Electricity Cost Calculator

Electricity is the one utility sold in a unit almost nobody can picture, which is how a space heater quietly becomes an $800-a-year appliance. This page does the two calculations that make a bill make sense: what a given device costs to run, priced at your own state's measured average rate rather than a national guess, and what you actually paid per kilowatt-hour once every fee is counted. The state table is the Energy Information Administration's own, all 50 states plus DC, with what each one did over the past year.

What a device costs to run Read my bill: what did I pay per kWh?

Your state (optional; fills the rate with the measured average, and benchmarks your bill)

Common appliances (optional; fills typical watts and hours you can edit)

Power (watts)

Hours on per day

Electricity rate (cents per kWh) (blank uses your state's average, or the US average of 18.34)

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Data reviewed: September 2026. Figures here come from published sources and change over time. How we verify

What a kilowatt-hour actually is

A kilowatt-hour is 1,000 watts running for one hour. That is the unit your meter counts and your bill prices, and it makes the arithmetic almost embarrassingly simple: a 1,000-watt microwave running flat out for a full hour uses exactly 1 kWh, which at the current US residential average of 18.34 cents costs less than a quarter. Everything on this page is that multiplication with the decimal points minded.

The formulas

kWh per day = watts ÷ 1,000 × hours on per day

Cost = kWh × rate Effective rate = total paid ÷ kWh used

The rate that matters is the all-in one: what actually left your account divided by the kWh you actually used. The state table below is all-in by construction (EIA divides each state's total residential revenue by its total residential sales), which is what makes the bill-reading mode's comparison fair.

Worked examples, one of each kind

A device: a 1,500-watt space heater running 8 hours a day uses 12 kWh a day. At the national average that is $2.20 a day, $66.99 a month, $803.84 a year. One appliance, quietly out-eating a streaming subscription tenfold.

A bill: 1,100 kWh for $198 works out to 18.00 cents per kWh all in. In Texas, where the measured average is 15.94, that is about 12.9% above average, and the gap is usually plan structure and fixed charges rather than anything sinister.

What electricity costs in every state

Average retail residential price, cents per kWh, from the US Energy Information Administration's Electric Power Monthly (Table 5.6.A), June 2026 beside June 2025. These are measured all-in averages, not advertised plan rates.

State	June 2026	June 2025	Change
Alabama	16.40	16.06	+2.1%
Alaska	28.21	26.87	+5%
Arizona	15.18	15.23	-0.3%
Arkansas	14.12	13.37	+5.6%
California	34.74	33.59	+3.4%
Colorado	17.13	16.04	+6.8%
Connecticut	24.32	27.19	-10.6%
Delaware	19.29	18.16	+6.2%
District of Columbia	24.39	22.70	+7.4%
Florida	15.10	15.35	-1.6%
Georgia	16.36	15.96	+2.5%
Hawaii	52.72	40.96	+28.7%
Idaho	14.37	12.07	+19.1%
Illinois	19.89	18.29	+8.7%
Indiana	17.51	16.48	+6.3%
Iowa	15.93	15.33	+3.9%
Kansas	15.71	15.04	+4.5%
Kentucky	14.26	13.40	+6.4%
Louisiana	13.49	12.74	+5.9%
Maine	29.59	28.14	+5.2%
Maryland	21.84	19.29	+13.2%
Massachusetts	29.61	30.33	-2.4%
Michigan	22.99	20.82	+10.4%
Minnesota	17.52	17.12	+2.3%
Mississippi	14.88	14.07	+5.8%
Missouri	16.22	15.91	+1.9%
Montana	15.14	14.81	+2.2%
Nebraska	13.25	13.14	+0.8%
Nevada	13.11	12.26	+6.9%
New Hampshire	27.01	23.51	+14.9%
New Jersey	24.95	24.88	+0.3%
New Mexico	15.06	14.68	+2.6%
New York	29.49	26.55	+11.1%
North Carolina	14.74	13.38	+10.2%
North Dakota	14.12	13.71	+3%
Ohio	19.19	17.50	+9.7%
Oklahoma	14.33	13.63	+5.1%
Oregon	16.32	15.80	+3.3%
Pennsylvania	21.73	19.69	+10.4%
Rhode Island	29.23	26.84	+8.9%
South Carolina	15.55	14.79	+5.1%
South Dakota	15.36	14.22	+8%
Tennessee	14.07	13.82	+1.8%
Texas	15.94	15.26	+4.5%
Utah	13.37	13.10	+2.1%
Vermont	24.44	23.00	+6.3%
Virginia	17.22	15.23	+13.1%
Washington	14.91	12.96	+15%
West Virginia	15.45	15.82	-2.3%
Wisconsin	19.56	18.52	+5.6%
Wyoming	15.24	14.89	+2.4%
US average	18.34	17.47	+5%

Three things the table says out loud

Where you live is the biggest dial on the page. Hawaii's 52.72 cents against Nevada's 13.11 is a 4.02x spread, so the identical 1,500-watt heater on the identical schedule costs $47.88 a month in Nevada and $192.56 in Hawaii. Nothing about the appliance changed; only the meter did. (Hawaii generates most of its power from imported petroleum, which is also why its price jumped 28.7% in a single year.)

Electricity is outrunning ordinary inflation. The national average rose 5.0% in the year to June 2026, against a long-run all-items inflation average of about 3.2% a year, with data-center demand now a routine part of utilities' own explanations. Our AI energy calculator is the other half of that story.

Falling prices are rare enough to name. Connecticut is the table's one double-digit decline, down 10.6% on the year; only four other states fell at all. If your rate went up, that is the national experience, not your utility singling you out.

The nameplate trap

The label on the back of an appliance states its draw while running, and some things rarely run. A refrigerator's compressor pulls roughly 150 watts but cycles on perhaps a third of the day, call it 8 hours, which is about 438 kWh and $80.38 a year at the national average. Multiply the nameplate by 24 hours instead and you would triple it. The same correction applies to anything with a thermostat or a duty cycle: water heaters, well pumps, sump pumps, the heater in a waterbed. Our presets bake typical duty into the hours field and say so, and every figure stays editable because your kitchen is not an average.

Why your bill never matches the advertised rate

A plan advertising 11 cents per kWh describes the supply charge only. Delivery, transmission, riders and a fixed monthly customer charge stack on top, which is why dividing your actual bill by your actual kWh, the bill-reading mode above, lands well above the ad. EIA's state averages already include all of that, so compare your effective rate to the table, not to a billboard. Time-of-use plans add one more wrinkle: this page prices at a flat average, and if your utility charges more at 6 pm than 2 am, when you run things moves the answer.

The quiet loads

A load too small to notice is not too small to bill. Ten watts of standby, one router, one idle console, one glowing cable box, is 87.7 kWh a year, about $16 at the national average, and a typical house carries dozens of them. The always-on arithmetic is also the honest frame for bigger decisions: your state's rate in this table is the number that decides whether solar pays back and what charging an EV at home really costs, which is why both of those pages and this one deliberately draw from the same well.

Frequently asked questions

How do I calculate the cost of running an appliance?

Watts divided by 1,000, times hours on per day, gives kWh per day; multiply by your rate in cents. A 1,500-watt space heater running 8 hours a day uses 12 kWh, which at the US average of 18.34 cents per kWh is $2.20 a day, about $67 a month. The calculator prices it at your own state's measured average if you pick one.

What does electricity cost per kWh in the US?

The average residential price was 18.34 cents per kWh in June 2026, per the US Energy Information Administration, up 5.0 percent from a year earlier. The state spread is enormous: Nevada averaged 13.11 cents while Hawaii averaged 52.72, so the national figure is only a starting point. The full state table is on this page.

Which states have the cheapest and most expensive electricity?

In June 2026, Nevada was cheapest at 13.11 cents per kWh, with Nebraska, Utah and Louisiana close behind; Hawaii was most expensive at 52.72, followed by Massachusetts, Maine, New York and Rhode Island. Hawaii to Nevada is a 4.02x spread, meaning the same appliance on the same schedule costs four times as much to run.

Why doesn't my bill match my plan's advertised rate?

The advertised number is usually the supply charge only. Delivery, transmission, riders and a fixed monthly customer charge stack on top, so your real cost per kWh, total bill divided by kWh used, lands higher. The bill-reading mode here computes that all-in effective rate and compares it to your state's EIA average, which is also all-in, so the comparison is fair.

How much does a space heater cost to run?

A typical 1,500-watt space heater costs about 27.5 cents per hour at the US average rate. Run 8 hours a day that is $2.20 a day and roughly $67 a month, but the answer swings hard by state: about $48 a month in Nevada and about $193 in Hawaii for the identical heater.

Why does my refrigerator cost less than its wattage suggests?

Because the nameplate states the draw while the compressor is running, and the compressor cycles on only part of the day. Around 150 watts running perhaps 8 hours a day is about 438 kWh and $80 a year at the national average. Multiplying the nameplate by 24 hours would triple that. The same duty-cycle correction applies to water heaters, pumps and anything with a thermostat.

Are electricity prices going up?

Yes, and faster than most prices. The national residential average rose 5.0 percent in the year to June 2026, well ahead of the long-run all-items inflation average of about 3.2 percent. Only five states saw prices fall at all, Connecticut most sharply. Utilities themselves increasingly cite data-center demand as part of the pressure.

Where does the state rate data come from?

The US Energy Information Administration's Electric Power Monthly, Table 5.6.A: average retail price to residential customers, by state, for June 2026 and June 2025. We parse the figures from EIA's own published spreadsheet rather than retyping them, and our test suite bounds every cell and holds every state's year-over-year move inside a sanity band before the page can ship.