MB Networks
Watts · Dollars · Reality
What does your gear cost to run?
List your gear, set your electricity rate, and see the true cost of keeping it powered around the clock. Everything updates live.
Continuous draw
0W
Per month
$0.00
Per year
$0.00
Per day
$0.00
Energy / month
0 kWh
Your equipment
Tip: blended Ontario residential rates sit roughly around $0.13–0.18/kWh once delivery and regulatory charges are included. Check a recent bill for your real number.
Why "idle" and "peak" watts aren't the same number
A device's rated power (on the label or spec sheet) is almost always its peak draw, not what it actually pulls most of the time — a server idles well below its rated wattage and a NAS spinning up drives briefly spikes above its steady-state draw. Real-world cost estimates need the actual sustained draw your gear pulls, which is usually meaningfully lower than the number on the box.
Turning watts into a real dollar figure
The math is straightforward once you have real wattage: watts × 24 hours ÷ 1000 = kWh/day, multiplied by your local rate per kWh and by 30 for a monthly figure. The part people actually get wrong isn't the math, it's the input — using a device's peak/rated wattage instead of its measured sustained draw routinely overstates real running cost by 30–50% for typical homelab gear.
How do I find my actual electricity rate?
Check a recent utility bill for your effective rate per kWh, which usually blends multiple charges (energy, delivery, regulatory fees) into one number higher than the base generation rate alone. Using just the headline generation rate without delivery charges is a common way to underestimate real cost.
Why is my calculated cost higher than I expected?
Almost always the input wattage — a device's rated/peak wattage (from its label or spec sheet) overstates what it actually draws most of the time. A cheap plug-in power meter measuring real sustained draw gives a far more accurate number than the spec sheet.
Does 24/7 uptime really matter that much for cost?
Yes — a device running continuously accumulates cost 8,760 hours a year regardless of how small its individual wattage looks. A 10W device left on constantly costs more annually than a 200W device used for an hour a day; total kWh, not peak wattage, is what actually shows up on the bill.
Related tools
Infrastructure
UPS Runtime Calculator
Enter your UPS battery capacity and connected load to see estimated runtime. Pick from common UPS models and devices for instant results.
Open →Infrastructure
Rack Unit & Weight Planner
Plan a rack layout — track U space used, total weight against rack load rating, and catch mixed front-to-back/side-to-side airflow before it becomes a heat problem.
Open →Infrastructure
Data Size Converter
Convert between bits, bytes, KB, MB, GB, TB, PB and their binary equivalents (KiB, MiB, GiB). Instant browser-side conversion with common size presets.
Open →Infrastructure
SLA Uptime Calculator
Calculate allowed downtime from any SLA percentage. See downtime per year, month, week, day, and hour for any availability target.
Open →Infrastructure
Network Speed Converter
Convert between Mbps, Gbps, MB/s, GB/s and all common network and storage throughput units. Common interface presets for USB, Ethernet, Wi-Fi, NVMe, and more.
Open →Infrastructure
Network Transfer Time Calculator
Enter a file size and link speed to see how long a transfer will take. Includes real-world estimates for wired and Wi-Fi connections.
Open →Estimates only · actual consumption varies with load