How Much Does It Cost to Run a Hair Dryer?
About 5 cents a dry, or roughly $1.44 a month if you dry your hair every day. At the 2024 US average rate of $0.16/kWh, a 10-minute session with an 1,800W dryer uses 0.30 kWh — about $0.05, or $18 over a full year. The wattage looks alarming; the runtime is what saves you.
Want your exact number? Enter your wattage, daily use, and local rate on the hair dryer calculator (pre-loaded at 1,800W), or see where it lands against everything else you plug in on the efficiency rankings.
The Formula
Cost per dry = (watts ÷ 1,000) × hours running × price per kWh
A hair dryer's draw is set by its heating coil — usually 1,200 to 1,800 watts on high heat. That nameplate figure is the maximum: the warm setting draws less, and the cool setting runs the fan alone for a small fraction of it.
Worked example (1,800W for 10 minutes at $0.16/kWh): 1.8 kW × 0.167 h = 0.30kWh × $0.16 = $0.05 per dry — or $1.44/month and $18/year for a daily dry.
Cost by Session Length (1,800W Hair Dryer)
How many minutes the dryer runs is the only thing that moves the bill. All rows are an 1,800W model at $0.16/kWh, priced as if you dried every day.
| Session length | kWh per dry | Cost per dry | Cost per month | Cost per year |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Quick blast (5 min) — Short hair, mostly towel-dried | 0.15 | $0.02 | $0.72 | $9 |
| Typical dry (10 min) (typical) | 0.30 | $0.05 | $1.44 | $18 |
| Long dry (20 min) — Thick or long hair | 0.60 | $0.10 | $2.88 | $35 |
| Styling session (30 min) — Blow-dry and style | 0.90 | $0.14 | $4.32 | $53 |
Drying three times a week rather than daily cuts every figure in the last two columns to under half. Even the heaviest row here costs about what a refrigerator costs in three months — and the fridge never turns off.
1200W vs 1800W: Which Hair Dryer Costs Less?
Per minute, the lower-wattage dryer is obviously cheaper — it draws a third less power. Cost per dry at $0.16/kWh, for a fixed session length:
| Session length | 1,200W | 1,500W | 1,800W |
|---|---|---|---|
| 5 minutes | $0.0160.10 kWh | $0.0200.13 kWh | $0.0240.15 kWh |
| 10 minutes | $0.0320.20 kWh | $0.0400.25 kWh | $0.0480.30 kWh |
| 20 minutes | $0.0640.40 kWh | $0.0800.50 kWh | $0.0960.60 kWh |
| 30 minutes | $0.0960.60 kWh | $0.1200.75 kWh | $0.1440.90 kWh |
But you don't dry your hair for a fixed number of minutes — you dry it until it's dry.
Wattage is how fast the dryer delivers heat, and evaporating the water out of the same head of hair takes roughly the same amount of heat either way. A 1200W dryer supplies two-thirds the heat per minute, so it needs about half again as long to finish. 15 minutes at 1200W is 0.30 kWh; 10 minutes at 1,800W is 0.30 kWh. Same energy, same $0.05 on the bill. Choose a dryer on how quickly you want to be finished — not to save electricity.
The one wattage change that does cut cost is the setting, not the model: the coil is what draws the power, so switching to cool runs the fan almost alone.
Yearly Cost by Rate and Daily Use
Yearly cost of an 1,800W hair dryer used once a day, across common US electricity rates. Find your state on the rates page to pick the right row.
| Rate ($/kWh) | Quick blast0.15 kWh/day | Typical0.30 kWh/day | Styling0.90 kWh/day |
|---|---|---|---|
| $0.10 | $5 | $11 | $33 |
| $0.13 | $7 | $14 | $43 |
| $0.16 (US avg) | $9 | $18 | $53 |
| $0.22 | $12 | $24 | $72 |
| $0.33 | $18 | $36 | $108 |
Even a daily 30-minute styling session in the highest-rate column is only just over $100 a year. Your rate triples across the table; the dryer never becomes an expensive appliance.
What Drives the Cost
Minutes, not watts
Your bill charges for kilowatt-hours — power multiplied by time. An 1,800W dryer pulls more power than a 1,500W space heater, but it runs for ten minutes instead of eight hours. Halve the runtime and you halve the cost; the nameplate number barely matters.
The coil, not the fan
Almost all of the power goes into the heating element. The motor spinning the fan is a small share of the total, which is why the cool setting draws so much less than high heat — and why a "low airflow" setting saves far less than a low-heat one.
How wet your hair is when you start
The dryer is doing one job: evaporating water. Water the towel removed is water the heating coil doesn't have to boil off. This is the single biggest lever, and it costs nothing.
Your electricity rate
The same dry costs three times as much in Hawaii (~$0.40/kWh) as in a low-rate state (~$0.11/kWh). It's still pennies per session, but it's the one variable that shifts every appliance on your bill — check your state's average rate before trusting any single number.
How to Lower the Cost
Towel-dry properly first
Every bit of water the towel absorbs is water the 1,800W coil doesn't have to evaporate. Nothing else cuts runtime as cheaply.
Finish on cool
The heating coil is nearly all of the draw. Once hair is mostly dry, the cool shot sets your style while running the fan for a fraction of the power.
Don't buy down on wattage to save
A 1,200W dryer takes longer to do the same job and lands on the same kWh. Pick the wattage that suits your hair and your patience.
Air-dry part of the way
Ten minutes of air-drying before you plug in can halve the session. Free, and it's the same trick that makes a clothes dryer cheaper to run.
Recommended picks
Spend Less Time With the Dryer On
A hair dryer is already cheap to run — the only lever that matters is minutes. These picks shorten the session rather than shrink the wattage, which is where the savings actually are.
Microfiber Hair Towel
Cut the minutes before you plug in
A hair dryer's cost is set almost entirely by how long it runs. Soaking up more water first is the cheapest way to shorten every dry — no wattage change required.
Ionic Hair Dryer
Same watts, shorter runtime
Ionic models break up water droplets so hair dries faster at the same wattage. Less time on the trigger is the only thing that reliably lowers the per-dry cost.
Hair Dryer with Cool Shot
Skip the heating element
Nearly all of a dryer's 1,800W goes to the heating coil, not the fan. Finishing on the cool setting runs the motor alone and draws a fraction of the power.
Smart Plug Energy Monitor
Measure the real draw
Nameplate watts are the high-heat maximum — warm and cool settings draw much less. A plug-in meter shows what your dryer actually pulls on the setting you use.
As an Amazon Associate this site earns from qualifying purchases. Links are sponsored.
Related Guides
Hair Dryer Calculator
Prefilled at 1,800W — enter your own rate and usage
Cost to Run a Clothes Dryer
The other heating element in the house — and it runs for hours
Cost to Run a Space Heater
A similar heating coil, run for hours instead of minutes
Cost to Run a Water Heater
The bathroom's real energy cost, by a wide margin
Most Efficient Appliances
See which appliances cost the most to run
Electricity Rates by State
Find your state's average rate
How to Save on Energy Bills
Practical tips by room with savings
Cost to Run a Light Bulb
Low watts, long hours — the mirror image of a hair dryer
Frequently Asked Questions
How much energy does a hair dryer use?
An 1,800W hair dryer uses about 0.30 kWh for a 10-minute dry — roughly $0.05 at the 2024 US average rate of $0.16/kWh. Most dryers draw 1,200–1,800 watts on high heat, which is a lot of power, but they run for minutes rather than hours. Drying your hair every day works out to about $1.44 a month and $18 a year — one of the smallest line items on your electricity bill.
Is a 1200W or an 1800W hair dryer cheaper to run?
Per minute, the 1,200W dryer costs a third less. Per dry, they're almost identical. Wattage is how fast a dryer delivers heat, and drying hair takes a roughly fixed amount of heat to evaporate the water — so a 1,200W model needs proportionally longer to finish the same head of hair. Fifteen minutes at 1,200W is 0.30 kWh; ten minutes at 1,800W is 0.30 kWh. Same energy, same cost — about $0.05 either way. Buy on how fast you want to be done, not to save electricity.
How much does a hair dryer cost per month?
At the US average rate, an 1,800W dryer used about 10 minutes a day costs roughly $1.44 a month and $18 a year. A 30-minute styling session every day pushes that to about $4.32/month. Use it a few times a week instead of daily and it's well under a dollar a month.
Why does a hair dryer use so many watts if it costs so little?
Watts measure power — the rate of energy use — while your bill charges for kilowatt-hours, which are power multiplied by time. An 1,800W dryer draws more power than a 1,500W space heater, but the heater runs for hours and the dryer for ten minutes. That's why a device with a scary wattage can be trivial on the bill, and why a modest 150W refrigerator that never turns off costs an order of magnitude more per year.
Does the cool setting save electricity?
Yes, and by a lot. Almost all of a hair dryer's power goes to the heating coil rather than the fan, so running on cool draws only a small fraction of the nameplate wattage. Warm sits in between. Finishing a dry on the cool shot costs next to nothing, though it takes longer than high heat — which is why the biggest saving is still to towel-dry first and cut total runtime.
How is the cost calculated?
The formula is simple: (watts ÷ 1,000) × hours running × your price per kWh. For an 1,800W dryer that's 1.8 kW × 0.167 h × $0.16 = $0.05 for a 10-minute dry. Multiply by how often you use it to get the monthly and yearly totals. Enter your own wattage, daily use, and local rate on the calculator to get your exact number.