Appliance running cost calculator
Pick an appliance and see what it costs an hour, a month and a year at your state's electricity rate. Adjust anything that does not match your household. Then add the appliances you actually own to a list, and see what they cost together — which is usually the number people are really after.
One appliance
Your appliances together
Adding what you own builds an estimate of your household's appliance load. It stays in this browser — nothing is sent anywhere and there is nothing to sign up for.
Every appliance, ranked
| Appliance | Power | Per year | Cost per year | Per week |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| EV home charger (7 kW) | 7000 W | 3833 kWh | $1,269 | $24.40 |
| Pool pump (single speed) | 1100 W | 2640 kWh | $874 | $16.80 |
| Spa or hot tub | 2000 W while running | 2500 kWh | $828 | $15.91 |
| Ducted reverse cycle (whole house) | 4000 W | 2400 kWh | $794 | $15.28 |
| Portable fan heater | 2400 W | 1440 kWh | $477 | $9.17 |
| Oil column heater | 2000 W | 1200 kWh | $397 | $7.64 |
| Pool pump (variable speed, low) | 300 W | 900 kWh | $298 | $5.73 |
| Aquarium (heated, 200 L) | 200 W while running | 700 kWh | $232 | $4.46 |
| Clothes dryer (vented, 6 kg) | 2400 W | 582 kWh | $193 | $3.71 |
| Split system, heating (3.5 kW) | 950 W | 570 kWh | $189 | $3.63 |
| Fridge-freezer (400–500 L) | 150 W while running | 450 kWh | $149 | $2.86 |
| Dehumidifier | 500 W | 450 kWh | $149 | $2.86 |
| Electric oven | 2400 W | 438 kWh | $145 | $2.79 |
| Electric cooktop (radiant) | 2000 W | 438 kWh | $145 | $2.79 |
| Second fridge in the garage | 130 W while running | 400 kWh | $132 | $2.55 |
| Induction cooktop | 2000 W | 365 kWh | $121 | $2.32 |
| Desktop computer | 150 W | 328 kWh | $109 | $2.09 |
| Split system, cooling (3.5 kW) | 900 W | 324 kWh | $107 | $2.06 |
| Chest freezer (200 L) | 100 W while running | 300 kWh | $99 | $1.91 |
| Dishwasher (normal cycle) | 1800 W | 286 kWh | $95 | $1.82 |
| Electric kettle | 2200 W | 240 kWh | $80 | $1.53 |
| Air fryer | 1500 W | 219 kWh | $72 | $1.39 |
| Clothes dryer (heat pump, 8 kg) | 800 W | 208 kWh | $69 | $1.32 |
| OLED television (65 inch) | 140 W | 204 kWh | $68 | $1.30 |
| Bar fridge (120 L) | 70 W while running | 200 kWh | $66 | $1.27 |
| Washing machine (warm wash, 40 °C) | 2000 W | 156 kWh | $52 | $0.99 |
| LED television (55 inch) | 90 W | 131 kWh | $43 | $0.84 |
| Set top box | 15 W | 131 kWh | $43 | $0.84 |
| Coffee machine | 1400 W | 128 kWh | $42 | $0.81 |
| Laptop | 50 W | 110 kWh | $36 | $0.70 |
| Games console | 150 W | 110 kWh | $36 | $0.70 |
| Slow cooker | 250 W | 100 kWh | $33 | $0.64 |
| Hair dryer | 1800 W | 99 kWh | $33 | $0.63 |
| Microwave | 1200 W | 88 kWh | $29 | $0.56 |
| Wi-Fi router and modem | 10 W | 88 kWh | $29 | $0.56 |
| Vacuum cleaner | 1400 W | 77 kWh | $25 | $0.49 |
| Iron | 1200 W | 66 kWh | $22 | $0.42 |
| Ceiling fan | 60 W | 58 kWh | $19 | $0.37 |
| Pedestal fan | 50 W | 48 kWh | $16 | $0.31 |
| Washing machine (cold wash) | 500 W | 39 kWh | $13 | $0.25 |
| Rangehood | 150 W | 38 kWh | $13 | $0.24 |
| Toaster | 1000 W | 37 kWh | $12 | $0.23 |
| Electric blanket | 100 W | 24 kWh | $8 | $0.15 |
At New South Wales's reference rate of 33.1c per kWh. Seasonal appliances are counted over the part of the year they are actually used — a fan heater running five hours a day for four months, not for twelve. Set your own rate in My home to see your figures.
How the calculation works
For anything you switch on and off yourself, running cost is the rated power multiplied by how long it runs and by your electricity price:
Annual cost = (watts ÷ 1,000) × hours a day × days a year × price per kWh
Worked example
A 2,400 W vented clothes dryer, four loads a week at about 45 minutes each, in New South Wales at 33.1c per kilowatt hour.
Each load uses about 2.8 kWh, so 2.8 × 4 = 11.2 kWh a week, or 582 kWh a year. At 33.1c that is $193 a year, or about 93 cents a load.
A heat pump dryer doing the same four loads uses about 1.0 kWh each — 208 kWh a year, or $69. The difference is $124 a year, which is the figure worth weighing against the price difference between the two machines.
For appliances that cycle
A refrigerator, freezer or spa is not modelled this way. Its compressor runs a fraction of the time, decided by the thermostat rather than by you, so the calculator uses the measured annual consumption from the Energy Rating scheme and does not offer you an hours-per-day input at all. Substituting a guess for a measurement would make the answer worse, not more personal.
What is not included
The daily supply charge, because it does not change with what you plug in, and the calculator shows it separately in the list total instead. Nor is any allowance made for the fact that a heater's output partly offsets other heating, or that a fridge dumps its waste heat into your kitchen. Those effects are real and small; pretending to model them precisely would be false precision.
Frequently asked questions
How do I find out what my electricity actually costs?
Look on your bill for the usage rate in cents per kilowatt hour — it will be separate from the daily supply charge. Many households are on a market offer well below their state's reference rate, and some are on time-of-use pricing with two or three different rates through the day. Put your own figure into My home and every number on this site follows it.
Why does the calculator not let me change the hours for a fridge?
Because a fridge decides its own hours. Its compressor cycles according to the thermostat, how full it is and how warm the room is, and none of that is a number you can usefully estimate. The annual consumption figure comes from the Energy Rating scheme's measured test, which is a far better number than any hours-per-day guess would produce.
My appliance is not in the list — what do I do?
Pick the closest thing in the same category and overwrite the power rating with the figure from your appliance's compliance plate, usually on the back or underneath. For anything you switch on and off, the rating plus your own usage estimate is genuinely all the calculation needs, so the result will be as accurate as it would be for a listed model.
Is my appliance list stored anywhere?
Only in your own browser, under a key called hrc_appliances. There is
no account, no server copy and no way for us to see it. That also means it will
not follow you to another device, and clearing your browser data will remove it.
Why is the annual figure for my heater lower than I expected?
Because it counts the days you actually use it. A heater set to five hours a day is modelled over about 120 days — a Southern Australian heating season — rather than over the whole year, which would treble the figure and describe nobody's household. If you heat for longer than that, change the days-a-year input and the number follows.