Cost to Run Any Appliance (2026): 40 Ranked by Monthly Cost

Updated September 2026 · Source: EIA Electric Power Monthly Table 5.6.A (July 2026 data) · next EIA update ~Oct 23

Almost every “save on your electricity bill” article tells you to unplug your phone chargers. A phone charger costs a few cents a year. The list below shows where the money actually goes.

These are 40 common appliances ranked by what they add to a monthly bill at a US average rate of 17¢/kWh — the EIA 2025 annual US average (July 2026 monthly: 18.31¢) — using typical wattages and realistic run-times. Click any one for its own calculator, state rate quick-fill, and the arithmetic in full.

The pattern behind the ranking

Read the table top to bottom and one rule explains nearly all of it:

• Things that make heat — heaters, water heaters, dryers, ovens — sit at the top, because turning electricity into heat takes a lot of electricity. There is no efficient way to do it with resistance elements; they are all equally 100% efficient, which sounds good and means every watt costs the same.
• Things that move heat — air conditioners, heat pumps, fridges, freezers — come next. They are far more efficient than resistance heating for the same effect, but they run long hours.
• Things that never switch off — routers, fridges, pool pumps — punch above their wattage. A 60 W device running 24 hours uses more than a 1,500 W device running 30 minutes.
• Everything else — televisions, computers, kitchen gadgets — is close to noise on a bill, however powerful the label looks.

If you want to cut a bill, the honest advice is to start at the top of that table and work down. Nothing at the bottom will make a measurable difference.

Where these wattages come from

The wattages here are typical values for planning, given as a range as well as a midpoint, not measurements of any specific product. Appliance draw varies with size, age, setting and model, and the nameplate on your own unit is always the better number — every calculator on this site lets you type it in.

The math itself is not in dispute: watts ÷ 1,000 × hours × your rate per kWh. That is what your meter does, and it is why every figure here can be checked by hand.

One thing these pages deliberately exclude: the fixed part of your bill. Connection charges, delivery fees and taxes are real and often substantial, but they do not change with how long you run the dryer. What is listed above is the part you control.

Related

Use the electricity cost calculator for any appliance not listed, check what a kilowatt-hour costs in your state , or see what it costs to charge an EV — the one household load big enough to change a bill on its own.

Bill suddenly higher and this list doesn’t explain it? The bill jump calculator splits an increase into weather, rate and usage, and the average-bill-by-size checker says whether the level itself is normal for a home your size.