Appliance Electricity Cost Calculator

Find out what an appliance costs to run using its power and time, measured energy per cycle or annual energy use. Start with a heater, kettle, PC, tumble dryer or another editable example.

How to use Appliance Electricity Cost Calculator

1. Choose the currency used for results. 2. Choose the method that matches your information. Use Power and time for a steady draw, Energy per cycle for a measured wash or dry, and Energy per year for an annual label or reading. 3. Change a value to update the results, or select Calculate. Review the chart and notes with the total. 4. Use Copy results, Share results or Download result graphic to keep the answer. Shared links include your figures. 5. Reset restores the editable example inputs.

Why use this tool?

A powerful appliance used for a few minutes can cost less over the year than a low-power appliance left on all day. This calculator puts both the power and the time into the same cost calculation, so you can check which habit is worth changing. A kettle, an electric heater and a fridge should not automatically be treated alike. The kettle may draw close to its rated power while boiling; a heater can switch off at its thermostat; a fridge cycles throughout the day. Use a measured average or an energy figure when you have one. The examples help you get started without pretending to be ratings for a particular product.

How the calculation works

For power and time: yearly kWh = watts ÷ 1,000 × hours per day × days used. For cycles: yearly kWh = kWh per cycle × cycles per week × 52. For an annual figure, the entered kWh is used directly. Cost = kWh × the electricity price per kWh. Monthly cost is yearly cost ÷ 12, and the daily average is yearly cost ÷ 365. A weekly-cycle estimate uses 52 weeks. Standing charges are excluded because they belong to the household bill rather than to each appliance. For GBP, divide a rate in pence by 100 before entering it: 25p becomes 0.25.

Example

A 2,000 W heater used for two hours on each of 365 days uses 2 × 2 × 365 = 1,460 kWh. At an illustrative £0.25/kWh, that costs £365 a year, or £30.42 per month on average. Change the days to 180 if that better describes your heating season.

Practical tip

For a tumble dryer or washing machine, the energy used by one complete cycle is more useful than the maximum wattage. For a fridge or freezer, try the annual kWh figure, while remembering that an energy-label test is not a measurement in your kitchen.