What is the cost of mining one XMR in electricity?
There is no fixed electricity cost for mining one XMR. Your cost depends on how much power your device uses, how quickly it mines, your electricity rate, and how much mining work the Monero network requires.
How to calculate your electricity cost
The simplest way is to compare your daily electricity bill for mining with your expected daily XMR earnings:
Electricity cost per XMR = daily electricity cost ÷ expected XMR earned per day
Calculate your daily electricity cost like this:
Daily electricity cost = power in watts ÷ 1,000 × hours mining per day × electricity price per kWh
A kilowatt-hour (kWh) is the unit your electricity company bills you for. A device drawing 100 watts for 10 hours uses 1 kWh.
For this calculation, you need:
- Your device’s measured power use while mining.
- Your electricity price per kWh, including applicable usage-based charges.
- Your expected XMR earnings over the same running time.
Use a live Monero mining calculator for the earnings estimate. Enter your measured hashrate, which means the number of mining calculations your device performs each second.
A worked example—not an earnings forecast
Suppose your device uses 100 watts, runs 24 hours a day, and your electricity costs $0.15 per kWh.
Your daily electricity cost would be:
100 ÷ 1,000 × 24 × $0.15 = $0.36
Now suppose a live calculator estimates earnings of 0.0002 XMR per day for your setup. That number is hypothetical, not a claim about current mining returns.
Your estimated electricity cost per XMR would be:
$0.36 ÷ 0.0002 = $1,800 per XMR
At that assumed earning rate, reaching one XMR would take 5,000 days. You should not treat that as a reliable long-term forecast: network competition, your equipment, and electricity prices can change substantially.
The calculation is most useful as a snapshot of your current efficiency.
Measure the power you actually pay for
A plug-in electricity meter gives you a better estimate than your processor’s advertised wattage. Your bill covers the whole device, including memory, fans, and power-supply losses—not just the processor.
There are two useful ways to count power:
- Full running cost: Use the device’s total power draw if you keep it on specifically to mine.
- Extra mining cost: Subtract its normal idle power only if the device would genuinely be running anyway.
Include extra cooling electricity if mining makes you run a fan or air conditioner more often.
For browser mining, measure performance in the actual browser session. Browser limits, background tabs, and heat-related slowdowns can change both power use and earnings. Do not substitute results from dedicated mining software.
Why the estimate keeps changing
Monero adjusts mining difficulty, the amount of work needed to find a block, every block—roughly every two minutes. Higher difficulty generally means less XMR for the same computing effort.
If you mine through a pool or browser service, account for its fees when estimating the XMR you actually receive. A payout threshold can delay payment, but it does not stop electricity charges from accumulating.
The bottom line
Divide your measured electricity spending by your realistically expected XMR earnings. That gives you an electricity-only cost per XMR—not total profit, because equipment costs and wear are still separate.
