is unusually good here because Altria's own scientists published a pharmacokinetic study of On! against the participants' own cigarettes. Peak blood nicotine rose with strength: about 3.2 ng/mL for the 1.5 mg pouch, 4.6 for 2 mg, 8.4 for 4 mg and 14.5 for 8 mg, against about 10.5 ng/mL for a cigarette. So an On! 8 mg delivers a higher peak than a cigarette, and an On! 4 mg a lower one. The pouches took about 33 minutes to peak versus 8.5 for smoke.

Zyn's equivalent study measured what the pouch gives up rather than blood levels: a 3 mg Zyn released about 1.5 mg of its nicotine in use, a 6 mg about 3.5 mg. That is roughly 55 to 60% of the label, which is in line with what the On! blood levels imply.

The practical translation is that a 4 mg On! and a 3 mg Zyn are near neighbours, and an 8 mg On! is closer to a Zyn Ultra than to a classic 6. To convert your own count, the cigarette equivalent calculator works from label strength for any brand.

Which is smaller?

Both classic products are "mini" pouches, but On! is the smaller can and the smaller pouch, and it is the one people pick for discretion. On! PLUS reverses that: it is a larger, moist, slim pouch in a 14-count can, and it is Altria's answer to Zyn Ultra and Velo Plus. Zyn's classic mini is dry and about 0.4 g; Ultra is a moist slim.

If you are switching from Zyn to On! for a smaller pouch, stay in classic On!. If you are switching for a stronger one, you are probably headed for On! PLUS, which is not smaller at all.

Which is cheaper?

On! is usually the cheapest pouch on the shelf. At large online retailers classic On! runs about $3.55 a can against $4.49 for classic Zyn, and On! has 20 pouches to Zyn's 15. That is close to half the price per pouch. On! PLUS and Zyn Ultra both sit around $4.69, but PLUS has only 14 pouches in the can to Ultra's 20, so there Zyn is cheaper per pouch.

Neither company publishes a suggested retail price that we could verify, and store prices swing by state tax. The Zyn cost calculator takes your real price and pouch count and does the monthly maths for either brand.

The formaldehyde question

"Do On! pouches have formaldehyde?" is one of the most-asked questions about the brand, so here is what the published testing says.

Altria's own characterization of On!, presented in 2020, found that of the harmful constituents it screened for, only nicotine, acetaldehyde and formaldehyde were present at quantifiable levels, with the tobacco-specific nitrosamines below detection. Swedish Match's 2023 analysis of Zyn found formaldehyde at about 10 µg per gram in dry Zyn and 1.5 in the moist version, and no detectable nitrosamines. A 2025 review of the whole category found formaldehyde in pouches at levels similar to Swedish snus and higher than nicotine gum or lozenges.

So the honest answer is that both brands contain small, measurable amounts of formaldehyde, in the same range as each other and as snus, and far below what a cigarette produces. Neither is unique in this, and neither is nicotine replacement therapy.

Ingredients

Both use nicotine bitartrate dihydrate, a tobacco-derived nicotine salt, on a plant-fibre filler with sodium carbonate to raise the pH, plus sweeteners and flavourings. The formulas are closer than the marketing suggests. The difference you notice is water: On! PLUS and Zyn Ultra are moist, the classics are dry.

The FDA question

Zyn has the most complete paperwork of any pouch: twenty classic products authorized in January 2025, a modified-risk claim on those twenty from June 2026, and eleven Ultra products authorized in August 2026.

On! PLUS was the first product cleared under the FDA's fast-track pouch review, with six products authorized in December 2025. Classic On! got four authorizations in August 2026, but most of the classic range is still pending, and in September 2026 Altria sued the FDA over the missed deadlines. Everything unauthorized is sold under enforcement discretion, which is where most of the market lives.

Flavors

Classic On! keeps to seven: Wintergreen, Mint, Cinnamon, Citrus, Berry, Coffee and Original, with Rich Berry, Cappuccino and Autumn Spice among the newly authorized. On! PLUS has three: Mint, Wintergreen and Tobacco. Classic Zyn has thirteen, the authorized ten plus Black Cherry, Peach and Dragonberry, and Zyn Ultra another ten. Zyn wins on choice by a wide margin.

The part both brands' marketing skips

A can that costs half as much per pouch does not make the nicotine half as strong. The dose is the dose, and On!'s price and size make it easier to run a higher count without noticing, which is the opposite of what most people comparing brands quietly want. Switching to On! to save money and switching to On! to use less are different decisions, and only the first one happens on its own.

The honest bottom line

On! is smaller, cheaper and goes to 8 mg in a dry pouch; Zyn has more flavors, faster-moving paperwork, and the moist Ultra line at the top. Both deliver nicotine at cigarette-like levels in clinical tests. Ten a day is ten a day in either can.

If you want that number to go down, PouchBuddy tracks every pouch, any brand and strength, and shows your real daily milligrams so you can step down on purpose. Here is how to quit nicotine pouches step by step. Comparing other brands? See Velo vs Zyn, Rogue vs Zyn and ALP vs Zyn.

This article is general information, not medical advice. Brand names are used descriptively; PouchBuddy is not affiliated with or endorsed by On!, Altria, Zyn or Philip Morris International.

Sources

• Altria — Helix Innovations: ownership
• Altria — On! PLUS expands nationwide, March 2026
• ZYN — Questions and answers, ZYN 3 mg, ZYN Ultra
• FDA — Authorizes 6 On! PLUS products, December 2025
• FDA — Authorizes 4 new nicotine pouches, August 2026
• FDA — Modified-risk claim for 20 ZYN products, June 2026
• FDA — Authorizes 11 ZYN Ultra products, August 2026
• Liu, Rensch et al., Psychopharmacology 2022 — Nicotine pharmacokinetics of On! pouches vs cigarettes
• Lunell et al., Nicotine & Tobacco Research 2020 — Pharmacokinetic comparison of ZYN with snus
• CORESTA 2020 — Characterization of On! nicotine pouches: HPHCs
• BMC Chemistry 2023 — Chemical characterization of ZYN
• Frontiers in Public Health 2025 — Nicotine pouch constituents review
• CNBC — Altria sues FDA, September 2026
• Nicokick — On! and Zyn: strengths, counts, prices