How much does a home sauna cost to run?

Reviewed August 2026 · Saunas · Rates are EIA's published state averages, June 2026

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Two households with the same heater, used the same way, can pay four times as much as each other. The heater is not the variable. Your state is.

Short answer

A 6 kW heater used three times a week uses roughly 975 kilowatt-hours a year. At the US average residential rate that is about 179 dollars a year, or 15 a month. In Nevada it is 128. In Hawaii it is 514. The equipment is identical; only the rate moved.

The arithmetic, in the open

A sauna heater draws its full rating while it is bringing the room up to temperature, then cycles on a thermostat once it gets there. So a session is two different loads back to back:

kWh per session = kW × (heat-up hours) + kW × (soak hours) × duty cycle

Worked on a 6 kW heater, 40 minutes to heat, 45 minutes of actual sauna, and a 50 % duty cycle while soaking:

6 × (40 ÷ 60) = 4.00 kWh heating up
6 × (45 ÷ 60) × 0.50 = 2.25 kWh soaking
6.25 kWh per session. Three sessions a week × 52 = 975 kWh a year.

That 50 % is an assumption, and you should know it is ours rather than anyone's published figure. We have not found a manufacturer that states what fraction of full draw a heater averages once the room is up to temperature. It depends on the insulation, the outdoor temperature, how often the door opens and where the thermostat sits. It is the single largest error term on this page, and it only affects the soak portion — the heat-up half is close to a known quantity. Halve the duty cycle and the annual figure drops to about 800 kWh; double the soak time and it climbs. Anyone quoting you a running cost without mentioning this has not thought about it.

What that costs in every state

975 kWh a year, priced at each state's published residential average. Cheapest first.

#	State	cents/kWh	Per year (USD)	Per month (USD)
1	Nevada	13.11	128	10.65
2	Nebraska	13.25	129	10.77
3	Utah	13.37	130	10.86
4	Louisiana	13.49	132	10.96
5	Tennessee	14.07	137	11.43
6	Arkansas	14.12	138	11.47
7	North Dakota	14.12	138	11.47
8	Kentucky	14.26	139	11.59
9	Oklahoma	14.33	140	11.64
10	Idaho	14.37	140	11.68
11	North Carolina	14.74	144	11.98
12	Mississippi	14.88	145	12.09
13	Washington	14.91	145	12.11
14	New Mexico	15.06	147	12.24
15	Florida	15.10	147	12.27
16	Montana	15.14	148	12.30
17	Arizona	15.18	148	12.33
18	Wyoming	15.24	149	12.38
19	South Dakota	15.36	150	12.48
20	West Virginia	15.45	151	12.55
21	South Carolina	15.55	152	12.63
22	Kansas	15.71	153	12.76
23	Iowa	15.93	155	12.94
24	Texas	15.94	155	12.95
25	Missouri	16.22	158	13.18
26	Oregon	16.32	159	13.26
27	Georgia	16.36	160	13.29
28	Alabama	16.40	160	13.32
29	Colorado	17.13	167	13.92
30	Virginia	17.22	168	13.99
31	Indiana	17.51	171	14.23
32	Minnesota	17.52	171	14.23
33	Ohio	19.19	187	15.59
34	Delaware	19.29	188	15.67
35	Wisconsin	19.56	191	15.89
36	Illinois	19.89	194	16.16
37	Pennsylvania	21.73	212	17.66
38	Maryland	21.84	213	17.75
39	Michigan	22.99	224	18.68
40	Connecticut	24.32	237	19.76
41	District of Columbia	24.39	238	19.82
42	Vermont	24.44	238	19.86
43	New Jersey	24.95	243	20.27
44	New Hampshire	27.01	263	21.95
45	Alaska	28.21	275	22.92
46	Rhode Island	29.23	285	23.75
47	New York	29.49	288	23.96
48	Maine	29.59	289	24.04
49	Massachusetts	29.61	289	24.06
50	California	34.74	339	28.23
51	Hawaii	52.72	514	42.84

Rates: EIA Electric Power Monthly, residential, June 2026. US average 18.34 cents per kilowatthour, which puts the same sauna at about 179 dollars a year.

The five cheapest states, the five dearest, and the average

Same 6 kW heater, same three sessions a week, same 975 kWh a year. Annual cost in dollars at each state’s published residential rate.

Hawaii pays four times what Nevada pays to run the identical heater the identical way. That gap is usually larger than the difference between the models people spend weeks comparing — and it is not a property of any of them.

Cheapest to most expensive is a factor of four for identical equipment used identically. Nevada at 13.11 cents against Hawaii at 52.72. This is the part of an appliance decision that no product review can tell you, because it is not a property of the product — and it is routinely larger than the difference between the models people spend weeks comparing.

Why that number is not your bill

The rate in that table is an average, not a tariff, and the difference matters when you are adding a new load. EIA's own glossary says the figure "is calculated by dividing the total monthly revenue by the corresponding total monthly sales for each sector and geographic area". It is money collected divided by energy sold, so every fixed monthly customer charge, minimum bill and rider is inside it — spread across kilowatt-hours that those charges do not actually scale with.

When you switch a sauna on, what you incur is your marginal energy rate, and the average can be wrong in either direction. On a flat tariff with a large fixed charge, the average sits above your marginal rate and the table overestimates your sauna. On a tiered tariff, a new load can push you into a higher block and the marginal rate is above the average, so the table underestimates. On a time-of-use tariff, when you run it decides the answer outright — and a sauna is a discretionary evening load, which is exactly the window that is usually priced highest.

The fix takes a minute. Find the energy charge on your own bill, the per-kWh line rather than the total divided by your usage, and use that instead. The calculator below has a box for it.

Running cost by state

The same arithmetic with your own heater, your own session length and your own rate — and it does the air purifier and the water softener at the same time, which is usually the more honest question.

Open the calculator

What actually moves the number

In rough order of how much leverage each one has:

Your state. A factor of four, and you are not going to change it. Worth knowing before you buy rather than after.
Sessions per week. Linear and entirely yours. Twice a week instead of four halves the bill exactly.
Heater size. Also linear, but not a free choice — the room decides it. A heater too small for the room does not save money, it just never gets there and runs at full draw trying.
Heat-up time. This is the half of the session that runs at full power, so it usually costs more than the soak. It is set by insulation and by how much glass the room has, which is a construction decision made long before the first electricity bill.
Duty cycle. Real, unmeasurable from where you are sitting, and driven by the same insulation and glass.

Notice that two of the top five are decided when the room is built. If you are still at the design stage, insulation and glass area are the running-cost decisions, not the heater model.

Infrared cabins are a different order of magnitude

The comparison people ask for is infrared against traditional, and on running cost it is not close, because the installed power is not close. A one- to two-person far-infrared cabin such as the Dynamic Barcelona lists its supply as 120V/15 A, which is at most about 1.4 kW of continuous draw. The smallest traditional heater Harvia sells in the KIP range is 3.0 kW at 240V, and 6 kW is a common size for a real room.

So a traditional sauna is roughly four times the installed power of a small infrared cabin, and it also needs a longer heat-up. Expect the running cost to differ by something in that neighbourhood.

We are not going to give you a precise infrared figure, and here is why. The duty cycle problem above applies to infrared cabins too, and if anything it applies harder: a radiant panel cabin reaches its operating point quickly and then cycles, and no manufacturer publishes that fraction either. Multiplying one unpublished assumption by another and printing the result to the nearest dollar would look authoritative and mean nothing. What we can say with a source behind it is the installed power, and that is the number that sets the ceiling.

What this has not costed

The installation, which for a traditional sauna is usually the largest single number in the project and is driven almost entirely by the distance from your electrical panel and how hard that path is to reach. Any demand charge, minimum bill or seasonal rate structure on your tariff. The heat a sauna dumps into a conditioned house, which your air conditioning then pays to remove in summer. Water, if you use a shower either side of a session, which most people do. And the replacement cost of the equipment over a decade, which usually dwarfs the electricity.

Sources

The rate table is EIA's published figure. The usage assumptions are stated as assumptions wherever they appear, because one of them is not published by anybody and pretending otherwise would be the easiest lie on this page.

EIA, Electric Power Monthly, average price of electricity to ultimate customers by end-use sector — residential, by state, June 2026, with a US average of 18.34 cents per kilowatthour. EIA Table 5.6.A
EIA glossary, average revenue per kilowatthour — "calculated by dividing the total monthly revenue by the corresponding total monthly sales for each sector and geographic area". This is the sentence that makes the state figure an average rather than a tariff. EIA glossary
Harvia, How do I select the correct heater power — the sizing rule behind the heater ratings used in the worked examples. Harvia support
Harvia KIP series manual — the 3.0 kW figure for the smallest traditional heater sold in the US. PDF
The duty cycle is not published by anyone. Once a room is at temperature the element cycles on a thermostat, and no manufacturer documentation we have found states the fraction of full draw that averages out to. It is an assumption on this page, it is labelled as one everywhere it appears, and it is the largest source of error in every figure here.