Want to see your wi-fi network router power consumption? Enter your wattage, how many hours a day you run it and what you pay per kWh as your electricity rate, then hit Calculate to get the monthly cost and kWh used on your bill. Those same results also cover wi-fi network router electricity consumption.
Your wi-fi router never takes a day off, so the question of how much power it draws is really a question about a full year of running time. This guide breaks down wi-fi network router electricity consumption in watts, kilowatt-hours and dollars, so you can see what a wireless router adds to your electric bill and whether any 24/7 energy use is worth trimming.
Most home gear sits between 3 and 25 watts, and a typical modern wifi router lands near 7.5 watts. Because a wireless router is a solid state device with no moving parts, its power draw stays low and steady, and it rarely changes much between idle and busy moments. That is why a router is a small line item on your energy bill compared with an air conditioner or a dryer.
A few things move the number up or down:
The power rating printed on the label or in the spec sheet is a maximum, so real energy usage tends to run a little below it.
Published ranges for a home wifi router are wide, from 2 to 20 watts in some sources and 5 to 20 watts in others, with 6 watts often quoted for a basic unit and 10 watts for a premium model. Those figures describe wi-fi routers energy consumption well enough, but your own unit may sit anywhere inside the span. Compared with other gadgets, the router is a lightweight: a laptop charger commonly draws 45 to 65 watts while charging, a refrigerator is another appliance that cycles all day, and even a smartphone and its phone chargers add up when several plug in at once. Smart devices such as plugs and hubs each sip a watt or less, but together they depend on the same internet access and the same steady wifi router signal.
The energy consumption of a wi-fi router also stays far below that of any heating or cooling appliance, so electricity rates matter more than the device itself. A router costing one cent per day in a cheap-power region still costs only a few cents in an expensive one. Utilities usually quote the price in cents per kilowatt-hour, which you can convert to dollars by dividing by 100. Households that already generate solar electricity can offset this load almost entirely, because a router needs so little that even a modest solar array covers it, and that is why solar owners rarely bother to track it. Whatever your energy bills look like, the router is almost never the reason they are high.
Since a home router runs around the clock, one year means 8,760 hours of operation. Multiply the wattage by that number, divide by 1,000, and you have the yearly kilowatt-hours. The table below uses a flat example electricity rate of $0.172 per kWh so you can compare router sizes directly.
| Router wattage | Hours per year | Yearly kWh | Cost per year |
|---|---|---|---|
| 3 W | 8,760 hours | 26.28 kWh | $4.52 |
| 7.5 W | 8,760 hours | 65.70 kWh | $11.30 |
| 12 W | 8,760 hours | 105.12 kWh | $18.08 |
| 18 W | 8,760 hours | 157.68 kWh | $27.12 |
| 25 W | 8,760 hours | 219.00 kWh | $37.67 |
Even the thirstiest row costs less per year than a few takeout coffees, which is the first thing to keep in mind before you start unplugging things.
The label on a router's power adapter lists volts and amps, and wattage is simply the two multiplied together. A 12 V adapter rated at 0.625 A therefore delivers 7.5 W. The words are easier to keep straight by picturing water flowing through a pipe: voltage is the pressure, current is the amount flowing, and power is the overall rate of flow. A kilowatt is 1,000 watts, and a kilowatt-hour is that rate sustained for one hour.
Your utility never lists the router on its own, because the bill shows a single total in kWh multiplied by the price per kWh. That is why estimating a single device means working backwards from its wattage: a 7.5 W router adds about 5.5 kWh to a monthly bill. In a 120-volt outlet household in the US, the utility publishes average prices through the EIA, while customers in the UK see a unit rate in pence on their statement.
At 7.5 W, a router uses 0.18 kWh per day, 5.475 kWh per month and 65.7 kWh per year. Your cost per month and cost per year then depend entirely on your local rate. The table shows the same router at five sample prices; real state average values differ from place to place, so substitute the price from your own bill.
| Average electricity rate | Monthly cost | Annual cost |
|---|---|---|
| $0.11 per kWh | $0.60 | $7.23 |
| $0.14 per kWh | $0.77 | $9.20 |
| $0.172 per kWh | $0.94 | $11.30 |
| $0.23 per kWh | $1.26 | $15.11 |
| $0.31 per kWh | $1.70 | $20.37 |
If you are on a time-of-use plan, remember that a router draws power evenly all day, so you cannot shift its load to off-peak hours. The only lever is the total, not the timing.
You can estimate the electricity usage of any router with one short formula. Start from the rated wattage, multiply by the hours it runs each day, then divide by 1,000 to convert to kilowatt-hours:
$$\text{Daily kWh} = \frac{\text{Watts} \times \text{Hours per day}}{1000}$$
To turn that into money, multiply by the price per kWh and by the number of days:
$$\text{Yearly cost} = \text{Daily kWh} \times 365 \times \text{Rate}$$
For the 7.5 W example, \(7.5 \times 24 \div 1000 = 0.18\) kWh a day, and \(0.18 \times 365 \times 0.172 = 11.30\) dollars a year. If you want a plug-in answer without doing the arithmetic, an online calculator asks for the same three inputs: hours used per day, watts, and price per kWh.
Check the printed power rating on the adapter or the spec sheet first, because that wattage is the number the formula above multiplies into kilowatt-hours. If you want a measured value, a plug-in energy meter will show the real draw over a week, including the busy evening hours. Add the cable modem beside it to the total.
The urge to cut wi-fi router electricity use and just switch it off is understandable, yet the arithmetic is modest. Powering a 7.5 W router down for 8 hours every night saves 21.9 kWh a year, or about $3.77 at $0.172 per kWh. Against that saving, a broadband router that is turned off can cost you more in convenience than it returns in money. Next, look at window air conditioner (5,000 btu) power consumption.
If you still want to reduce power consumption without nightly shutdowns, small changes add up: Also see how much energy does a food dehydrator use.
The router is rarely the biggest culprit. Phantom power from televisions in standby, idle game consoles, chargers left plugged in, and laptops in sleep mode adds up across a house. These always-on energy vampires contribute standby power that can exceed what the router uses, so unplugging them is usually the better target for your effort. The router's own consumption is tiny by comparison, and its environmental impact is correspondingly small.
Because the load is so light, backup power is easy. A single 200-watt panel producing roughly 800 watt-hours on a sunny day covers the router's 180 watt-hours with plenty to spare. For outages, a portable power station rated at 1,000 Wh would keep a 7.5 W router running for about 4.7 days, assuming 85 percent conversion efficiency. A small battery also works if your router runs from a 12 V supply. These solar panels and batteries will not meaningfully change your bill, but they keep you online when the grid is down. Related: how much electricity does a window air conditioner (10,000 btu) use.
A router costs roughly the price of a sandwich per year. For most households, leaving it on 24/7 is the right choice, and the best use of your time is checking its wattage, running the formula once, and then turning your attention to the heavier appliances in your home. Keep the numbers from this page as a baseline and revisit them if you add a mesh system or upgrade your plan.