How much does it cost to run a PS5 per hour in the UK?

Entertainment By Marcus BellPublished 28 September 2026

What a PS5 actually draws

Most articles on this question quote 350 watts, which is the rating of the internal power supply rather than anything the console pulls. A power supply is sized for the worst case with headroom on top, so using it for a running cost is like costing a car journey from the top speed on the speedometer.

Sony publishes the real figures, because European ecodesign rules require it. Across the current PS5 and PS5 Pro models the measured draw with a PS5 game running is 214.0 to 219.2 watts, and 215 watts is the figure this page uses. Playing a backwards compatible PS4 title pulls much less, between 87 and 114 watts depending on the game, since the hardware is not being pushed. Sitting on the home screen navigating menus draws 43.4 to 47.3 watts. Networked standby, which Sony calls rest mode, is measured at 2.0 watts, and off mode at 0.3 to 0.38 watts.

Those five numbers answer every version of this question, and none of them is 350.

The cost per hour and per session

At 215 watts one hour is 0.215 kilowatt hours, which is 5.6p at the Ofgem cap rate of 26.11p per kilowatt hour. A three hour evening session costs 16.8p. An eight hour weekend stretch costs 44.9p. Twelve hours costs 67.4p, and leaving a game running for a full 24 hours costs £1.35.

Gaming three hours a night, five nights a week, comes to 14 kilowatt hours a month and £3.65. Across a year that is £43.80, which is less than most people expect and considerably less than the forum figures doing the rounds.

Readers in the United States can take the same 0.215 kilowatt hours against the EIA residential average of 18.34 cents per kilowatt hour, which is 3.9 cents an hour, 12 cents for a three hour session and $2.56 for a month of five nights a week.

Rates: Ofgem cap 1 July to 30 September 2026 at 26.11p per kWh (source), EIA residential average June 2026 at 18.34 cents per kWh (source). Checked 2026-09-22.

Rest mode, menus and the numbers that surprise people

Two of Sony's measurements are worth pulling out because they change behaviour.

The first is the menu figure. At around 45 watts the console idling on the home screen costs 1.2p an hour, so a console left sitting on the dashboard while you go and make dinner is not the disaster it feels like. Five hours of that costs 6p.

The second is rest mode. At 2.0 watts, leaving the console in rest for the 21 hours a day you are not playing costs 15.3 kilowatt hours a year, which is £4.00. Switching it off fully at 0.3 watts for the same hours costs 60p. The difference over a year is £3.40, and for that you get overnight game updates, downloads that finish while you sleep and a controller that is charged when you pick it up.

Anyone telling you that rest mode is silently draining your bank account is using the pre 2013 standby numbers. The regulations killed that problem more than a decade ago.

What the session really costs

The console is only half of what you switch on. A television draws around 120 watts, which is 3.1p an hour, so a three hour session on console and screen together costs 26.2p rather than 16.8p.

Put a sound bar and a mesh node on top and a heavy gaming evening in one room reaches somewhere near 30p. That is still half a tumble dryer cycle at 65.3p and about the same as one dishwasher load at 26.1p, which is useful perspective for anyone being told their gaming is what drives the bill.

The pattern holds at every timescale. Three hours of gaming costs less than boiling the kettle six times, and a whole weekend of it costs less than drying two loads of washing. Consoles feel expensive because they are on for long stretches and they get warm, and neither of those is a reliable guide to what an appliance is actually costing you.

Five ways to cut what a PS5 costs to run

• Cap the frame rate in performance heavy games or use the 30fps quality mode, since the draw tracks how hard the GPU is working and an uncapped title in a menu can push it to the top of the range.
• Set rest mode to switch off the USB ports after charging, so the console is not holding power for a controller that is already full.
• Turn off the option that keeps the network connection live in rest mode when you are away for a week, which drops it from 2.0 watts towards the 0.3 watt off figure.
• Use the television's own eco settings rather than the console's, because the screen is the part you can actually make cheaper by dropping brightness.
• Play PS4 titles on the same console guilt free. Sony's own numbers put them at half the draw of a native PS5 game.

Is it worth worrying about at all

On these numbers, no. A heavy gaming habit of three hours a night costs about £44 a year, which is the same as leaving two Wi-Fi routers running and roughly 40 per cent of what a tumble dryer used three times a week costs across the same year.

The console is not where the money goes. If the electricity bill is the reason you are reading this, the honest advice is to close the tab, leave the PS5 alone, and go and look at the laundry.