What Does It Cost to Run an Air Fryer? (2026 Math + Calculator)

The direct answer

A typical air fryer draws 1,400–1,800 watts. A 20-minute cook uses about half a kilowatt-hour, which costs roughly 8–9 centsat the U.S. average electricity rate. Even used most days, that's only a few dollars a month. The real saving isn't versus other small appliances — it's versus heating a full-size oven for a small job.

Every air fryer is marketed on the same promise — uses less energy than your oven — and yet the big ranking guides never tell you the actual number. That's the gap Preheat Club was built to fill. The math isn't hard, and once you see it you'll be able to work out the running cost of anything in your kitchen.

The formula (it's just three numbers)

Electricity is billed per kilowatt-hour (kWh) — one kilowatt of power used for one hour. To get the cost of a single cook, you need three numbers:

Power— your air fryer's wattage, printed on the label or in the manual (divide by 1,000 to get kilowatts).
Time — how long it runs, in hours (20 minutes = 0.33 hours).
Rate — what your utility charges per kWh (the U.S. average is about $0.17; your bill shows yours).

Multiply them: cost = kilowatts × hours × rate. For a 1,500-watt air fryer running 20 minutes at the average rate: 1.5 × 0.33 × $0.17 ≈ $0.085, about eight and a half cents. That's it. No magic, no marketing.

Do the math yourself

Air fryer running-cost calculator

Put in the wattage from your air fryer's label, how long you cook, and your electricity rate. The formula is just kilowatts × hours × your rate — no magic.

Wattage (W)

Minutes per cook

$ / kWh

Cooks per week

Per cook: 9¢; 0.50 kWh used
Per week: $0.34; 4 cooks
Per year: $17.68; 52 weeks

Formula: (W ÷ 1000) × (minutes ÷ 60) × rate. Default rate is the U.S. EIA average residential price; your utility bill shows your real one. This is energy only — it does not include the food.

Typical costs, worked out

Here's what a few realistic scenarios come to at the U.S. average rate. Wattages are typical for the class; your machine's label is the source of truth, and the calculator above lets you use it.

Scenario	Power × time	Cost
Quick reheat	1,500 W × 8 min	~3¢
Batch of fries	1,500 W × 20 min	~9¢
Bigger 1,750 W model	1,750 W × 20 min	~10¢
Used 4× a week, a year	1,500 W × 20 min × 208	~$18/yr

Why it beats the oven (and why that's the real saving)

A full-size electric oven draws 2,000–3,000 watts and, crucially, has to heat a large cavity — ten minutes of preheating before you even start, then a longer cook. Running one for a 30-minute job can cost 35–45 cents, several times the air fryer's figure for the same food, because you're paying to heat all that empty space. That's the honest source of the “air fryers save energy” claim: not that they're magically efficient, but that they don't waste energy heating an oven you didn't need. We break the full comparison down in air fryer vs convection oven.

How to lower it further

Skip unnecessary preheatingfor foods that don't need it — many don't.
Cook full basketsso you're not running the machine twice for one meal.
Use the air fryer instead of the ovenfor anything that fits — that's where the meaningful savings are.
Know your rate.If you're on a time-of-use plan, cooking off-peak costs less; the calculator lets you plug in the off-peak rate.

How we picked

We did not lab-test this gear

Everyone in this category says they tested twenty air fryers. We have not lab-tested any of these, and we say so. What we did instead: compiled the published specifications — wattage, capacity, materials — worked out what each machine actually costs to run at the national electricity rate, read the manuals and owner reviews, and scored each one against a published rubric. The scores are judgments from documented research — not measurements we took, because we do not have a lab and we will not pretend we do. Where a number came from someone else's work, we name them in Sources.

Questions

Frequently asked

Do air fryers use a lot of electricity?

No. A typical air fryer draws 1,400–1,800 watts, but only for 10–20 minutes at a time. A 20-minute cook uses about half a kilowatt-hour — roughly 8–9 cents at the U.S. average rate. Used a few times a week, it adds only a couple of dollars to a monthly bill.

How much does it cost to run an air fryer for an hour?

For a 1,500-watt model at the U.S. average rate of about $0.17/kWh: 1.5 kW × 1 hour × $0.17 ≈ 26 cents. Most cooks are far shorter than an hour, so real per-meal costs are usually under 10 cents.

Is an air fryer cheaper to run than an oven?

Almost always, for small-to-medium portions — often by 4–5×, because an oven wastes energy heating a large cavity. See the full breakdown in air fryer vs convection oven.

How do I work out my own air fryer's running cost?

Take the wattage from the label, divide by 1,000 for kilowatts, multiply by the cook time in hours, then multiply by your electricity rate per kWh. Or just put those numbers into the calculator on this page.

Keep reading

Receipts

Sources

We do not run a testing lab, and we do not pretend to. Where a measured number came from someone else's work, we name them and link them. Where we could not verify something, we say so on the page rather than quietly leaving it out. Read our full method.