How Much Does It Cost to Run a Clothes Iron?
About $0.52 a month — $6.24 a year — for a 1,500-watt steam iron used 1 hour a week at the 2024 average rate of $0.16/kWh. An hour of ironing costs 12.0¢ and a shirt costs 0.8¢. The nameplate says 1,500 W, but a thermostat switches the element off and on to hold the soleplate at temperature — so what your meter sees is nearer 750 W. Set your own wattage, hours and duty cycle below.
The nameplate rating, printed on the soleplate or the box.
Time the iron is switched on, not time it is heating.
Typical nameplate ratings
Clothes iron cost per month
$0.52
3.25 kWh at $0.16/kWh — $6.24 a year.
Per hour of ironing
12.0¢
0.75 kWh — 750 W averaged
Per garment
0.8¢
4 min — 0.050 kWh
Garments to spend $1
125
about 8 hours at the board
1,500 W × 50% duty = 750 W average × 1 hour a week = 3.25kWh a month × $0.16 = $0.52. One load in an electric dryer costs 3.0 hours of ironing.
Duty cycle — how much of the session the element is actually on
A thermostat holds the soleplate at temperature by switching the element off and on, so a 1,500 W iron averages 750 W across a session. Steam, a hotter setting and a cold room all push this up; so does a short session, because heat-up runs at the full 1,500 W.
Household irons are rated 1,000 W to 1,800 W, the top of the band set by what a 120 V, 15 A outlet can supply. Duty cycle is not published by manufacturers and is not covered by any standard — 50% is an assumption, and a plug-in meter will tell you yours. Minutes per garment is your own figure. Not sure of your rate? Check average rates by state.
How many watts does a clothes iron use?
Monthly cost = watts × duty cycle ÷ 1,000 × hours a month × price per kWh
Household irons are rated 1,000 W to 1,800 W. The top of that band is set by the wall, not by the engineering: a 120 V, 15 A branch circuit supplies 1,800 W, and nothing you plug into a US socket goes far past it. The rating is what the heating element draws while it is on — and it is not on for most of your session.
Worked example (1,500 W, 50% duty, 1 hour a week, $0.16/kWh): 1,500 W × 50% = 750 W average × 1 hour a week = 3.25 kWh a month × $0.16 = $0.52 per month.
The thermostat is why the nameplate overstates the bill
An iron is a resistive heater with a thermostat, and it has exactly two states: element on at the full nameplate, or element off at nothing. Holding a soleplate at temperature means alternating between them. The fraction of the session spent in the first state is the duty cycle, and it is the number that decides your bill.
| Duty cycle | When you are in it | Average draw1,500 W iron | Per hour | Per month1 hour a week |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 30% | Dry pressing, low setting, long session | 450 W | 7.2¢ | $0.31 |
| 50% | Assumed default — mixed steam and dry | 750 W | 12.0¢ | $0.52 |
| 70% | Heavy steam, linen setting, or a short session that is mostly heat-up | 1,050 W | 16.8¢ | $0.73 |
| 100% | Upper bound — the element never cycles off | 1,500 W | 24.0¢ | $1.04 |
Duty cycle is not published by manufacturers and no standard requires it, so these are plausible values rather than measurements — 50% is the assumption behind every other figure on this page. Two things push yours up: steam, and a short session, because heat-up runs at the full 1,500 W until the soleplate arrives at temperature. A plug-in meter will tell you the truth in one session.
What each rating costs to run
| Iron | Nameplate | Average drawat 50% duty | Per hour | Per garment4 minutes | Per month1 hour a week |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Travel or compact iron | 1,000 W | 500 W | 8.0¢ | 0.5¢0.033 kWh | $0.35 |
| Basic steam iron | 1,200 W | 600 W | 9.6¢ | 0.6¢0.040 kWh | $0.42 |
| Mid-range steam iron | 1,500 W | 750 W | 12.0¢ | 0.8¢0.050 kWh | $0.52 |
| High-wattage iron or US steam station | 1,800 W | 900 W | 14.4¢ | 1.0¢0.060 kWh | $0.62 |
At the US average rate of $0.16/kWh. A higher-wattage iron is not a more expensive iron in any way that matters: it reaches temperature sooner and recovers faster, then sits at whatever duty cycle the ironing demands. The gap between the cheapest and dearest row here is $0.28 a month.
Monthly cost at average US rates
Rows are the iron. Columns are what a kilowatt-hour costs where you live. Every cell assumes 1 hour of ironing a week with the element on 50% of the time.
| Iron | Idaho$0.10/kWh | US average$0.16/kWh | California$0.28/kWh | Hawaii$0.39/kWh |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1,000 WTravel or compact iron | $0.22 | $0.35 | $0.60 | $0.84 |
| 1,200 WBasic steam iron | $0.26 | $0.42 | $0.72 | $1.01 |
| 1,500 WMid-range steam iron | $0.33 | $0.52 | $0.91 | $1.26 |
| 1,800 WHigh-wattage iron or US steam station | $0.39 | $0.62 | $1.09 | $1.51 |
State rates come from the rates by state page. The worst case in this table — the highest-wattage iron, in the most expensive state in the country — is $1.51 a month.
One shirt
0.8¢
4 min at 750 W
Garments to spend $1
125
about 8 hours at the board
A year of weekly ironing
$6.24
what 17 dryer loads cost
The iron is the cheapest thing that touches your laundry
A shirt goes through three appliances, and the last one is the bargain. One load in a standard vented electric dryer uses 2.25 kWh — $0.36 — which is 3.0 hours of ironing. A year of pressing an hour a week costs $6.24, roughly what 17 dryer loads cost. If you came here to cut a laundry bill, the iron is not where it is. Start with the dryer, then the hot water behind the washing machine.
Iron vs steam generator iron: the energy comparison
Before the two machines can be compared, the steam has to be paid for. Boiling water is the most expensive thing an iron does, and by a wide margin: taking a gram of tap water from 20°C to steam needs 2592 joules, and 87% of that is not heating the water at all — it is the latent heat of turning liquid into vapour once it has already reached 100°C. Steam output is advertised in grams per minute, so that conversion turns a marketing figure into a load on your meter: every g/min of steam is 43.2 watts, continuously.
| Steam output | Power to sustain it | Share of a 1,500 W nameplate | Cost per hoursteam alone |
|---|---|---|---|
| 5 g/min | 216 W | 14% | 3.5¢ |
| 10 g/min | 432 W | 29% | 6.9¢ |
| 20 g/min | 864 W | 58% | 13.8¢ |
| 30 g/min | 1,296 W | 86% | 20.7¢ |
| 40 g/min | 1,728 W | 115% | 27.6¢ |
Exact arithmetic from the specific heat and latent heat of water — no appliance is involved, and nothing here is a measurement of any particular iron. It assumes the element puts essentially all of its energy into the water, which a soleplate boiler nearly does.
Why a plain iron gives you steam in bursts
Read the table against the nameplate. At 20 g/min the steam alone wants 864 W — more than half of a 1,500W iron's entire rating, before any heat goes into the soleplate. At 40 g/min it wants 1,728 W, which is more than the iron has. That is the whole reason a conventional iron has a steam shot button: it can deliver a high steam rate for a few seconds by dumping stored heat, and it cannot deliver it for a shirt. It is also why steam pushes the duty cycle up, and the duty cycle is your bill.
A steam station does not have more watts — it has a boiler
It is tempting to assume a steam generator is the high-wattage option. In the US it cannot be: it plugs into the same 120 V, 15 A outlet, so it is capped at the same 1,800 W as the biggest plain iron. (European models, on 230 V, genuinely are rated higher.) What the station adds is a separate pressurised tank that stores hot water, so it can sustain a steam rate the soleplate could never boil on demand. It pays for that by keeping the boiler hot for the whole session on top of the soleplate — which means a higher duty cycle, and a higher average draw, from the same nameplate.
How much faster the steam generator has to be
So the comparison is not watts against watts. A 1,500 W iron at 50% duty averages 750 W. A 1,800 W station runs a higher duty cycle, so it costs more per hour — and earns it back only by finishing the pile sooner. This table is the bar it has to clear: the share of your ironing time in which it must be done to have used no more electricity than the iron.
| Steam station duty cycle1,800 W nameplate | Average draw | Per hour | Must finish inof the iron's time | So it has to be this much faster |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 50% | 900 W | 14.4¢ | 83% | 17% faster |
| 60% | 1,080 W | 17.3¢ | 69% | 31% faster |
| 70% | 1,260 W | 20.2¢ | 60% | 40% faster |
| 80% | 1,440 W | 23.0¢ | 52% | 48% faster |
| 90% | 1,620 W | 25.9¢ | 46% | 54% faster |
Compared against a 1,500 W iron at 50% duty = 750W average. Neither duty cycle is published by anyone, so both are assumptions — the station's is set higher than the iron's because it holds a boiler as well as a soleplate. The arithmetic sets the bar; only your own ironing says whether a given machine clears it.
And then the difference is $4.24 a year
Suppose the station never saves you a minute — the worst case for it. At 70% duty it averages 1,260 W, so an hour a week for a year costs $10.48against the iron's $6.24. That is $4.24 a year, or $0.35 a month, to run the more powerful machine badly. Run it well — finishing in 60% of the time, the break-even above — and the two cost the same. There is no version of this comparison in which electricity should decide the purchase. Steam generators are bought for creases in linen and for not refilling a tank every ten minutes, and the energy question is a rounding error either way.
Related Guides
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One load costs 3.0 hours of ironing
Cost to Run a Washing Machine
Per-load cost, and the water heating that dominates it
Cost to Run a Hair Dryer
The other big-wattage, short-runtime appliance in the house
Most Efficient Appliances
What actually costs money to run — the iron is nowhere near the top
Compare Appliance Costs
Put the iron next to the water heater
Electricity Rates by State
Find your state's average rate
Frequently Asked Questions
How many watts does a clothes iron use?
Household irons are rated 1,000 W to 1,800 W, with 1,500 W a fair middle for a mid-range steam iron. But the rating is what the heating element draws while it is on, and a thermostat switches it off and back on to hold the soleplate at temperature. Across a real session the element is on perhaps 50% of the time, so a 1,500 W iron averages about 750 W — 12.0¢ an hour at the US average rate of $0.16/kWh. Nothing you plug into a 120 V, 15 A US outlet draws much beyond 1,800 W, which is why the band stops where it does.
How much does it cost to run a clothes iron per month?
About $0.52 a month — $6.24 a year — for a 1,500 W iron used 1 hour a week at $0.16/kWh, with the element on 50% of the time. That is 3.25 kWh. At the lowest state rate it is $0.33; in Hawaii, the priciest state, $1.26. A whole year of weekly ironing costs about what 17 loads in an electric dryer cost.
Does a clothes iron use a lot of electricity?
It has a big wattage and a tiny runtime, and runtime is what bills. An iron draws roughly what a hair dryer does, but it runs for an hour a week rather than hours a day, and its thermostat spends half of that hour with the element switched off. One shirt costs 0.8¢ at 4 minutes a garment; you would iron 125 of them before spending a dollar. The same shirt cost more to wash and far more to dry: one load in an electric dryer uses 2.25 kWh, which is 3.0 hours of ironing.
Is a steam generator iron more expensive to run than a normal iron?
Per hour, yes. A US steam station plugs into the same 120 V outlet, so it is capped at the same 1,800 W — but it holds a pressurised boiler hot as well as the soleplate, so its element is on more of the time. At a 70% duty cycle it averages 1,260 W against the iron's 750 W. Per pile of laundry the answer depends on speed: it uses no more electricity than the iron if it finishes in 60% of the time, meaning it has to be about 40% faster. Either way the sums are small — an hour a week for a year is $6.24 against $10.48, a difference of $4.24 a year. Buy one for the creases, not for the bill.
Does using steam make an iron cost more to run?
Yes, and it is the largest single thing you control. Boiling water is expensive: taking a gram of tap water from 20°C to steam needs 2592 joules, 87% of which is the latent heat of turning liquid into vapour at 100°C. Sustaining one gram of steam a minute therefore costs 43.2 W continuously. At 20 g/min that is 864 W — more than half of a 1,500 W iron's entire nameplate. Steam does not add a little to the bill; on a steam setting it is most of the bill. It is also why a plain iron gives you steam in bursts rather than continuously.
Does leaving an iron plugged in cost money?
Plugged in and switched off, effectively nothing — an iron has no standby load worth the name. Plugged in and switched on is a different appliance entirely: the thermostat keeps cycling the element to hold the soleplate at temperature whether you are pressing anything or not, so an iron left standing on the board is drawing close to what it draws while you use it. The reason to unplug an iron is that it is a hot resistive element left unattended, not that it is costing you 12.0¢ an hour. Most irons have an auto-shutoff for exactly that reason.