What does a laptop 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 laptop that gives 120 kWh a year, or $22.

Charging draws more than running; once the battery is full the draw falls to what the machine is using.

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. 50 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. Charging draws more than running; once the battery is full the draw falls to what the machine is using.
   That gives 50 W averaged across the hours it is on.
3. × 8 hours a day × 300 days — A working day.
   50 × 8 × 300 ÷ 1,000 = 120 kWh a year.
4. + standby — 1 W for the other 16.0 hours a day, which is 4.8 kWh a year. People leave this out and it is not always small.
5. × 18.34¢ — the US average residential rate for June 2026.
   125 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

A laptop uses roughly a fifth of what a desktop and monitor use for the same work, because everything in it was designed to run off a battery. Over a year of full-time use the difference is real money.

What it costs in your state

The appliance is the same everywhere; the rate is not. Running this laptop costs $66 a year in Hawaii and $16 in Nevada — a difference of 4×.

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

Other electronics and computing costs

• Gaming PC

  $111 a year

  Four hours of gaming a day on a mid-to-high-end build.

• UPS battery backup

  $40 a year

  A mid-size unit protecting a computer or a network rack.

• Games console

  $39 a year

  Three hours of play a day.

• Desktop computer

  $38 a year

  A working day, five days a week.

• OLED television

  $38 a year

  A 65-inch OLED, five hours a day, mixed content.

• LED television

  $31 a year

  A 55-inch 4K set, five hours a day, out-of-the-box brightness.

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