CostRunningAppliance Wattage Table
The CostRunning appliance wattage table pairs every appliance this site can price with the watts it draws, the range you meet in a real house, and what an hour of it costs at $0.17 per kWh. Every number is generated at build time from the same data file the calculators on this site read, so a figure here and an answer from a widget cannot drift apart.
The column that makes fifty unlike appliances comparable is the CostRunning hour-a-day figure: what something costs over a year if it runs one hour a day. It is watts ÷ 1,000 × 365 × your price per kWh, and it scales straight — every 100 W left on for an hour a day costs $6.21 a year at $0.17, so 40 W costs $2.48 and 2,000 W costs $124.10.
Wattage alone never answers the question. Hours do, which is why the second half of this page gives cost per cycle, per minute and per charge as well.
Five numbers worth quoting
Each of these is calculated from the tables below, at $0.17 per kWh.
- Every 100 W left on for one hour a day costs $6.21 a year at $0.17 per kWh.
- A fridge freezer drawing 150 W with its compressor running eight hours out of twenty-four uses 438 kWh a year, which is $74.46.
- Whole-household standby of 45 W costs $67.01 a year — more than twice a 55-inch television watched five hours a day, which costs $27.92.
- Replacing a vented tumble dryer with a heat pump model saves $77.79 a year at four loads a week — $116.69 against $38.90.
- Charging a phone every night for a year costs $1.36, under two percent of what the fridge in the same kitchen costs.
What does heating, cooling and air draw?
The heaviest column on any all-electric bill, and the one where the ranges are widest — a heat pump and a fan heater deliver the same warmth for wildly different money. Every figure below is the draw while the appliance is actually working.
| Appliance | Typical draw | Usual range | An hour | A year at 1 h a day |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Electric space heater | 1,500 W | 750–2,000 W | $0.26 | $93.08 |
| Oil-filled radiator | 1,500 W | 800–2,500 W | $0.26 | $93.08 |
| Fan heater | 2,000 W | 1,000–3,000 W | $0.34 | $124.10 |
| Window air conditioner | 900 W | 500–1,500 W | $0.15 | $55.85 |
| Portable air conditioner | 1,100 W | 800–1,500 W | $0.19 | $68.26 |
| Central air conditioning | 3,500 W | 2,000–5,000 W | $0.60 | $217.18 |
| Mini split, while cooling | 850 W | 400–1,800 W | $0.14 | $52.74 |
| Heat pump (per unit of heat) | 1,200 W | 800–2,500 W | $0.20 | $74.46 |
| Underfloor heating, 6 m² at 150 W/m² | 900 W | 100–200 W per m² | $0.15 | $55.85 |
| Dehumidifier | 300 W | 200–700 W | $0.05 | $18.62 |
| Humidifier | 40 W | 20–300 W | $0.0068 | $2.48 |
| Air purifier | 30 W | 15–60 W | $0.0051 | $1.86 |
| Pedestal or ceiling fan | 60 W | 20–100 W | $0.01 | $3.72 |
| Extractor fan | 25 W | 10–50 W | $0.0043 | $1.55 |
What does the kitchen draw?
Two kinds of appliance live in a kitchen: things that run for hours at low power, and things that run for minutes at high power. Only the first kind belongs in a watts-times-hours table, so kettles, toasters, air fryers and microwaves appear further down in the minute-by-minute table instead.
| Appliance | Typical draw | Usual range | An hour | A year at 1 h a day |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Fridge freezer | 150 W | 100–250 W when running | $0.03 | $9.31 |
| Chest freezer, while running | 120 W | 80–200 W | $0.02 | $7.45 |
| Electric oven | 2,400 W | 2,000–3,000 W | $0.41 | $148.92 |
| Induction hob, one ring | 2,000 W | 1,400–3,700 W | $0.34 | $124.10 |
| Coffee machine, brewing | 1,000 W | 600–1,500 W | $0.17 | $62.05 |
| Extractor hood | 150 W | 60–250 W | $0.03 | $9.31 |
What do screens and computers draw?
The category people worry about and the one that matters least — with one exception at the bottom of the table, which is the household standby load, because it is the only row here that runs all 8,760 hours of the year.
| Appliance | Typical draw | Usual range | An hour | A year at 1 h a day |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Television, 43-inch LED | 60 W | 40–90 W | $0.01 | $3.72 |
| Television (55-inch LED) | 90 W | 50–150 W | $0.02 | $5.58 |
| Television, 65-inch | 120 W | 80–200 W | $0.02 | $7.45 |
| Soundbar | 35 W | 15–60 W | $0.0060 | $2.17 |
| Games console | 160 W | 50–220 W | $0.03 | $9.93 |
| Games console, rest mode | 12 W | 8–15 W | $0.0020 | $0.74 |
| Gaming PC under load | 450 W | 300–800 W | $0.08 | $27.92 |
| Desktop PC, idle | 80 W | 50–120 W | $0.01 | $4.96 |
| Laptop | 50 W | 30–90 W | $0.0085 | $3.10 |
| Monitor, 27-inch | 40 W | 25–80 W | $0.0068 | $2.48 |
| Router, always on | 10 W | 5–20 W | $0.0017 | $0.62 |
| Set-top box or DVR | 20 W | 10–30 W | $0.0034 | $1.24 |
| Phone charger, charging | 15 W | 5–45 W | $0.0026 | $0.93 |
| Phone charger, idle | 0.3 W | 0.1–0.5 W | $0.0001 | $0.02 |
| Whole-household standby | 45 W | 30–60 W | $0.0077 | $2.79 |
What do the big loads draw?
Anything above 3 kW is either heating water or moving a car. These are the rows worth acting on before anything else on the page, and the only ones where a wiring or breaker limit is part of the conversation.
| Appliance | Typical draw | Usual range | An hour | A year at 1 h a day |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Electric water heater | 4,000 W | 3,000–5,500 W | $0.68 | $248.20 |
| Hot tub heater | 3,000 W | 1,500–6,000 W | $0.51 | $186.15 |
| Pool pump | 1,100 W | 700–2,000 W | $0.19 | $68.26 |
| EV charger, home AC | 7,000 W | 3,700–11,000 W | $1.19 | $434.35 |
| Tumble dryer, while the element is on | 2,500 W | 2,000–3,000 W | $0.43 | $155.13 |
What does a year cost at each calculator’s own default?
Every appliance on this site with its own steady-draw calculator starts from a running time chosen for that appliance — eight compressor hours for a fridge, three element hours for a water heater, twenty-four hours for standby. This table is that default use turned into kilowatt-hours and money, so the rows are directly comparable with each other.
| Appliance | Draw | Running time it starts from | kWh a year | Cost a year |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Electric space heater | 1,500 W | 6 h a day | 3,285 | $558.45 |
| Window air conditioner | 900 W | 6 h a day | 1,971 | $335.07 |
| Heat pump (per unit of heat) | 1,200 W | 8 h a day | 3,504 | $595.68 |
| Underfloor heating, 6 m² at 150 W/m² | 900 W | 6 h a day | 1,971 | $335.07 |
| Dehumidifier | 300 W | 10 h a day | 1,095 | $186.15 |
| Air purifier | 30 W | 24 h a day | 263 | $44.68 |
| Pedestal or ceiling fan | 60 W | 8 h a day | 175 | $29.78 |
| Fridge freezer | 150 W | 8 h a day | 438 | $74.46 |
| Television (55-inch LED) | 90 W | 5 h a day | 164 | $27.92 |
| Gaming PC under load | 450 W | 4 h a day | 657 | $111.69 |
| Whole-household standby | 45 W | 24 h a day | 394 | $67.01 |
| Electric water heater | 4,000 W | 3 h a day | 4,380 | $744.60 |
| Hot tub heater | 3,000 W | 3 h a day | 3,285 | $558.45 |
| Pool pump | 1,100 W | 8 h a day | 3,212 | $546.04 |
The order in that table is the answer to the question people usually ask first, and it is not the order of the wattage column: hours decide, not watts. The full ranking of a household bill is in the biggest electricity users in a home.
Which machines are measured per cycle?
A washing machine’s draw swings between 100 W and 2,500 W during a programme, so its plate quotes energy per cycle instead. Anything with a heating element and a programme belongs here, and so does an oven, which cycles its element once it is up to temperature.
| Cycle | kWh a cycle | Usual range | Cost a cycle | Cycles a week | Cost a year |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Washing machine | 0.70 | 0.4–1.4 kWh a cycle | $0.12 | 5 | $30.94 |
| Washing machine, hot wash | 1.40 | 1.0–2.2 kWh a cycle | $0.24 | 5 | $61.88 |
| Tumble dryer, vented | 3.30 | 2.5–4.5 kWh a cycle | $0.56 | 4 | $116.69 |
| Tumble dryer, condenser | 2.50 | 2.0–3.5 kWh a cycle | $0.43 | 4 | $88.40 |
| Tumble dryer, heat pump | 1.10 | 0.8–1.6 kWh a cycle | $0.19 | 4 | $38.90 |
| Dishwasher, normal | 1.00 | 0.7–1.5 kWh a cycle | $0.17 | 6 | $53.04 |
| Dishwasher, eco | 0.70 | 0.5–1.0 kWh a cycle | $0.12 | 6 | $37.13 |
| Electric oven, one hour | 2.00 | 1.5–2.5 kWh an hour | $0.34 | 5 | $88.40 |
What about machines that run for minutes?
For a shower or an air fryer, hours a day is the wrong question — the honest answer would be 0.13, and nobody thinks that way. Cost a minute is the useful figure, and it is the draw at the price you pay: multiply by the minutes you actually use.
| Appliance | Draw | A minute | Use it starts from | Cost a use | Cost a year |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Electric shower, 8.5 kW | 8,500 W | $0.02 | 8 min, 7× a week | $0.19 | $70.13 |
| Electric shower, 9.5 kW | 9,500 W | $0.03 | 8 min, 7× a week | $0.22 | $78.38 |
| Electric shower, 10.5 kW | 10,500 W | $0.03 | 8 min, 7× a week | $0.24 | $86.63 |
| Air fryer | 1,500 W | $0.0043 | 20 min, 5× a week | $0.09 | $22.10 |
| Air fryer, dual basket | 2,400 W | $0.0068 | 20 min, 5× a week | $0.14 | $35.36 |
| Electric kettle | 3,000 W | $0.0085 | — | — | — |
| Microwave | 1,100 W | $0.0031 | — | — | — |
| Toaster | 1,000 W | $0.0028 | — | — | — |
| Hair dryer | 1,800 W | $0.0051 | — | — | — |
| Iron | 2,000 W | $0.0057 | — | — | — |
| Vacuum cleaner | 900 W | $0.0026 | — | — | — |
What does charging a battery cost?
A battery is quoted in capacity, not power, so a charge is priced from the capacity in the cell plus about 15% lost as heat between the socket and the battery. The numbers are small enough to settle the argument permanently.
| Battery | kWh a charge | What is in it | A charge | A year, charged daily |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Phone, 5,000 mAh battery | 0.0220 | about 19 Wh in the battery | $0.0037 | $1.36 |
| Phone, large battery | 0.0300 | about 25 Wh | $0.0051 | $1.86 |
| Tablet | 0.0400 | 30–40 Wh | $0.0068 | $2.48 |
| Laptop | 0.0700 | 50–70 Wh | $0.01 | $4.33 |
| Laptop, 100 Wh battery | 0.1150 | the cabin-baggage limit | $0.02 | $7.12 |
| Power bank, 20,000 mAh | 0.0850 | about 74 Wh | $0.01 | $5.26 |
| Smartwatch | 0.0035 | 2–3 Wh | $0.0006 | $0.22 |
| Wireless earbuds and case | 0.0025 | 1–2 Wh | $0.0004 | $0.15 |
| E-bike battery, 500 Wh | 0.5750 | 400–750 Wh | $0.10 | $35.58 |
| E-scooter battery | 0.4200 | 280–500 Wh | $0.07 | $25.99 |
What to do when the rating plate is gone
Three fallbacks, in order of accuracy:
- A plug-in energy monitor. Definitive, cheap, and it measures your machine in your house.
- Volts × amps from the plate. Often present even when watts are not. 230 V × 8 A = 1,840 W.
- The model number online. Manufacturer specification sheets list input power, usually separately from any output rating.
And one rule that beats all of them: anything that makes heat is measured in thousands of watts; anything that makes light, sound or pictures is measured in tens. If you are unsure which category something falls into, ask whether it gets hot.
Take any figure from here to the electricity cost calculator and add your own price and hours, or read how to work out a running cost for the formula behind every column on this page.
Frequently asked questions
Why does my plug-in energy monitor read less than the wattage on the label?
Because the plate quotes the maximum the appliance can draw, not what it draws while you watch it. Hair dryers rated 1,800 W commonly measure nearer 1,500 W on a plug-in meter, motors that are not working hard draw well under their rating, and a compressor plate is often a minimum-circuit figure with 25% already added. Mains voltage sagging a few percent below nominal pulls a heating element down with it. That gap is exactly what the usual range column here is for — the typical figure is what machines really pull, and the range is where honest measurements land.
How many hours a day does a fridge actually run?
Roughly eight of the twenty-four for a modern, well-sealed unit in a normal kitchen — about a third of the time. The compressor cools until the thermostat is satisfied, stops, and restarts when the temperature drifts, so a fridge is powered continuously but only draws its 150 W while it runs. At eight hours that is 438 kWh and $74.46 a year at $0.17. An old machine in a hot kitchen with a tired door seal can run twice as long, which doubles the figure without anything changing inside it.
Does 1,500 W mean 1,500 watts an hour?
No, and the phrase is the single most common mistake in this subject. Watts are a rate, like miles per hour — the appliance draws 1,500 W for as long as it is on, and the energy you are billed for is the rate multiplied by the time. Run 1,500 W for one hour and you have used 1.5 kWh, which costs $0.26 at $0.17. Run it for four minutes and you have used 0.1 kWh. There is no such unit as a watt per hour on any electricity bill.
Why is a 3,000 W kettle cheaper to run than a 150 W fridge?
Because the kettle is on for minutes a day and the fridge is on all year. A 3,000 W kettle costs $0.0085 a minute at $0.17, so even a hundred boils a month is small money, while the fridge’s 150 W accumulates to $74.46 a year. The rating plate tells you how fast an appliance spends money, not how much it spends. Anything that runs for hours beats anything that runs for minutes, however frightening the bigger number looks.
Do these wattages apply in a 120-volt country?
The watts do — a watt is a watt, and 1,500 W costs the same to run in Ohio as in Ontario at the same price per kWh. What changes is which appliances exist. A 120 V socket circuit tops out near 1,800 W, so US kettles are typically 1,500 W rather than the 3,000 W sold in 230 V countries, and the 8.5 to 10.5 kW electric showers in the minute-by-minute table below are a 230 V product with no 120 V equivalent. Convert between watts, amps and volts with the amps to watts calculator.
How we calculate this
Every table on this page is drawn at build time from data/appliances.json and data/energy.json
in this site’s source, and nothing in the page text is a typed-in number. energy.json is the file
the calculators themselves read — the presets in the appliance dropdowns, the per-cycle figures and
the battery capacities all come out of it — so the chart and the widgets are the same data seen
twice.
Where an appliance has its own calculator here, the running time in the yearly table is that calculator’s own starting default (fridge eight compressor hours, water heater three element hours, standby twenty-four hours), not an estimate written for this page. Where there is no calculator, the row carries only figures that need no assumption about use: the draw, the range, the cost of an hour, and the CostRunning hour-a-day figure — watts ÷ 1,000 × 365 × price, the cost of a year at one hour a day.
The arithmetic is the arithmetic in assets/js/run-core.js, line for line: watts × hours ÷ 1,000
for a steady draw, kWh × cycles × 52 for a per-cycle machine, watts × minutes ÷ 60 ÷ 1,000 for
anything that runs in minutes, and a month of 30.44 days so twelve months equal one year. Battery
figures include about 15% of charger loss on top of the capacity in the cell.
Typical wattages are working figures for mainstream appliances sold in the last decade, with the usual range beside every one of them, cross-checked against the appliance energy figures published by the US Department of Energy and ENERGY STAR. The price of $0.17 per kWh is the approximate US household average the calculators pre-fill so a form is never empty — it is not a claim about your bill, and every tool on this site lets you replace it.
Sources:
Cite or reference this page
You are welcome to reference the figures on this page with attribution. Every number is generated from the data source at build time — the methodology above explains how.
“Appliance Wattage Table.” CostRunning, updated Aug 10, 2026, https://costrunning.com/guides/appliance-wattage-table/