Do electric blankets use more electricity than a heater?

Far less. A 1,500 W space heater draws fifteen times what a 100 W blanket draws. Over eight hours that is 12 kWh against 0.8 kWh, about $2.20 against 15 cents.

Is it cheaper to run an electric blanket or the central heating?

The blanket, almost certainly, because it heats a bed rather than a building. We will not quote a figure for central heating because it depends on your house, its insulation and its heating system.

Does an electric blanket use more power than a fridge?

Roughly comparable while a fridge compressor is running, and less overall, because a fridge cycles around the clock while a blanket runs for a night. Both are small next to anything with a 1,500 W heating element.

Cost to run / Guide

Do electric blankets use a lot of electricity?

No. A heated blanket draws about what ten LED bulbs draw, and roughly one fifteenth of a space heater. Here is the comparison in full.

By Scooter M.Updated August 31, 2026Scooter M. reads the manuals, compiles the published specs, and shows the arithmetic.

No. Published heated blanket wattages run 100 W to 220 W. That is about the same as ten LED bulbs, one fifteenth of a 1,500 W space heater, and less than a desktop computer. An eight-hour night costs 15 to 32 cents at the US average rate.

Where a heated blanket sits among household appliances

The intuition that a heating appliance must use a lot of electricity is reasonable, and it is wrong here for a specific reason: a heated blanket is not trying to raise the temperature of a room. It is warming the few cubic feet of air trapped under a blanket, against a person who is already producing about 100 watts of body heat on their own. That is a much smaller job.

Rated draw, in context

Rated draw, in context
Appliance	Typical rated draw	Relative to a 100 W blanket
LED bulb	10 W	One tenth
Electric blanket (published range)	100-220 W	Baseline
Desktop computer with monitor	200-400 W	2 to 4 times
Refrigerator (while the compressor runs)	100-400 W	1 to 4 times
Portable space heater	1,500 W	15 times
Electric kettle	1,500 W	15 times
Clothes dryer	3,000 W	30 times

The blanket row is the sourced range from our own per-model ledger. The other rows are the standard nameplate ratings those appliance classes carry in the US; they are context for the comparison, not measurements of ours.

Two appliances, one number, opposite conclusions

The kettle line is the most useful one in that table. A kettle and a space heater both draw about 1,500 W. Nobody worries about the kettle, because it runs for three minutes.

That is the whole insight about electricity cost: draw alone tells you nothing, and duration is half the calculation. A 1,500 W kettle for three minutes is 0.075 kWh. A 100 W blanket for eight hours is 0.8 kWh, more than ten times as much, from an appliance drawing a fifteenth as much power.

So the honest answer to does a blanket use a lot is: it uses very little power for a long time, which adds up to a small amount of energy. About 0.8 kWh a night, roughly one LED bulb left on for three days.

What 100 W costs: a 100 W blanket, against the appliances above

Cost of running 100 watts for various durations at $0.1834/kWh
Run time	kWh	Cost	Working
1 hour	0.10	2 cents	100 x 1 / 1000 x 0.1834
4 hours (an evening)	0.40	7 cents	100 x 4 / 1000 x 0.1834
8 hours (a night)	0.80	15 cents	100 x 8 / 1000 x 0.1834
30 nights at 8 hours	24.00	$4.40	100 x 240 / 1000 x 0.1834
A 120-night winter at 8 hours	96.00	$17.61	100 x 960 / 1000 x 0.1834

Rate: US Energy Information Administration, Electric Power Monthly, Table 5.3 (June 2026): 18.34 cents per kWh, average US residential. Retrieved 2026-08-31.

Rated wattage is the ceiling, not the average. A thermostatic blanket cycles its element on and off once the bed is warm, so an all-night bill usually lands below the rated-watt figure. We publish the rated number because it is the only one the maker stands behind, and we do not estimate a duty cycle for a blanket we have not measured.

The comparison that actually changes behavior

Against other ways of being warm at night, a heated blanket is the cheapest option available by a wide margin, and this is the only comparison in this article with real money in it.

Blanket, eight hours: 0.8 kWh, about 15 cents.
Space heater, eight hours: 12 kWh, about $2.20. Full comparison.
Central heating overnight: depends entirely on the house. Not computable from a table, and anyone giving you a national figure has invented it.

Over a 120-night winter that first pair is $17.61 against $264.10. The blanket is not merely cheaper; it is in a different category of expense.

The honest caveats

Three, because an article answering no to its own headline should be careful about it.

1These are rated figures, not measurements. Rated wattage is the ceiling. Real overnight consumption is lower because the element cycles, and it is lower by an amount we have not measured and will not estimate.
2Most models publish nothing. 21 of the 29 products we track state no wattage at all. For those, we cannot tell you whether they use a lot, and neither can anyone else. See the watts, by model.
3A blanket is usually an addition, not a replacement. If it lets you turn the thermostat down, it saves money. If it sits on top of your existing heating, it is a new small cost. Which of those applies is a fact about your household, not about the blanket.

Questions people actually ask

Do electric blankets use a lot of electricity?: No. Published draws run 100 to 220 W, about the same as ten LED bulbs and one fifteenth of a space heater. An eight-hour night is 0.8 to 1.76 kWh, or 15 to 32 cents at the US average rate.
Do electric blankets use more electricity than a heater?: Far less. A 1,500 W space heater draws fifteen times what a 100 W blanket draws. Over eight hours that is 12 kWh against 0.8 kWh, about $2.20 against 15 cents.
Is it cheaper to run an electric blanket or the central heating?: The blanket, almost certainly, because it heats a bed rather than a building. We will not quote a figure for central heating because it depends on your house, its insulation and its heating system.
Does an electric blanket use more power than a fridge?: Roughly comparable while a fridge compressor is running, and less overall, because a fridge cycles around the clock while a blanket runs for a night. Both are small next to anything with a 1,500 W heating element.

Sources

US EIA, Electric Power Monthly, Table 5.3: Average Price of Electricity to Ultimate Customers, June 2026 (18.34 cents/kWh, US residential average)

Every specification on this page traces to a published manufacturer listing or a government data source. Where a maker publishes no wattage, we say so rather than estimating one.