Homelab Power & Electricity Cost Calculator
Add up your gear and see exactly what your homelab costs to run — per month and per year. Everything runs in your browser; nothing is saved or sent anywhere.
| Device | Qty | Watts each | Watts |
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Paying too much? The fix is efficient hardware.
A modern mini PC idles at 6–15W versus 80–150W for an old tower — often the single biggest saving. See our best mini PC and budget server guides, or get the full plan in the Homelab Starter Blueprint.
Get the Blueprint — $19 →How to calculate home server power cost
The formula is simple: annual cost = watts ÷ 1000 × 24 × 365 × your rate ($/kWh). Because a homelab runs 24/7, idle wattage — not peak — decides your bill. A lean 30W lab at $0.16/kWh runs about $42/year; a 150W old server is over $200/year.
Typical homelab device wattages
The calculator pre-loads realistic idle figures: an N100 mini PC ~10W, a Ryzen mini PC ~25W, a 4-bay NAS ~45W (plus ~6W per spinning drive), a small switch ~8W, a PoE switch ~15W, a Raspberry Pi ~5W, and an old tower server ~120W. Tweak any of them — measure your own with a cheap plug-in power meter for the exact number.
Cut your homelab power bill
- Swap an old tower/server for an efficient mini PC — the biggest win by far.
- Consolidate services with virtualization (see our Proxmox guide) instead of several always-on boxes.
- Spin down idle drives and right-size your UPS.