Washing machines running costs

Reading the washing-machine ranking

A washing machine's own electricity use, the figure ranked above, covers its motor, controls, and any internal water heating it does for hot or sanitize cycles. It does not include the cost of heating water from your home's water heater for a warm or hot wash on a machine without its own heater, which for many households is the larger hidden cost of doing laundry. Keep that distinction in mind: two machines with an identical annual kWh figure here can still produce very different real bills depending on what temperature you actually wash at.

The raw cheapest-to-run list rewards smaller drum volume, since a bigger drum generally draws more water and energy per cycle. The efficiency ranking instead sorts by Integrated Modified Energy Factor (IMEF), the class's own normalized efficiency figure, so a large-capacity washer that is still efficient for its size is not unfairly buried under every compact model on the list.

Across the 388 certified washing machines we track, running cost ranges from $7 to $58 a year with a median of $20/yr; most of the 388 models we track cluster toward the cheap end of that range, with a smaller group of pricier models stretching the top up to $58/yr.

What to weigh when comparing models

Match drum volume to your household size before anything else, a washer sized for one or two people rarely needs the capacity built for a family of five, and running it half-empty wastes water and energy either way. Beyond that, compare IMEF figures at a similar drum size rather than raw dollars alone, and remember that washing in cold water more often will move your real bill more than almost any spec on this page.

How we score this class

Every figure here follows the same formula: each model's published annual kWh from ENERGY STAR, multiplied by the US average residential rate of $0.1856/kWh. Full methodology on how we score, or plug your own rate into the calculator.