How Much Does a PS5 Cost to Run? (2026 Electricity Data)

A PS5 in active gaming mode pulls about 200 watts from the wall. The Disc and Digital editions land within 10W of each other, and the newer Slim revision sits at roughly 180W. The math is the same as for any other appliance: watts × hours ÷ 1,000 × your state rate. The DOE Energy Saver estimator uses that exact formula, and the April 2026 U.S. residential rate from the EIA Electric Power Monthly is 18.05¢/kWh. Plug in the hours you actually game, and you have the answer.

A typical user at 200W and 3 hours a day uses 0.6 kWh, which costs $0.11 at the national average. Across 30 days that is $3.25. Across a year it is $39.53. A heavy gamer who puts in 6 hours a day uses 1.2 kWh daily and spends $6.50 a month or $79.06 a year. A casual once-or-twice-a-week player who averages 1 hour a day spends $13.18 a year. None of those numbers crack the threshold where the PS5 is the line item that moved the bill.

The headline 200W figure only applies when the console is actively rendering a game. The rest of the time the draw is much lower, which is why the typical-user math lands where it does. These are nameplate-typical numbers; manufacturer Sony PlayStation spec sheets and independent measurements both back them up.

Active gaming: 200 to 220 watts. Demanding titles in 4K HDR push the top of the range. Lighter games and cross-gen ports sit at the bottom. Daily cost at 3 hours: $0.11 a day, $39.53 a year.

Streaming 4K video: 80 to 90 watts. The PS5 also runs Netflix, Disney+, and Spotify. Streaming pulls less than half of active gaming because the GPU is not rendering frames in real time. Three hours a day of streaming costs about $16.80 a year, or roughly half a gaming session.

Menu and idle (game paused, controller down): 45 to 50 watts. If the console sits at the dashboard for an hour a day, that adds about $3.29 a year on its own. Worth knowing, not worth panicking about.

Rest mode: 1.5 to 3 watts. This is the standby state the console enters when you pick "rest mode" instead of fully powering off. At 1.5W on the standard power-saving setting, 24-hour-a-day rest mode adds $2.37 a year. The higher 3W setting (with rest-mode features like remote downloads turned on) costs $4.74 a year.

Off (0.4 watts). Even fully powered off, the console draws a fraction of a watt to keep the wake circuit alive. Across an entire year that adds $0.63. The "should I unplug it?" question is settled. It costs less than a stamp to leave it plugged in.

The numbers above use the U.S. national average. Your actual cost depends on where you live, and the spread is wider than most homeowners realize. The April 2026 EIA Electric Power Monthly puts Louisiana at 12.44¢/kWh and Hawaii at 39.79¢/kWh. Same console, same hours, three times the cost.

A PS5 played 3 hours a day for a year (219 kWh):

Louisiana (12.44¢/kWh): $27.24. Texas (~14.8¢/kWh): $32.41. National average (18.05¢/kWh): $39.53. California (~31¢/kWh): $67.89. Hawaii (39.79¢/kWh): $87.14.

A heavy gamer at 6 hours a day for a year (438 kWh):

Louisiana: $54.49. National average: $79.06. California: $135.78. Hawaii: $174.28.

Hawaii and California are the only places where the PS5 starts to behave like a recurring line item rather than a rounding error. The electricity rates by state guide has the current 2026 number for every state, and the PS5 calculator runs the math at your specific rate.

Both the PS5 (200W) and the Xbox Series X (200W) draw nearly identical power during active gameplay. The cost of running either console for 3 hours a day in active mode is $39.53 a year. What separates them is the standby mode, and the gap is real.

PS5 in rest mode (1.5W × 21 hours a day): adds $2.08 a year. Total typical-user cost: $41.61 a year.

Xbox Series X in instant-on (12W × 21 hours a day): adds $16.60 a year. Total typical-user cost: $56.13 a year.

The Xbox costs about $14 a year more than the PS5 at the same play hours, and 100% of that gap is the instant-on standby setting. Switch the Xbox to its energy-saver mode and the gap closes to nothing. The Xbox Series S, with its smaller GPU, costs less in active mode either way (75W typical, $14.82 a year at 3 hours a day). The choice between consoles has nothing to do with electricity. The choice between standby modes does.

A high-end gaming desktop with a discrete RTX-class GPU pulls about 450 watts in active play. The same 3 hours a day looks very different on each platform.

PS5 (200W): $39.53 a year. Mid-range gaming desktop (300W): $59.30 a year. High-end gaming desktop (450W): $88.94 a year.

A gaming desktop costs roughly two to three times what a PS5 costs to run at the same hours. Most of that gap is the discrete GPU and the larger power supply running below its efficient load curve. The PS5 hardware is fixed and tightly tuned to its silicon, so there is no headroom to lose. A gaming PC trades flexibility for that efficiency penalty. The full per-appliance breakdown for desktops, monitors, soundbars, and other living-room electronics is in the appliance wattage chart.

A PS5 played 3 hours a day costs $39.53 a year. The household devices it shares the living room with often cost more, and they do less.

PS5 (3 hours a day): $39.53 a year. Wi-Fi router (10W, 24/7): $15.81 a year. Cable DVR box (40W, 24/7): $63.25 a year. Refrigerator: $90 to $130 a year. 60W incandescent bulb (8 hours a day): $31.62 a year. 9W LED bulb (8 hours a day): $4.74 a year.

A typical-user PS5 uses less electricity in a year than the cable DVR box that sits idle most of the time, and less than half what a refrigerator costs. Even the heavy gamer at $79.06 a year is below refrigerator territory. The pattern matches every other piece of home electronics: laptops, monitors, and consoles are at the bottom of any home appliance list. AC, water heating, and refrigeration sit at the top, and the gap is not close.

Three observations from running the numbers on a PS5:

1. The console is not the line item that moved your summer bill. A PS5 at typical use costs about $3.25 a month. Running an extra hour of central AC each day in summer costs $30 to $60 a month. The most expensive appliances list confirms which loads actually drive the bill.

2. Rest mode is fine. Leaving the console on all the time at the dashboard is not.Rest mode at 1.5W costs $2.37 a year, which is essentially nothing. Pausing a game and walking away with the console at the menu (50W) for an hour a day costs $3.29 a year on top of your active-play number. The fix is the auto-power-off setting in System > Power Saving. Set it to 1 hour and forget it.

3. The console choice has no electricity-cost answer. PS5 and Xbox Series X draw nearly identical power in active gameplay. The Xbox costs about $14 more a year on default settings because of instant-on standby, and that gap disappears as soon as you switch to energy-saver mode. Buy the platform with the games you want to play. The yearly electricity difference is smaller than a single new game.

The PS5 calculator runs the math at your state's actual rate, with presets for typical and heavy use. Plug in your hours and your state, and you have the real number.

A PS5 played 3 hours a day costs $3.25 a month or $39.53 a year at the 2026 U.S. average rate. A heavy gamer at 6 hours a day pays $6.50 a month or $79.06 a year. Rest mode adds $2 to $5 a year and is not worth turning off. The Xbox Series X costs about $14 a year more than the PS5 unless you switch its instant-on setting off.

The PS5 calculator handles the per-state and per-hour math. The appliance wattage chart shows how a console compares to everything else plugged into the wall, and the state rates guide has the current 2026 number for where you live.