The Real Cost of an Electric Blanket All Night

Warming one bed with an electric blanket all night costs as little as $32.99 a year on its low setting, and just $98.97 a year even on high — at the U.S. average electricity rate of 18.83¢/kWh. Compare that to a space heater warming a whole room on a typical 6-hour evening schedule: $618.57 a year, six to nineteen times more.

Why a blanket beats a space heater on cost

An electric blanket heats you directly — a low-wattage resistive wire close to the skin — instead of heating a volume of room air that keeps leaking out through walls, windows, and doorways. A space heater has to keep replacing that lost heat for as long as it runs; a blanket only has to keep one body warm. Same physics, very different bill.

What the three settings actually cost

All figures assume a full night's sleep — 8 hours — at the U.S. average rate:

• Low (~60 W): $32.99 a year.
• Medium (~100 W): $54.98 a year.
• High (~180 W): $98.97 a year — still a fraction of most other heating options.

How it stacks up against whole-room heating

WattCost's own space heater calculator defaults to 6 hours a day at 1,500 W, approximating evening-and-morning heating of one room through a cold season: $618.57 a year. That's roughly 6x an electric blanket on high, and nearly 19x a blanket on low — explored further in WattCost's breakdown of space heaters, ceiling fans, and pool pumps, the category of devices ENERGY STAR doesn't certify for annual energy use.

What actually moves the number

• Setting. Low to high alone is roughly a 3x spread — 60 W to 180 W covers the whole range above.
• Hours in use. Eight hours matches a full night's sleep; a blanket used only to pre-warm the bed for an hour costs a fraction of the annual figures here.
• Your state's electricity rate. The same 180 W blanket costs $64.91 a year in North Dakota (12.35¢/kWh) versus $245.03 in Hawaii (46.62¢/kWh) — a 3.8x gap from rate alone.

FAQ

How much does an electric blanket cost to run overnight? Between $32.99 and $98.97 a year for a full 8-hour night, depending on the setting (low/medium/high), at the U.S. average electricity rate of 18.83¢/kWh.

Is an electric blanket cheaper than a space heater? Yes, substantially. At typical default schedules, a space heater costs about $618.57 a year — 6 to 19 times more than an electric blanket — because it has to keep reheating a whole room instead of just one body.

Does the low/medium/high setting matter much for cost? Yes: the difference between a blanket's low (~60 W) and high (~180 W) setting is roughly 3x the annual cost, from $32.99 to $98.97 a year at the same 8-hour schedule.

How much does my state's electricity rate affect the cost? A lot in relative terms, though the absolute numbers stay small: the same high-setting blanket costs $64.91 a year in North Dakota versus $245.03 in Hawaii — a 3.8x difference driven entirely by the local rate.