Appliance running cost

How to use this tool

This tool prices electricity for an appliance in two ways. The first uses a published annual kilowatt-hour figure. The second uses a wattage and a number of hours you type. Both use the cents-per-kWh box at the top. The box starts at the EIA-861 2025 U.S. residential all-in average. Replace it with the rate you actually pay, or with the cents figure from the bill calculator for your utility. The dollars change in the browser. The rate you type is not saved.

The ENERGY STAR list is a set of medians, not a meter reading from one kitchen. Each row is the median of an annual kilowatt-hour field on a certified-product dataset retrieved October 10, 2026. The sample size is the number of certified models in that download. Lists that publish only an efficiency score, and no annual kilowatt-hour field, are not included. The note under the dollar figure names the dataset, the field, and the retrieval date, and it links to the dataset. Read that note before treating the median as your appliance. A certified-list median describes the models in the file. It does not describe a ten-year-old unit, a partial year, or a house that runs the appliance more or less than the test.

The year cost is the median kilowatt-hours times your cents per kWh, rounded to the cent. The month cost is that year cost divided by twelve, rounded again. It is not a seasonal estimate. A refrigerator that runs all year is closer to this shape than a space heater you use in three months. For a seasonal load, use the watts-times-hours section and type the hours you actually expect.

Use watts times hours when you have a nameplate. Divide watts by 1,000 to get kilowatts, multiply by the hours you enter, then multiply by the cents per kWh and round to the cent. The hours box is whatever period you mean: one hour, eight hours a day, or seven hundred hours a year. The tool does not convert “per day” into “per year” for you. This site does not ship a guessed wattage table. If the nameplate is missing, do not borrow a round number from memory and treat the result as measured.

A worked shape, so the arithmetic is visible: 100 watts for 10 hours at 17 cents per kWh is 1.0 kWh and 17 cents. One thousand watts for one hour at the same rate is the same kilowatt-hour and the same 17 cents. The ENERGY STAR median and this box answer different questions. The median is a full year of tested use. The watts box is the hours you typed. Do not add them unless you mean to count both.

Individual appliance pages under Cost to run use the same medians, priced at the U.S. average, with the dataset note repeated. Change the rate here when you want those medians at a state or utility price. The methodology page lists which ENERGY STAR datasets were kept and which were skipped for lack of an annual kilowatt-hour field.