Air fryer vs microwave: what each costs to run

The verdict

The air fryer costs less per year, and the microwave costs less per meal. Both are true because they are not doing the same job. A microwave heats the food and nothing else, which is why it is unbeatable for a plate of leftovers — no chamber to bring up to temperature, no air to circulate, done in ninety seconds. An air fryer heats a small chamber and moves hot air through it, which takes longer and browns things a microwave never will. The annual gap between them is an artefact of how often each gets used rather than of which is more efficient.

Side by side

Air fryer and microwave oven are costed by the same function from the same dataset, so the $7.26 between them is a difference in the appliances and not in how each was measured. Air fryer draws an average 959 W across the hours it runs; microwave oven draws 1,485 W across its own.

Both at 18.34¢/kWh, the EIA residential average for June 2026. Ten years is roughly the service life of either.

The assumptions behind those figures

Nothing above is a manufacturer’s claim. 1,500 W at 60% for 0.4 hours a day, 250 days a year, is where air fryer’s 96 kWh comes from; 1,200 W at 100% for 0.25 hours over 365 days is where microwave oven’s 136 kWh comes from. The duty cycle is the input most published comparisons leave out, and it is why the ratings and the running costs are not in the same proportion here.

Change any of these on the appliance’s own page and every figure moves with it. The duty cycle is a property of the machine; the hours are a property of you.

What the gap is worth at your rate

Nothing here is a purchase decision, so there is no payback to compute. But $7.26 is the gap at the national average, and what it is worth to you depends on your rate — which varies more across the country than the difference between these two.

The gap in your state

The appliances are the same everywhere; the rate is not. The gap between these two is worth $21 a year in Hawaii and $5.19 in Nevada — 4× apart, on identical appliances.

A year of each, by state. Residential average price, EIA June 2026.

Questions

Other head-to-heads

• Air fryer vs electric oven

  $44 a year apart

  Does an air fryer really use less electricity than the oven?

• Chest freezer vs upright freezer

  $49 a year apart

  Does an upright freezer really use more electricity than a chest freezer?

• Chest freezer vs a second fridge in the garage

  $67 a year apart

  Which costs more to run: a chest freezer or an old second refrigerator?

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