Clothes dryer running cost

Estimate what each load costs to dry, and what your drying costs each week, month and year, from the energy your dryer uses per cycle.

Calculator

Appliance type

Used as the name in your comparison. It does not fill in any values.

Energy per cycle (kWh)

From the label, manual or a plug-in energy monitor, for the program you use.

Cycles per week

Loads or runs per week. Decimals are fine, for example 3.5.

Electricity price per kWh

From your bill or supplier. Use the price per kWh, for example 0.15.

Currency

Changes the currency symbol only. No exchange rates are applied.

How to find your price on your bill

Where your bill shows them, add up the charges billed per kWh, such as supply (or generation) and delivery. These are the charges that grow when an appliance runs.
Leave out fixed monthly charges, such as a customer or service charge. They generally stay the same however much electricity you use.
If the price is in cents, divide by 100: 15.5¢ per kWh is 0.155.
Only a total amount and total kWh? Dividing the amount by the kWh gives a rough all-in average. Because it includes fixed fees and taxes, it may overestimate the extra cost of running an appliance.
If your price changes by time of day or with how much you use, enter the price that applies to most of your use.

For comparison, the U.S. Energy Information Administration publishes average electricity prices by state. Your own bill gives a closer estimate.

Fill in the fields above to see your estimate.

Estimated results

Fill in the fields to see the estimated energy use and cost.

How the estimate works

Cost per load = kWh per cycle × your price per kWh. Weekly energy is the kWh per cycle × your loads per week. A year is the weekly figure × 365 ÷ 7, and an average month is a year ÷ 12, the same conventions used everywhere on this site.

Example (illustrative only)

A dryer using 3 kWh per load, at $0.20 per kWh, costs 3 × $0.20 = $0.60 per load. Four loads a week use 12 kWh and cost $2.40 a week. Over a year that is 12 × 365 ÷ 7 = 625.71 kWh, or $125.14, and an average month is 52.14 kWh, or $10.43. The 3 kWh and $0.20 are example figures, not a typical dryer or a current U.S. average rate, so enter your own.

Finding the kWh per cycle

Check the manual or the manufacturer's specifications for the energy used per cycle.
If a figure is given per year along with the number of loads it assumes, divide the yearly kWh by that number of loads.
Otherwise, estimate it: rated watts × cycle time in hours ÷ 1,000. This is only an estimate. The heater switches on and off during a cycle, so it can overstate the real figure, and actual use varies with load size, how wet the clothes are and the settings you choose.

The U.S. Energy Information Administration explains how electricity is measured: a watthour is one watt used for one hour and a kilowatt is 1,000 watts, which is why watts × hours ÷ 1,000 gives kWh.

Gas dryers

A gas dryer burns gas for heat and uses electricity for the drum motor, fan and controls. This calculator estimates electricity cost only. It does not include the cost of the gas, so enter only the electricity a gas dryer uses per cycle.

Conventional and heat pump dryers

A conventional dryer heats air with an electric element or a gas burner and vents the warm, moist air outside. A heat pump dryer heats the air with a heat pump and recirculates it, removing the moisture by condensing it, and generally uses less electricity per load.

ENERGY STAR's key product criteria for clothes dryers rate efficiency by Combined Energy Factor (CEF): the weight of a standard test load in pounds divided by the energy used, including standby, in kWh. A higher CEF means a more efficient dryer, and the criteria set separate minimum CEF levels for gas and electric types. CEF comes from a fixed test, so it cannot be turned directly into kWh per load for your laundry. Use it to compare models, and use your kWh per cycle for this estimate. See ENERGY STAR's clothes dryers page for certified models.

Washing too? Estimate each wash with the washing machine electricity cost calculator. The methodology explains every formula and rounding rule.