How Much Does It Cost to Run a Baseboard Heater per Day?

Source: Planning watts of 1,000 and 8 hours a day, hours of running time a day in winter. Price: 17.23 cents per kWh, the 2025 US residential average from EIA Form EIA-861.

The monthly cost is 28% of the $150.68 average US electric bill. Because it runs only about 5 months a year, the yearly cost is 5 times the monthly figure, not twelve.

One figure cannot fit every home. These three cases show how much the answer moves with the equipment and the hours.

The lowest case costs $31 a month and the highest $147. Use the calculator above to match your own.

The same baseboard heater costs different amounts depending on the state, because the price per kWh differs. Here are the three cheapest states, the US average and the three costliest, for the same 243 kWh a month.

Source: U.S. Energy Information Administration, Form EIA-861 (final 2025 data). Price is residential revenue divided by sales and includes fixed charges.

See electricity rates in every state to find your own.

Electric baseboards are resistance heaters, one per room, each with its own thermostat. Their per-room control is useful, but a home with five of them can draw 5,000 watts or more at once, and that is hard to see on a bill.

Each baseboard unit draws roughly 250 watts per linear foot, so a six foot unit uses about 1,500 watts. A home may have several, on separate thermostats, which makes room-by-room control easy and total use hard to see.

For scale, the EIA Residential Energy Consumption Survey found the average US home used about 109 kWh a month on space heating in 2020, and the average detached house about 119 kWh. These averages include homes with no such equipment, so a home that has it uses more.

The range for this kind of appliance runs from about 500 to 1,500 watts. At 8 hours a day that is $21 to $63 a month, which is why checking the label on yours is worth the minute.

• Lower the thermostat in rooms you do not use.
• Keep furniture and curtains away from the unit.
• Consider a ductless heat pump if you run baseboards for most of the winter.

Next step: Heat pump costs. For general ideas, read how to lower your electric bill.

Other appliances in the heating group: Space Heater, Electric Furnace, Heat Pump, Electric Blanket, Electric Fireplace.

The cost is watts divided by 1,000, times hours, times your price per kWh. The 1,000 watts is a planning figure for this kind of appliance, set from typical product ratings, and the 8 hours is an assumed day of use. Neither is copied from a federal table. Federal guidance describes the method and warns that real wattage varies, so we publish our own typical ranges and label them as such. Prices come from EIA Form EIA-861 for 2025.

The calculation is the standard one used in the U.S. Department of Energy's consumer guidance on estimating appliance energy use. Wattage varies by product age and features, so the label on your own appliance beats any average. Read more in our methodology.