A freezer draws about 160 watts, or 0.16 kWh per hour. Enter your hours and electricity rate below for the exact cost per day, month and year.
Wattage is pre-filled with a typical value for a freezer; change any field for your own device, usage and rate. Cost uses your rate × kWh — a US-average placeholder rate of $0.17/kWh is shown; enter your own from your bill for an accurate figure.
A freezer draws about 160 watts while running. Energy is billed in kilowatt-hours (kWh), and one kWh is 1000 watts for one hour — so a freezer uses 160 ÷ 1000 = 0.16 kWh for every hour it is on. Multiply that by the hours you use it and by your rate per kWh to get the cost. The calculator above does it live; change the wattage if your model differs. Kept up every day of the year at 8 hours a day, that is about 467 kWh — roughly $79.42 at the $0.17/kWh placeholder rate used here.
Wattage moves with size, age and model, so treat 160 W as a mid-range starting point rather than a fixed number — the rating plate on your own appliance, or its ENERGY STAR listing, gives the figure to type in. The rate matters just as much: the US Energy Information Administration publishes current average residential prices by state, and the figure on your own bill is better still. This LK Forge calculator recomputes every result as you type.
Almost every full-size freezer on ENERGY STAR's certified list is an upright with automatic defrost: 493 of 506 models, with a median rating of 438 kWh a year at a median 15.5 cu ft. The handful of manual-defrost models, chests and small uprights, are rated at roughly 220–250 kWh. Auto-defrost warms the coils on a timer to melt frost, and the compressor then has to pump that heat back out; a manual-defrost freezer skips that, at the cost of defrosting it yourself when ice builds up.
The default of 160 W for 8 compressor hours a day works out to about 467 kWh a year. That sits between the ENERGY STAR median (438 kWh) and the federal maximum for the same models (median 494 kWh), which is where a typical uncertified upright lands. Your own freezer's EnergyGuide label gives its rated kWh a year; divide by 365 for kWh a day.
A freezer's bill comes down to how hard the compressor works. Set it to 0°F (−18°C), the temperature the FDA recommends for frozen food; colder than that costs more without keeping food any safer. A well-stocked freezer holds its cold when the door opens, so fill empty space with bags of ice or frozen bottles of water. On a manual-defrost model, defrost it once frost starts to build up, because ice on the walls insulates the coils and makes the compressor run longer. If you're buying, the manual-defrost chests on ENERGY STAR's list are rated at about half what a typical auto-defrost upright uses, though they also tend to be smaller. For a whole-home estimate, use the full electricity bill & appliance calculator.