🔌What does charging a phone, laptop or e-bike cost?

✓ Tested & verified Updated: Aug 9, 2026 How we calculate this

Device charging cost

What you are charging

Energy per charge (kWh)

Charges a week

Country

Your price per kWh

$0.0037 a charge ≈ $1.36 a year

At 7 charges a week that is $0.03 a week and $0.11 a month.

Electricity a year: 8 kWh
Charges a year: 364
Cost a year: $1.36

The figures already include about 15% charging loss — the heat you feel in the plug. Battery capacity alone would understate the bill.

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How much does it cost to charge a phone?

About four tenths of a cent. A 5,000 mAh phone battery holds roughly 19 watt-hours; allowing for charging losses that is 0.022 kWh, which at $0.17 per kWh is $0.0037 a charge. Charging every day for a year comes to $1.36 — £2.01 at £0.25 per kWh, €2.81 at €0.35.

The scale changes completely once a battery gets serious. A laptop is three times a phone; an e-bike battery is twenty-six times a phone and costs about $0.10 a charge. An electric car is another factor of a hundred beyond that, which is why it gets its own calculator.

This is also where the unplug-your-charger advice comes from, and it has aged out. A modern USB charger left plugged in with nothing attached draws well under 0.1 W — a few cents a year. Chargers from twenty years ago genuinely wasted a watt or two, the advice was written then, and it has outlived the hardware. Unplug it because it is tidy, not because it is costing you money.

The whole range, at $0.17 per kWh, with charging losses already in the numbers.

Device	Battery	One charge	Charged daily for a year
Wireless earbuds and case	2 Wh	$0.0004	$0.16
Smartwatch	3 Wh	$0.0006	$0.22
Phone, 5,000 mAh	19 Wh	$0.0037	$1.36
Tablet	35 Wh	$0.0068	$2.48
Laptop	60 Wh	$0.0119	$4.34
Power bank, 20,000 mAh	74 Wh	$0.0145	$5.27
E-scooter	365 Wh	$0.0714	$26.06
E-bike	500 Wh	$0.0978	$35.68

Every phone, tablet, watch and pair of earbuds in a household of four, charged every single day for a year, comes to under $20. The e-bike at the bottom costs more than all of them together — and it is still cheaper than one tank of petrol.

Frequently asked questions

How much does it cost to charge a phone for a year?

About $1.36 at $0.17 per kWh, charging once a day — £2.01 in the UK, €2.81 at €0.35. That is a full year of daily charging for less than a single cup of coffee, and it is the reason phone charging almost never shows up as a measurable line on an electricity bill.

Does leaving a charger plugged in use electricity?

A little, but far less than the advice suggests. A modern USB charger with nothing plugged in draws under 0.1 W — around 5 cents a year. Older transformer-based chargers drew 1 to 2 W, which is where the habit came from. Today the bigger standby loads are set-top boxes, games consoles and anything with a display.

How much does it cost to charge a laptop?

About a cent a charge for a typical 60 Wh battery, so roughly $3 to $4 a year charged daily. A large 100 Wh laptop battery is about $0.02 a charge. If the machine is plugged in and working all day the running cost matters more than the charging — that is watts × hours, not battery capacity.

How much does it cost to charge an e-bike?

Around $0.10 for a 500 Wh battery at $0.17 per kWh, which typically buys 30 to 60 miles. Charged three times a week that is about $15 a year. Compared with almost any other way of covering the same distance, the electricity is close to a rounding error.

Why is the cost higher than the battery capacity suggests?

Because charging is not free. Between the wall socket and the cell, roughly 10 to 20% of the energy is lost as heat in the charger and the battery — that is the warmth you can feel in the plug. The figures here include about 15%, so they are what the meter records rather than what ends up in the battery.

Is wireless charging more expensive?

Yes, noticeably in percentage terms and trivially in money. Wireless charging is typically 30 to 50% less efficient than a cable, so a phone charge goes from about $0.0037 to $0.005. Over a year that is a difference of under a dollar — real, but not a reason to change anything except in a hotel room with no cable.

How we calculate this

Cost is energy per charge × price per kWh. Energy per charge is battery capacity in watt-hours divided by 1,000 and increased by about 15% for charging losses, which is the middle of the typical 10–20% range for a modern USB or laptop charger; the loss is what makes the plug warm. Battery capacities are the sizes these devices are commonly sold with: about 19 Wh for a 5,000 mAh phone at 3.85 V nominal, 30–40 Wh for a tablet, 50–70 Wh for a laptop, 100 Wh for a large laptop — which is also the cabin-baggage limit for lithium batteries — 74 Wh for a 20,000 mAh power bank and 400–750 Wh for an e-bike. Standby draw for an idle modern USB charger is under 0.1 W under the EU and US no-load power limits for external power supplies.

Worked example

With What you are charging Phone, 5,000 mAh battery, Energy per charge (kWh) 0.02, Charges a week 7, Country United States (USD), Your price per kWh 0.17, this page works out $0.0037 a charge ≈ $1.36 a year. At 7 charges a week that is $0.03 a week and $0.11 a month.

Electricity a year8 kWh
Charges a year364
Cost a year$1.36

Sources: