Electricity Cost Calculator

Each wattage is the maker's printed figure for the named product: Samsung's typical power consumption for the 65-inch RU7100, Spider Farmer's power draw for the G3000, GE's 1,020 watts for the AGV10AB and the top of Lasko's 900 W to 1500 W output. The TV's 5 hours a day is the daily On Mode duty cycle in ENERGY STAR's television requirements; the other hours are examples of use, so enter your own. For a laptop, a desktop computer, a gaming PC, an electric dryer or central air, read the watts off the nameplate and enter them above. A refrigerator is rated differently: its label gives kWh a year, because its compressor does not run 24 hours a day.

*Costs calculated at 17.23 ¢/kWh, EIA's 2025 annual U.S. residential average, with a month taken as the 365-day year over twelve (monthly = annual / 12). Your actual rate may be higher: EIA-861 (Historical State Data, 2025) prints residential averages of 31.35 ¢ for California and 40.40 ¢ for Hawaii, and New England's six states come to 28.84 ¢ (their residential revenue over their sales). The result's bar compares your device with $150.68 a month, the 2025 U.S. average residential bill from the same data: residential revenue divided by residential customers, over twelve months. Check your bill for the exact number, and remember that delivery charges and taxes can effectively double the per-kWh cost you see on the rate schedule.

The biggest energy consumers in a typical home are heating, cooling, and hot water. A single 1,500W space heater running 8 hours a day costs $62.89 a month at the default rate. Two of them in a poorly insulated house, running through a cold winter, can add $700-1,000 to your annual electricity bill. Central air conditioning at 3,500W for 8 hours daily costs over $130 per month during summer; the cost-to-run-an-air-conditioner calculator works that figure from the unit BTU and SEER rating. To set loads side by side, our appliance electricity cost calculator costs one appliance over the days you enter and compares it with a month of use of a fixed list of named appliances.

Contrast that with modern efficient devices. Samsung's 65-inch RU7100 LED TV, at its printed 122W typical draw for 5 hours daily, costs $3.20 a month. LED bulbs and laptops draw a small fraction of a heater's watts; enter the watts printed on their own labels above to see their cost.

The biggest savings come from addressing the big loads, not sweating the small ones. A refrigerator is rated in kWh a year on its label, and its compressor does not run 24 hours a day, so multiply the label's yearly kWh by your rate rather than entering its wattage for 24 hours; replacing one saves the difference between the two labels' kWh a year, times your rate. Switching from electric resistance heating to a heat pump cuts heating costs by 50-70%. Adding insulation reduces both heating and cooling runtimes. These structural changes dwarf any savings from unplugging phone chargers or turning off lights, though those habits still help.

For one device at a time, our kWh calculator turns one device's watts, hours a day and days into its kWh a day, its kWh over the days you enter, and the cost.

Start with the appliances that cost the most, not the ones that are easiest to unplug. Run the numbers through this calculator for every device you suspect is expensive. The results often surprise people. A slow cooker using 200W for 8 hours costs less than an oven using 2,500W for 1 hour to cook the same meal.

Switch remaining incandescent or CFL bulbs to LED. Use our amps draw calculator to see how little current an LED draws compared to the incandescent it replaces. A 60W-equivalent LED uses 8-10W and lasts 25,000+ hours. At $0.16/kWh, replacing ten 60W incandescents with LEDs saves about $30/year, and you buy fewer replacement bulbs.

Use smart power strips for entertainment centers and computer setups. A TV, soundbar, game console, and streaming stick on standby draw 30-50W combined, all day, every day. A smart strip cuts power to peripherals when the main device turns off. At the default rate, 30-50W drawn all day, every day costs $45.28-75.47 a year.

Run your dishwasher and washing machine only when full. A half-full dishwasher uses the same 1,500W cycle as a full one. If you run it half-loaded every day instead of full every other day, you double the energy cost for the same number of dishes.

Consider time-of-use rates if your utility offers them. Running the dryer, dishwasher, and EV charger during off-peak hours (usually 9 PM to 6 AM) can cut the effective rate by 30-50% on those loads. The appliances do the same work; you just pay less for the electricity.

For the biggest long-term savings, solar panels can eliminate or dramatically reduce your electricity bill. Our solar ROI calculator estimates the payback period based on your location and current electricity costs.