The running-cost meter
Every appliance has a hidden bill. We put one number on it.
The sticker price is not the price. WattWise Labs turns real federal energy data into a single honest figure: what a model actually costs you per year to keep running. Free to read, funded by ads, never paid placement.
Example reading20.8 cu ft refrigerator
Rank #737 of 1,000$90/yr
Estimated running cost
487 kWh
Annual energy
10% less
vs standard
$100
Standard runs
Models indexed4429
Categories tracked8
Cheapest to run$3/yr
Priciest to run$521/yr
Refrigerator median$64/yr
Avg US rate$0.19/kWh
01Calculator
Pick an appliance. Watch the meter run.
Set the category and your local electricity rate. The yearly figure updates live off real annual kWh.
$90
Example reading
Your setup
Inputs
Defaults use the US average rate of $0.19 per kWh.
15 kWh2850 kWh
$0.08 cheap$0.45 costly
The reading
$90/yr
Per year to keep it running
$ / year · measured against class benchmarks
487 kWhx$0.19x12 mo=$90/yr
Estimate from published annual kWh. Real bills vary with usage, climate and utility fees.
· S/03 · X:03.00 · LEADERBOARD ·
03
Cheapest refrigerators to run.
Ranked by estimated dollars per year. Lower is better, because this is a cost.
Full leaderboard of 1000| # | Model | $ / year | Standing, % of class best |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Fisher & Paykel RS2435V2* 4.3 cu ft |
$8 | |
| 2 | Kalamazoo Outdoor Gourmet UKS15W*1-5-**** 2.8 cu ft |
$18 | |
| 3 | Perlick URD24W*1-5-**** 3.1 cu ft |
$18 | |
| 4 | Liebherr UW3720 3.6 cu ft |
$19 | |
| 5 | Liebherr HWgb 1803 1.6 cu ft |
$19 |
· S/02 · X:02.00 · CATEGORIES ·
Eight categories, one honest number each.
See every rankingRefrigerators
1Fisher & Paykel RS2435V2*$8
2Kalamazoo Outdoor Gourmet UKS15W*1-5-****$18
3Perlick URD24W*1-5-****$18
Washing machines
Cheapest: Hisense WF5S2845BB
Dishwashers
Cheapest: Loch L1126
Televisions
Cheapest: Clear Tunes ATSC-PM81331
Clothes dryers
Cheapest: Bosch WQB245AXUC
Freezers
Cheapest: Avanti CF24Q0W
Dehumidifiers
Cheapest: Ukoke UDH0125
Room air conditioners
Cheapest: Tcl T05WV9M
04Single model
What a single score looks like.
One model, normalized against its whole class so the number means something.
$90
Rank #737 of 1,000
Normalized against class0 · 50 · 100%
Annual energy487 kWh
Energy vs US standard10% less
Size-adjusted efficiency80th percentile
-$10
Cheaper to run every year than a standard 21 cu ft model at $100/yr. That is $100 saved over a 10 year life.
Example model
$90
Per year
Ge GNE21DYR****Rank #737 of 1,000 in class
· S/05 · X:05.00 · GUIDES ·
Read the numbers, not the marketing.
All 16 guidesExplainerWhat Is a Kilowatt-Hour, and What Does One Cost?A kilowatt-hour is the unit your utility bills you in, it costs about 18.6 cents on average in the US, and here is exactly how your appliances turn it into a monthly charge.ExplainerHow to Read the Yellow EnergyGuide LabelA plain-English decode of every number on the FTC EnergyGuide label, how the estimated yearly cost is calculated, and why it rarely matches what you will actually pay.RoundupThe Most Efficient Appliances to Run in 2026: The Cheapest Model in Every CategoryA data-driven roundup of the single cheapest-to-run appliance in all eight major categories, with real annual costs from ENERGY STAR data and the US average electricity rate.ExplainerHow to Cut Your Appliance Energy CostsA practical, no-gimmick guide to lowering what your appliances cost to run, using real ENERGY STAR running-cost data and the US average rate of $0.1856 per kWh.
Running cost =
annual kWh × $/kWh
annual kWh × $/kWh
487 kWh × $0.1856
$90per year to run,
rounded to the dollar
rounded to the dollar
How the score works
Built on federal data. Beholden to nobody.
ENERGY STAR certified data
Annual kWh figures come from the public-domain federal ENERGY STAR Product Finder dataset.
One rate, applied to everyone
We use the US average of $0.1856/kWh, sourced from the EIA, so models compare cleanly. Swap in your rate in the calculator anytime.
No paid placement, ever
Rankings are sorted by cost, not by who pays us. The site is free to read and funded by ads only.
An honest note on the word "Labs". We are a data-analysis lab, not a testing bench. We do not physically plug in and measure appliances. Every number here is computed from published federal energy data, and we tell you exactly how on how we score.