Calculate your household energy bills with our Electricity Cost Calculator.
| Quarter | Unit rate | Standing | Trend |
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Socket Sleuth
What does it cost to run? Pick an appliance and find out.
Energy bills went up again in July, and if you are like most people, you probably do not know exactly why, or what your new unit rate actually means for the money leaving your account each month. The calculator above will give you an instant, region-specific answer. This guide explains how it works, walks through every setting step by step, and breaks down what UK households are actually paying right now under the latest Ofgem price cap.
In this guide
- Current UK electricity prices (Jul-Sep 2026)
- How much you pay depends on where you live
- How to use this electricity cost calculator
- Direct Debit vs Prepayment vs Standard Credit
- Economy 7: is it actually worth it?
- What your appliances really cost to run
- How your electricity bill is worked out
- Seven ways to bring your bill down
- Frequently asked questions
Current UK electricity prices (Jul-Sep 2026)
Ofgem's price cap sets a ceiling on what suppliers can charge for each unit of electricity you use, plus a fixed daily standing charge that covers the cost of keeping you connected to the grid. From 1 July to 30 September 2026, the national average Direct Debit rate is 26.11p per kWh, with a standing charge of 57.19p per day. That is up from 24.67p and 57.21p the previous quarter, so most households will notice a slightly bigger bill this summer even though usage tends to drop once the heating goes off.
What trips people up is that the price cap is not a cap on your total bill. It only caps the rate per unit. If you use more electricity, you pay more, cap or no cap. The table below shows how the two figures that actually decide your bill have moved over the last seven quarters.
| Quarter | Unit rate (p/kWh) | Standing charge (p/day) |
|---|---|---|
| Jan - Mar 2025 | 24.86p | 60.97p |
| Apr - Jun 2025 | 27.03p | 53.80p |
| Jul - Sep 2025 | 25.73p | 51.37p |
| Oct - Dec 2025 | 26.35p | 53.68p |
| Jan - Mar 2026 | 27.69p | 54.75p |
| Apr - Jun 2026 | 24.67p | 57.21p |
| Jul - Sep 2026 (now) | 26.11p | 57.19p |
You can see the same chart, plus a quarter-by-quarter comparison against your own usage, inside the calculator's "Ofgem price cap history" section once you hit Calculate.
How much you pay depends on where you live
Ofgem does not set one single rate for the whole country. Great Britain is split into 14 regional pricing zones, and the difference between the cheapest and most expensive is bigger than most people expect. Customers in the North West of England and North Wales region currently pay the most for electricity, while East Midlands customers pay the least per unit. London has the lowest standing charge of any region, which is a separate saving on top of the unit rate.
| Region | Unit rate (p/kWh) | Standing charge (p/day) |
|---|---|---|
| East Midlands | 25.10p | 53.60p |
| London | 26.35p | 44.78p |
| North West | 26.13p | 47.61p |
| Yorkshire | 25.31p | 64.38p |
| Southern Scotland | 25.85p | 64.17p |
| Merseyside & N. Wales | 27.66p | 70.76p |
This is the main reason a national "average" figure quoted in the news is only ever a rough guide. Select your own region in the calculator above and every number updates to match, including the standing charge, which some households overlook entirely even though it can account for a fifth of a low-usage bill.
How to use this electricity cost calculator
The tool is built around two tabs: a full Bill Calculator and a standalone appliance checker called Socket Sleuth. Here is exactly what each control does and why it is there.
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Pick your Ofgem region
Start with the region dropdown at the top. If you are not sure which of the 14 zones you fall into, leave it on National average for a good ballpark figure, or check a recent bill, which usually names your distribution region. Changing this field instantly re-fills the unit rate and standing charge below with the correct figures for that area.
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Choose your payment method
Direct Debit, Prepayment and Standard Credit all sit under slightly different price caps. Direct Debit is generally cheapest, prepayment now sits close behind it since Ofgem's reforms narrowed the gap, and paying by standard credit (cheque or cash on receipt of a bill) carries the highest standing charge of the three. Select whichever matches how you actually pay and the rates adjust automatically.
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Set your tariff type
Most homes are on a single rate. If you have a dedicated Economy 7 meter with separate day and night readings, switch to Economy 7 and two rate boxes appear instead of one, along with a slider for what share of your usage happens overnight.
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Choose a usage preset or enter your own
Low, Medium and High give you a fast starting point based on Ofgem's typical consumption figures. For a genuinely accurate result, drag the Monthly usage slider to match the kWh figure on your last bill. If your usage is higher than the slider allows, a box appears letting you type in the exact figure by hand.
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Fine-tune the rates if yours are different
The auto-filled unit rate and standing charge reflect the Ofgem price cap for your region, but if you are on a fixed deal with a supplier rather than the standard variable tariff, your actual numbers might not match. Every rate box is editable. Just replace the figures with whatever is printed on your own bill and the calculator will use those instead.
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Press Calculate
This reveals your results: a rolling digital readout of your estimated cost, a breakdown between usage cost and standing charge, and quick totals for a day, a week, a month and a year. Use the Day / Week / Month / Year buttons above the readout to flick between them.
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Compare against a previous quarter
Underneath the main total, a dropdown lets you pick any of the last six price cap periods and see exactly how much more, or less, your current usage would have cost you back then, in pounds and as a percentage.
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Check the price cap history
Tap "Ofgem price cap history" to expand a table of the last seven quarters with a visual trend bar for each one, the same data covered earlier in this article, without leaving the calculator.
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Switch to Socket Sleuth for individual appliances
The second tab works independently from the bill calculator, with its own unit rate box, so you never need to fill in your whole bill just to check what one appliance costs. Pick a device from the list, or choose Custom appliance and type in your own wattage, set how many hours a day it runs, and you get a running cost broken down by day, week, month and year.
Worth knowing: the Reset button clears everything back to National average, Direct Debit, Medium usage, and scrolls you back to the top, so you can start again from a clean slate without reloading the page.
Direct Debit vs Prepayment vs Standard Credit
How you pay for your electricity changes the price you pay for it, sometimes by more than people realise. Ofgem sets a slightly different cap for each payment method, based on the different costs suppliers face serving each type of customer.
| Payment method | Unit rate (p/kWh) | Standing charge (p/day) |
|---|---|---|
| Direct Debit | 26.11p | 57.19p |
| Prepayment | 25.32p | 57.19p |
| Standard Credit | 27.56p | 65.74p |
Prepayment used to carry a real penalty compared with Direct Debit. Under the current rules that gap has almost closed, and on the figures above a prepayment customer actually pays a fraction less per unit, with an identical standing charge. Standard credit remains the most expensive option by a clear margin, both on the unit rate and on the standing charge, which is one of the better reasons to move to Direct Debit if a supplier will let you.
Economy 7: is it actually worth it?
Economy 7 splits your day into two pricing windows: roughly seven off-peak night-time hours at a lower rate, and the rest of the day at a higher one. It was originally designed for homes with storage heaters, and Ofgem's own assumption, used when calculating the Economy 7 price cap, is that a typical customer uses 58 percent of their electricity during peak hours and 42 percent off-peak.
That assumption matters because it tells you roughly where the break-even point is. If you use a normal amount of electricity at night, well below that 42 percent mark, a flat single rate will usually work out cheaper, because you are paying the higher day rate for most of your usage without earning much of a discount on the rest. Economy 7 tends to pay off for households that run storage heaters overnight, do laundry on a timer in the small hours, or charge an electric vehicle at home each night. In the calculator, switch to Economy 7 and move the night-time share slider to match your own pattern to see whether it comes out cheaper for you specifically.
What your appliances really cost to run
Whole-bill figures are useful for budgeting, but they do not tell you where your money is actually going. That is what the Socket Sleuth tab is for. Below is a snapshot of typical running costs at the current national average rate of 26.11p per kWh, for reference.
| Appliance | Typical power | Approx. cost per use / hour |
|---|---|---|
| Kettle (full boil, 3kW) | 3,000W | about 8p per boil |
| Washing machine (40C cycle) | 2,000W | about 52p per cycle |
| Tumble dryer | 2,500W | about 65p per hour |
| Electric oven | 2,100W | about 55p per hour |
| Dishwasher | 1,800W | about 47p per cycle (1.2h) |
| Fridge-freezer | 120W | about 75p per day, running continuously |
| Electric shower | 8,500W | about 22p per 10-minute shower |
| TV (50 inch LED) | 100W | about 3p per hour |
| EV home charger (7kW) | 7,000W | about £1.83 per hour |
Notice how much of a spread there is. An electric shower draws far more power than a kettle, but because a shower runs for a few minutes and a fridge runs all day, the fridge can quietly cost more over a week than several showers combined. This is exactly the kind of thing that is easy to get wrong by guesswork and takes seconds to check properly in Socket Sleuth, especially once you switch it to your own tariff's unit rate rather than the national average used above.
How your electricity bill is worked out
Behind every energy bill sits one formula. Once you know it, the calculator's output stops feeling like a black box.
Daily cost = (units used that day in kWh × unit rate) + standing charge
Your bill for any period is simply that daily figure added up over the number of days involved.
Say you use 6.84 kWh on an average day, which is what a Medium-usage household on the 208 kWh a month preset actually works out to, on the national average Direct Debit rate of 26.11p per kWh with a 57.19p daily standing charge. Your usage cost that day is 6.84 × 26.11p, which comes to about £1.79, and the standing charge adds another 57.19p regardless of how much or little you used. Add those together and a single day comes to roughly £2.36, which is why a month of otherwise identical days lands at £71.70, exactly matching what the calculator shows for a Medium-usage household on the national average rate.
The standing charge is the part people forget. It is billed every single day, even if you switch everything off and go away for a fortnight, which is why it is worth checking separately from the unit rate rather than assuming a "cheap tariff" is automatically the cheapest option once both numbers are added up.
Seven ways to bring your bill down
- Check you are not on a supplier's default rate if a genuinely cheaper fixed deal is available for your usage pattern; use this calculator's editable rate boxes to test one against your current tariff before switching.
- Move off standard credit if you can. The gap to Direct Debit shown earlier in this guide is real money, every single quarter.
- Batch your laundry and dishwasher loads rather than running half-full cycles; both appliances use nearly the same electricity whether the drum is half or completely full.
- Boil only what you need. A kettle is efficient, but boiling a full kettle for one cup wastes a surprising amount over a year of daily use.
- Unplug or switch off standby devices you rarely use. Small continuous draws from routers, consoles and set-top boxes add up over 24 hours in a way a single big appliance running for ten minutes does not.
- Reconsider Economy 7 if your night usage does not clear the 42 percent mark mentioned earlier, since staying on it without shifting real usage overnight can cost more than a simple single rate.
- Recheck your numbers every quarter. The price cap changes four times a year, and a tariff that was competitive in April can quietly become expensive by October if you never look again.
Frequently asked questions
Tap any question to see the answer.
Under the Ofgem price cap for 1 July to 30 September 2026, the national average Direct Debit rate is 26.11p per kWh, plus a standing charge of 57.19p per day. Your own rate depends on your region, payment method and whether you are on the price cap or a fixed supplier deal.
Because of the standing charge. It is a flat daily fee added on top of whatever you use, so two households with identical usage but different standing charges will end up with different bills even on the same unit rate.
Not by much any more. Under the current price cap, prepayment sits close to Direct Debit and can even work out marginally cheaper per unit, though it depends on the exact figures for your region. Standard credit remains the most expensive of the three payment methods.
Compare how much of your electricity use genuinely happens overnight against Ofgem's assumed split of 58 percent peak and 42 percent off-peak for Economy 7 customers. If you are well below 42 percent off-peak usage, a single rate tariff is usually cheaper.
Yes. Every default rate, regional figure and historical quarter in this tool is taken from Ofgem's published price cap data. You can always overwrite any rate box with your own supplier's figures if you are not on the standard price-capped tariff.
A typical 3kW kettle costs roughly 8p per full boil at the current national average rate, though this drops if you only boil the amount of water you actually need rather than filling it up each time.
Direct Debit is generally the cheapest payment method under the current price cap, narrowly ahead of prepayment, with standard credit noticeably more expensive on both the unit rate and the standing charge.
All figures in this article are based on Ofgem's published national-average Direct Debit price cap for 1 July to 30 September 2026, including VAT, and are provided as estimates only. Your own supplier's rates, meter type and payment method may differ from the figures shown here, so always check a recent bill for your exact tariff. This article and the calculator above are provided for general information and do not constitute financial advice.
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