How much does it cost to run a phone charger?
About $0.08 a month on the typical usage below, at the U.S. average $0.1816/kWh. Set your own rate and usage and the figure updates instantly.
Charging a phone costs essentially nothing — a few watts for a few hours.
Running a phone charger at 5W for 3 h a day costs about
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A phone charger is about as close to free as anything you own that plugs into a wall. Most bricks draw just 5 watts while they're actually pushing current into a battery — a hundredth of what a space heater pulls — and once the phone hits 100% many chargers drop to a trickle or cut off entirely, so you're rarely paying for a full charge's worth of watts anyway.
Leave it charging overnight for eight hours instead of the roughly one hour a full charge actually takes, and the math barely moves — you're talking fractions of a cent either way. The one thing that actually costs something is a charger left plugged into the wall with nothing attached: it still sips a trickle of power around the clock, and multiplied across every outlet in the house over a year, that adds up far more than any charging session ever will.
What drives the cost of running a phone charger
- It draws only 2-20W while actively charging — a rounding error next to almost anything else in the house with a plug.
- Most phones stop pulling real power once the battery hits 100%, so "charging all night" costs almost the same as charging for the ~1-2 hours a full charge actually needs.
- The charger itself, not the phone, sets the draw — a fast/USB-C charger can peak higher than a basic 5W brick, but for a much shorter window, so the total energy used barely changes.
How to cut it
- Don't bother unplugging mid-charge or buying a "smart" charger to save power — the difference is a fraction of a cent, not worth the hassle.
- Charging faster (a higher-wattage fast charger) doesn't cost more overall — it draws more watts but for far fewer minutes, so the total energy is nearly the same.
- Unplug chargers you're not using — an idle brick still pulls a trickle of standby power, and across a whole house of outlets that's the actual line item, not the charging itself.
- Skip buying a "low-power" or eco-branded charger — at 5W, there's no meaningful efficiency gain left to capture.
Data basis
- Electricity price
- U.S. Energy Information Administration, Electric Power Monthly, Table 5.6.B, June 2026 year to date, released 2026-08-26. Retrieved 2026-09-11. Average residential revenue per kWh. A benchmark average, not a utility tariff — it excludes the fixed charges, tiers, time-of-use windows, taxes and fuel adjustments on a real bill.
- Appliance energy
- A representative running power for a phone charger, compiled from published manufacturer specifications and public appliance-energy guidance, and presented as a typical figure with the usual range shown above. It is not a measurement of your unit, and we do not claim a single primary source for it — the nameplate on your appliance, or an hour with a plug-in energy meter, beats any typical figure we can publish.
- Usage model
- Steady load — 5W for 3 h a day
- International prices
- rounded typical household tariffs for each market, in that market's own currency unless the row says US$ equivalent. These are planning benchmarks with no single primary source; enter the per-kWh price from your own bill for an accurate figure.
- Last reviewed
- 20 August 2026. Next scheduled review 20 February 2027.
- Corrections
- Think a figure is wrong? Tell us at corrections@watt-dollar.com and see our corrections policy.
Common questions
How much does it cost to run a phone charger per month?
On the assumption shown above — 5W for 3 h a day — a phone charger costs about $0.08 a month, or $0.99 a year, at $0.1816/kWh. That price is the U.S. average; set your own rate and usage above and the figure updates.
How is that worked out?
Power drawn while running x hours run per day. At 5W for 3 h a day that is 0.01 kWh a day, which at $0.1816/kWh costs $0.00 a day.
How can I cut the cost of running a phone charger?
Don't bother unplugging mid-charge or buying a "smart" charger to save power — the difference is a fraction of a cent, not worth the hassle. As a worked example: running it 2.4 h a day instead of 3 h takes it from $0.99 to $0.80 a year, about $0.20 less.
Does leaving my phone charger plugged in (with nothing attached) cost anything?
A little — an idle charger still draws a trickle of standby power, typically 0.1 to 0.5 watts, around the clock. It's a tiny amount per charger, but with several chargers left plugged in across a house year-round, that standby draw can add up to more than the actual charging ever does.
Does a fast charger cost more to run than a regular one?
Barely. A fast charger draws more watts, but only for the short window it takes to top up the battery, so the total energy (and cost) per full charge ends up close to the same as a slower charger left plugged in longer.