A printer does not switch off when it looks off. It drops to standby, drawing a small but constant current so it can respond instantly to a remote, a schedule, or a network request. Over a full year, that idle draw is often worth more than the electricity the device uses while actually doing its job.
A printer draws about 4.0 W in standby, idle for roughly 23.8 hours a day. That is $6.39 a year in standby power alone, which is 95 percent of everything this device costs to own and run.
Standby cost for your own printer
Change any box. The result updates as you type.
Planning estimate. The rate box is prefilled with a regional average; the figure on your own bill is the one that matters. Power is draw while running, not while switched on.
Standby versus active cost
| Standby draw | 4.0 W |
|---|---|
| Typical idle time | 23.8 hours/day |
| Standby cost per year | $6.39 |
| Active use draw | 20 W |
| Typical active time | 0.3 hours/day |
| Active use cost per year | $0.34 |
| Total annual cost | $6.73 |
Standby is the larger of the two costs here, which is common for devices that are ready to respond to a remote, a network signal, or a scheduled job around the clock. The hours actually spent doing useful work are a small fraction of the day it sits plugged in.
Cost by hours spent idle
Idle time varies by household. A device used briefly in the evening spends most of the day in standby; one used for work all day spends less.
| Idle time | Standby energy | Standby cost |
|---|---|---|
| 8 h idle/day | 11.7 kWh/yr | $2.15 |
| 12 h idle/day | 17.5 kWh/yr | $3.23 |
| 16 h idle/day | 23.4 kWh/yr | $4.31 |
| 20 h idle/day | 29.2 kWh/yr | $5.38 |
| 24 h idle/day | 35.0 kWh/yr | $6.46 |
Is a smart plug worth it here?
A smart plug or timer that cuts power outside active hours would eliminate roughly $5.75 a year for this device alone, allowing a small margin for the device to reboot and reconnect. A basic smart plug costs 10 to 20 dollars, so the payback here is 2.6 years on a single device. The case gets stronger fast once you cover several devices with one power strip.
Some devices should not be cut this way. Anything that needs to respond instantly, download overnight updates, or maintain a security or medical function is a poor candidate for scheduled power-off regardless of what it costs to leave running.
What this looks like across a household
One device rarely moves a bill on its own. The US Department of Energy estimates standby power accounts for roughly 5 to 10 percent of residential electricity use nationally, commonly 100 to 200 dollars a year once every idle device in a home is added together. This page prices one of them; the full standby power index covers the rest.
Why this device does not fully switch off
Standby mode exists on purpose, not as an oversight. A device drops to a low-power state rather than a true off so it can respond instantly to a remote signal, keep a network connection alive, hold a recording schedule, or complete a background update without you waiting for a full boot cycle. That responsiveness costs a small continuous draw, which is exactly what this page prices.
The draw itself comes from an internal power supply that stays partially active, plus whatever the device keeps running: a clock, a Wi-Fi radio listening for a wake signal, an infrared receiver watching for the remote, or a processor checking a schedule. Older devices and cheaper power supplies tend to idle higher than recent, efficiency-rated ones, so two units of the same type can differ by several watts.
What $6.39 a year actually buys
It is worth being fair to the number rather than treating every watt of standby as pure waste. The instant response, the maintained schedule, the avoided boot delay: these are real conveniences, and for many households they are worth more than the electricity costs. The point of this page is not that standby power is wrong, only that it is rarely as invisible, or as free, as it feels.