How much does a toaster cost to use in the UK?
A round of toast in a 1.2 kilowatt two slice toaster costs about 1.6p, because three minutes at that power uses 0.06 kilowatt hours and the Ofgem cap rate is 26.32p per kWh. Toast every day for a year comes to £5.76. The same round under a 2.2 kilowatt cooker grill, with the five minute preheat the manual asks for, costs about 7.7p.
What a toaster draws and for how long
A toaster draws a lot of power for a very short time. Dualit rates its 2 slice NewGen Classic at 1.2 kilowatts and the 4 slice version at 2.2 kilowatts, while Bosch's compact toasters sit lower, at 970 watts for the TAT3P420GB and 980 watts for the TAT3A011GB. None of them publish a toasting time, so take three minutes for a round of two slices on a middle setting as the working figure. A pale setting takes less and a dark one more.
Three minutes at 1.2 kilowatts is 0.06 kilowatt hours, and at the Ofgem cap rate of 26.32p per kilowatt hour that is 1.6p a round. One round a day for a year comes to 21.9 kilowatt hours and £5.76, about 48p a month.
Work it out for your own toaster
Type in the wattage from the plate on the back, then your own unit rate. The numbers update as you type.
What each type of toaster costs per round
| Toaster | Power | One round, 3 minutes | A round a day, per month | A round a day, per year |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bosch compact two slice, 970 W | 0.97 kW | 1.3p | £0.39 | £4.66 |
| Dualit two slice, 1.2 kW | 1.2 kW | 1.6p | £0.48 | £5.76 |
| Dualit four slice, all four slots | 2.2 kW | 2.9p | £0.88 | £10.57 |
| Cooker grill, 5 minute preheat plus 3 minutes | 2.2 kW | 7.7p | £2.35 | £28.18 |
A bigger toaster is only more expensive if you fill it. Dualit fits a slot selector to both sizes so you can heat just the slots you are using, and a four slice model toasting two slices with half its slots switched off should work out close to a two slice one.
| Appliance | Typical draw | Usage we assume | Per hour (UK) | Per usage (UK) | Per month (UK) | Per hour (US) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Toaster | 1200 W | per round of two slices, about 3 minutes | 31.6p | 1.6p | 47.9p | 22.0 cents |
Rates: Ofgem cap 1 October to 31 December 2026 at 26.32p per kWh (source), EIA residential average June 2026 at 18.34 cents per kWh (source). Checked 2026-09-22.
Toaster against the grill
The grill is the expensive way to make toast because of everything that happens before the bread goes in. Beko's manual for the EDC633W double oven cooker lists the top grill at 2.2 kilowatts and asks you to preheat it for about five minutes, then gives two to four minutes for toast. Take five minutes of preheat and three of toasting and the grill runs for eight minutes, using about 0.29 kilowatt hours and costing 7.7p for the same two slices a 1.2 kilowatt toaster does for 1.6p.
The way the grill is built makes it worse. Beko designs that cooker for grilling with the door open, so much of the heat drifts out into the kitchen instead of browning the bread. A smaller cooker grill helps a little, since Beko rates the grill on its 50 cm KDC5422AK at 1.6 kilowatts, but eight minutes on that still costs 5.6p, between three and four times the toaster.
Done every morning, the difference is about £22 a year. The grill makes sense when it is already hot for something else, or when you are toasting enough slices at once that the preheat is shared across them.
Toast in an air fryer
An air fryer is a fair stand in for a toaster but rarely a cheaper one. At 1,750 watts it matches the 0.06 kilowatt hours of a three minute toaster round after just over two minutes, so once you allow time for it to heat and for turning the bread, the toaster usually wins. If your air fryer is already on for something else, a slice or two in the last couple of minutes costs very little extra. Our air fryer guide has the cost of an hour on its own.
Why the smart meter makes toast look expensive
An in home display that jumps when the toaster goes on is showing the cost per hour at that moment. A 1.2 kilowatt toaster shows up as about 32p an hour and a four slice one as 58p, and it is easy to read that as the cost of the toast. One thread on the MoneySavingExpert forum started from a radio caller who believed two slices cost well over a pound, and the replies traced it to the same mistake. Divide the hourly figure by twenty and you have the cost of a three minute round.
Making each round cheaper
- Use the slot selector on a four slice toaster when you only want two slices.
- Toast fresh bread rather than frozen where you can, because the defrost setting adds time to the round.
- Skip the grill for toast unless it is already on.
- Do not bother switching the toaster off at the wall to save money. Even at the 1 watt the standby rules allow for a model with a display, that is under £2.31 a year.
Is a toaster cheap to run
A round of toast in a 1.2 kilowatt toaster costs about 1.6p, and a round every day for a year is £5.76. That makes the toaster one of the cheapest appliances in the kitchen to use, and the one change that matters is not making toast under the grill, which costs about five times as much for the same two slices.
Common questions
Does a toaster use a lot of electricity?
It draws a lot while it is on, around 1,000 to 1,200 watts for a two slice model, but only for two or three minutes. A three minute round on a 1.2 kilowatt toaster uses 0.06 kilowatt hours, which is 1.6p, and a round every day for a year adds up to £5.76.
Is it cheaper to use a toaster or the grill?
The toaster, by a long way. A 1.2 kilowatt toaster costs about 1.6p a round, while a 2.2 kilowatt cooker grill needs about five minutes of preheating before the bread goes in, which brings the same round to about 7.7p. Toasting every day under the grill costs about £22 a year more.
Is it cheaper to make toast in an air fryer?
Only if it toasts in about two minutes. A 1,750 watt air fryer uses the same 0.06 kilowatt hours as a three minute round in a 1.2 kilowatt toaster after just over two minutes, so any longer and the toaster is the cheaper machine.
Does a toaster use electricity when plugged in?
Next to nothing. Toasters fall under the same EU standby rules as coffee machines, which cap standby at 0.5 watts, or 1 watt with a display. Half a watt left on all year comes to 4.4 kilowatt hours, about £1.15, so switching it off at the wall saves almost nothing.