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Wool Watt

Cost to run / Data

What it costs per month, and per winter

Four dollars forty a month at 100 watts. Under twenty dollars for a whole winter. Here is the seasonal arithmetic and the comparison that makes it matter.

By Scooter M.Updated August 31, 2026Scooter M. reads the manuals, compiles the published specs, and shows the arithmetic.
A calculator and paperwork on a desk

Thirty nights at eight hours costs $4.40 at 100 W and $9.68 at 220 W. A 120-night winter costs $17.61 and $38.74 respectively. At the US average residential rate of $0.1834/kWh.

The seasonal table

Monthly and seasonal cost at eight hours a night
Monthly and seasonal cost at eight hours a night
Rated WkWh / monthPer month120-night winterPer winter
100 W24.0$4.4096 kWh$17.61
110 W (one side of a dual queen)26.4$4.84105.6 kWh$19.37
130 W31.2$5.72124.8 kWh$22.89
200 W (dual pad, both zones)48.0$8.80192 kWh$35.21
220 W (dual queen, both sides)52.8$9.68211.2 kWh$38.74

30 nights per month, 120 nights per winter, 8 hours per night, at $0.1834/kWh (EIA, June 2026). Rated watts are a ceiling; real consumption is lower because the element cycles.

What 130 W costs: a 130 W full-size blanket
Cost of running 130 watts for various durations at $0.1834/kWh
Run timekWhCostWorking
1 hour0.132 cents130 x 1 / 1000 x 0.1834
4 hours (an evening)0.5210 cents130 x 4 / 1000 x 0.1834
8 hours (a night)1.0419 cents130 x 8 / 1000 x 0.1834
30 nights at 8 hours31.20$5.72130 x 240 / 1000 x 0.1834
A 120-night winter at 8 hours124.80$22.89130 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 makes these numbers matter

On its own, $17.61 for a winter is not a number anybody needs help interpreting. It becomes interesting next to the thing it displaces.

A 120-night winter, three ways
A 120-night winter, three ways
ApproachDrawkWh over the winterCost
100 W blanket, 8 h a night100 W96$17.61
1,500 W space heater, 8 h a night1,500 W1,440$264.10
Turning the thermostat up overnightVaries by houseNot computable hereNot computable here

The heater figure assumes continuous draw, which overstates it: a thermostatic heater also cycles. The ratio between the two is the point, and it holds regardless.

The third row is deliberately blank and it is the honest thing to do. What it costs to heat your house overnight depends on the house, its insulation, its heating system and the outside temperature, and no site can compute it for you from a table. Anybody who gives you a national figure for that has made it up.

What we can say is the direction: heating one bed is a smaller problem than heating a building, and the blanket figure above is a real number you can check. The space-heater comparison is worked through properly on electric blanket versus a space heater.

Why payback is the wrong question

A natural next question is how long the blanket takes to pay for itself. We think it is the wrong frame and it is worth saying why rather than producing a number that looks authoritative.

Payback assumes the blanket replaces something. For some households it genuinely does: if you currently run a space heater in the bedroom, the blanket displaces it and the arithmetic above is a straightforward saving. For most households it does not replace anything. It is an addition, bought for comfort, and its running cost is a new small cost rather than a substitute for a large one.

So the useful framing is not payback but scale: at 100 W and nightly use, a heated blanket adds roughly the cost of two cups of coffee to a winter's electricity. Whether that is worth it is a comfort judgment, and it is yours.

Making your own number exact

  1. 1Find your rate. It is on your electricity bill, usually as cents per kWh. Use that instead of our 18.34.
  2. 2Count your real hours. If you preheat for an hour and switch off, use one hour rather than eight and divide the monthly figures by eight.
  3. 3Use the per-side figure if you share. A dual-control blanket where only one of you uses the heat costs half the headline number.
  4. 4Treat the result as a ceiling. Rated watts is the maximum draw. Your actual bill will be lower because the element cycles, by an amount we deliberately do not estimate.

The per-model wattages you need for step one are on the watts, by model, and the nightly version of this page is on cost per night.

Questions people actually ask

How much does an electric blanket cost to run per month?
About $4.40 at 100 W with eight hours of use a night, and about $9.68 at 220 W with both sides of a dual-control blanket running. At $0.1834/kWh over thirty nights.
How much does an electric blanket add to your electricity bill?
At 100 W and nightly use through a 120-night winter, about $17.61 in total. At the highest published wattage in our set, about $38.74 for the season.
Is an electric blanket cheaper than turning up the heating?
Almost certainly, because you are heating a bed rather than a building, but we will not put a number on the heating side. That depends on your house, its insulation and its heating system, and any site quoting you a national figure for it has invented it.

Sources

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.