What does a CPAP machine cost to run?

Run the numbers on your own use

Change any of these and the figures update. The defaults are the typical case described above; your rate is the input that moves the answer most.

Why this is lower than the number you will see elsewhere

Almost every published answer to this question multiplies the rating on the label by the hours the appliance is switched on. For a CPAP machine that gives 115 kWh a year, or $21.

The blower runs continuously through the night. The wide range is entirely the heated humidifier, which is a small kettle and draws several times what the blower does.

The arithmetic, step by step

Nothing here is hidden, so you can check it or change it. Working in the order the formula runs:

1. 45 W — what it draws while it is actually drawing. This is the rating on the plate.
2. × 100% — the share of its in-service time it is really pulling that. The blower runs continuously through the night. The wide range is entirely the heated humidifier, which is a small kettle and draws several times what the blower does.
   That gives 45 W averaged across the hours it is on.
3. × 7 hours a day × 365 days — Nightly use with a heated humidifier at a moderate setting.
   45 × 7 × 365 ÷ 1,000 = 115 kWh a year.
4. + standby — 2 W for the other 17.0 hours a day, which is 12 kWh a year. People leave this out and it is not always small.
5. × 18.34¢ — the US average residential rate for June 2026.
   127 kWh × 18.34¢ = $23 a year.

Change any assumption in the calculator above and every figure on this page moves with it. The two that matter most are your rate, which varies 4× across the country, and the hours — the duty cycle is a property of the appliance, but the hours are a property of you.

How sensitive is that number?

A single figure invites more confidence than it deserves. Here is the same appliance under assumptions either side of the default, so you can see how much of the answer is the appliance and how much is the guess about how you use it.

Everything else held at the default. The spread here is the honest error bar on the headline figure.

What it costs per hour, day and month

At 18.34¢ per kWh, the US residential average for June 2026.

The thing worth knowing

The machine itself is trivial; the humidifier is not. A blower alone is around 25 W, and adding heated humidification and a heated hose can take it past 100 W for the same seven hours. If you are running one on battery or off-grid, turning the humidifier down is worth more than any other setting on the device.

What it costs in your state

The appliance is the same everywhere; the rate is not. Running this CPAP machine costs $67 a year in Hawaii and $17 in Nevada — a difference of 4×.

Cost of running one CPAP machine for a year, by state. Residential average price, EIA June 2026.

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Questions

Source: U.S. Energy Information Administration, Electric Power Monthly, Table 5.6.A, June 2026. U.S. Government work, public domain.

How every figure on this page is computed · Where the data comes from