It's probably cheaper, probably several times cheaper, but you'll probably spend more money per month when starting vaping than later on when you've found what you like, what you don't, and when you're looking for specific products so you can work on getting the best price. You can save yourself a bit of trouble if you avoid the cheapest starter kits. Don't bother with ones that look like cigarettes. You need a big battery or a well regulated VV mod that can hold an output while you take a vape. So I'd say get a cheap 18650 tube mod of some variety. Spend about $15-25. Get a 2nd one or at least a second switch for a spare. You'll need a charger and some 18650 AW IMR batteries or the Panasonic 18650 hybrids and a charger. That's like $40 plus shipping if you don't get spare parts. But if you do get a spare, both of them will probably last you through a year of testing out juice delivery stuff, cartos, tanks, clearos, rebuildable attys maybe, etc.
The recurring costs for really nice equipment appears to be low, but often requires some ability to tinker to see those savings, replacing wicks, being able to make sure the coils you wrapped are the right resistance, and many other steps that I don't venture into yet. As mentioned though, the best way to save the biggest amount is to make your own D.I.Y. liquid. The cost markup on ejuice is very high. I'm certain it's profitable in the order of a several hundred to a couple thousand percent, versus hardware which is about a 10-40% markup. If you make your own you'll save the largest amount of money you could right there.