How Much Does It Cost to Run a Wi-Fi Router and Modem?

Short answer: about $0.062 a day and $1.87 a month, or $0.003 for each hour it runs at full power, at the 2025 US average electricity rate. That is for a 15 W wi-fi router and modem running 24 hours a day with a 100% duty cycle. Change the state and hours below for your own number.

Updated Nov 8, 2026

Quick answer, US average (17.3 c/kWh)

About $1.87 a month

The same use costs $1.28 a month in North Dakota and $4.38 in Hawaii.

Per hour: $0.003; at 15 W
Per day: $0.062; 24 h, 0.36 kWh
Per month: $1.87; 30 days
Per year: $22.73; 365 days at the same use

Your state, your hours

State

Hours on per day

Days per month

days

Per hour

$0.003

Per day

$0.062

Per month

$1.87

Per year

$22.73

Wi-Fi Router and Modem at 15 W, 24 h a day, 30 days a month, 100% duty cycle: 10.8 kWh a month. Using the 2025 US average of 17.3 cents/kWh.

Want to change the watts or duty cycle too? Open the full calculator.

What decides the cost of running a wi-fi router and modem

A router and modem are small loads that never turn off, which is what makes them worth a look. The default on this page is 15 W for the pair running 24 hours a day, 0.36 kWh a day and about 131 kWh a year. A typical cable or fiber modem draws 5 to 10 W, and a single Wi-Fi router draws 6 to 12 W depending on how many radios it has and how busy it is. A combined gateway from your internet provider often lands in the same 10 to 20 W range on its own.

Mesh systems change the math because every node is its own router. A three-node mesh can add up to 20 to 30 W once you count the modem, which roughly doubles the default. Newer tri-band Wi-Fi 6E and Wi-Fi 7 routers also tend to draw more than older dual-band models, since they run an extra radio and a faster processor. Traffic matters less than you might expect. A router streaming 4K video draws only a little more than one sitting idle, because the radios stay powered either way.

The obvious idea is to switch it off at night, and the honest answer is that the saving is small. Eight hours off saves 0.12 kWh a day, about $7.58 a year at the national average rate. In exchange, firmware updates that run overnight may not happen, smart thermostats, cameras and doorbells lose their connection, and some providers' modems take several minutes to resync in the morning. If you do want it, a Wi-Fi schedule that turns the radios off while the router stays up keeps most of the convenience.

Where the router really matters is during an outage. At 15 W it is one of the easiest things to keep running from a small battery, which keeps phones on Wi-Fi calling and the internet up when cell networks are congested.

How to cut it

Return a rented gateway you no longer need. Running a provider modem plus your own router doubles the idle draw.
Use only as many mesh nodes as your floor plan really needs. Each one adds several watts around the clock.
Put the router on a small UPS or power station rather than a timer. Outage runtime is worth more than the overnight saving.
If you want overnight savings, use the router's Wi-Fi schedule instead of cutting power to the modem.

Wi-Fi Router and Modem cost by state

Monthly cost for 15 W, 24 h a day, 100% duty cycle, 30 days, sorted cheapest to most expensive. Pick your state above to highlight it.

Rank	State	Cents/kWh	Per month
1	North Dakota	11.81	$1.28
2	Idaho	11.82	$1.28
3	Nebraska	12.34	$1.33
4	Louisiana	12.57	$1.36
5	Arkansas	12.84	$1.39
6	Montana	12.98	$1.40
7	Utah	13.07	$1.41
8	Washington	13.11	$1.42
9	Oklahoma	13.12	$1.42
10	Nevada	13.15	$1.42
11	Tennessee	13.18	$1.42
12	Kentucky	13.24	$1.43
13	South Dakota	13.38	$1.45
14	Wyoming	13.38	$1.45
15	Missouri	13.49	$1.46
16	Iowa	13.72	$1.48
17	North Carolina	14.02	$1.51
18	Mississippi	14.03	$1.52
19	Kansas	14.56	$1.57
20	Georgia	14.73	$1.59
21	South Carolina	14.96	$1.62
22	New Mexico	15.08	$1.63
23	Florida	15.24	$1.65
24	Virginia	15.28	$1.65
25	Arizona	15.32	$1.65
26	Oregon	15.37	$1.66
27	West Virginia	15.41	$1.66
28	Texas	15.47	$1.67
29	Minnesota	15.82	$1.71
30	Colorado	15.85	$1.71
31	Alabama	16.10	$1.74
32	Indiana	16.23	$1.75
33	Ohio	16.96	$1.83
34	Delaware	17.13	$1.85
35	Illinois	17.69	$1.91
36	Wisconsin	18.16	$1.96
37	Pennsylvania	19.30	$2.08
38	Maryland	19.48	$2.10
39	Michigan	20.01	$2.16
40	District of Columbia	21.94	$2.37
41	New Jersey	22.63	$2.44
42	Vermont	22.92	$2.48
43	New Hampshire	24.56	$2.65
44	Alaska	26.09	$2.82
45	New York	26.39	$2.85
46	Maine	27.78	$3.00
47	Connecticut	29.38	$3.17
48	Rhode Island	29.46	$3.18
49	Massachusetts	30.48	$3.29
50	California	32.54	$3.51
51	Hawaii	40.59	$4.38

Rates: U.S. Energy Information Administration, Form EIA-861, annual average residential price, 2025 (eia.gov). Full list on the electricity rates by state page.

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Frequently asked questions

How much does it cost to run a Wi-Fi router per month?+

About $1.87 a month for a router and modem together. At 15 W for 24 hours they use 0.36 kWh a day, or 10.8 kWh over 30 days, and 10.8 x $0.173 is about $1.87.

How much does it cost to run a router per year?+

About $23 a year. 0.36 kWh a day for 365 days is 131.4 kWh, and 131.4 x $0.173 is about $22.73 at the national average rate. A three-node mesh system can run roughly twice that.

How many watts does a Wi-Fi router use?+

About 6 to 12 W for a single router, plus 5 to 10 W for a separate modem. The 15 W default here covers a typical pair. Tri-band and mesh setups draw more, often 20 to 30 W in total.

How much does a router cost per hour?+

About a quarter of a cent. 15 W is 0.015 kWh an hour, and 0.015 x $0.173 is 0.26 cents at the national average rate.

Does a Wi-Fi router use a lot of electricity?+

No. At 15 W it uses about 131 kWh a year, about what a full-size refrigerator uses in three and a half months on this site's defaults. It adds up only because it runs every hour of the year.

Should I turn off my router at night to save electricity?+

It saves about $7.58 a year. Eight hours off at 15 W is 0.12 kWh a day, or 43.8 kWh a year, worth about $7.58 at 17.3 cents. Most people find that missed firmware updates and disconnected smart devices are not worth it.

Does a router use more electricity when more devices are connected?+

Only slightly. The radios and processor are powered all the time, so a busy router draws a watt or two more than an idle one. The number of mesh nodes and whether you run a separate modem matter far more.

How long will a power station run a router and modem?+

About 57 hours from a 1,000 Wh station at 15 W, after about 15 percent inverter loss (1,000 x 0.85 / 15 = 57). Even a 256 Wh unit keeps them up for about 14 hours, which is why the router is the first thing to put on backup.

Is Starlink more expensive to run than a regular router?+

Yes, about four times as much. On this site's defaults, Starlink at 60 W uses 1.44 kWh a day, about $7.47 a month, against 0.36 kWh and about $1.87 for a 15 W router and modem.

How can I lower the cost of running my router?+

Drop equipment you do not need, such as a provider gateway running alongside your own router or extra mesh nodes. That cuts the always-on draw, which saves more over a year than switching off at night.

Marcus Reed

Founder and Editor, CrunchYourDollars

Marcus Reed builds the sizing tools on CrunchYourDollars. He is a software engineer with a long-running PC hardware and power supply habit, which is where the watts, watt-hours and surge math on this site comes from. Product specs are pulled from manufacturer data sheets, electricity rates from the U.S. Energy Information Administration, and water chemistry rules from the Water Quality Association. He is not a licensed electrician or plumber: the tools show the math and the matching models so you can make the call, and anything involving your electrical panel should be checked by a licensed pro.

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