What does it cost to run?
Pick an appliance — we'll fill in the watts — set your electricity rate, and see the real cost per hour, day, month and year. Then add up your whole home to find what's actually draining the bill.
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How this works
Every electrical appliance has a power rating in watts. The cost to run it is simple: (watts ÷ 1,000) × hours used × your price per kWh. The hard parts are knowing the wattage and knowing your rate — so Plugload does both for you. Choose an appliance and we fill in a typical wattage; pick your state or country and we fill in the average electricity price. Change either to match your exact situation.
The single-appliance view answers the literal question — "what does my space heater cost?" — but the real question is usually "where is my bill going?" That's what whole-home mode is for: list everything you run and Plugload ranks them biggest-first, so you can see at a glance that the pool pump or the old garage fridge is costing more than everything you were worried about. Everything runs on your device; nothing you enter is sent anywhere.
Common questions
How do you work out the cost?
Cost = (watts ÷ 1,000) × hours run × your price per kWh. A 1,500W heater for 5 hours at $0.17/kWh is 1.5 × 5 × 0.17 = about $1.28 a day. Plugload fills in the watts and a typical local rate so you don't have to look anything up.
Where do I find my electricity rate?
It's the price per kilowatt-hour (kWh) on your bill — usually something like $0.17. We pre-fill the average for your state or country, but your exact rate gives the most accurate answer. Pop it into the "price per kWh" box.
I don't know my appliance's wattage — is that a problem?
No. Pick the closest match from the list and we use a typical wattage for it. If you want to be precise, the real figure is usually printed on a label on the appliance or in its manual, and you can type it in.
Why doesn't the fridge run 24 hours?
Appliances like fridges and freezers cycle — the compressor only runs about a third of the time to hold temperature. So the default "hours per day" reflects actual run time, not the hours it's plugged in. The result lands around the real 1–2 kWh a day a fridge uses.