How Much Electricity Does a Printer Use? Worked Examples

How much electricity does a printer use in a normal home? Less than most people fear while it prints, and more than they expect while it does nothing. A printer spends almost all of its life waiting for the next job, so the figures that matter most are standby and sleep power, not the big number printed on the box. This guide shows where to find the real figures for your model and how to turn them into kilowatt-hours and money.

Where to find your printer’s power figures

Open the printer’s online manual and look for Specifications, then Power consumption. Good manuals list several modes. Two real examples:

Canon TS3300 series (small home inkjet all-in-one):

Mode	Power
Printing (copy)	11 W or less
Standby	1.7 W or less
Off	0.3 W or less

Canon notes that the wait time before standby cannot be changed on this model.

Brother HL-L2460DW (compact mono laser), approximate averages:

Mode	Power
Printing	about 470 W
Printing, quiet mode	about 260 W
Ready	about 44 W
Sleep	about 3.8 W
Deep sleep	about 0.4 W
Off	about 0.06 W

The difference while printing is large: a laser has to heat its fuser to bond toner to the paper, while an inkjet only moves a carriage and fires tiny drops. Our laser vs inkjet comparison covers the other differences.

The formula

Energy in kilowatt-hours (kWh) is:

watts x hours / 1,000 = kWh

Your electricity bill shows the price per kWh. Multiply the two and you have the cost. Do this for each mode and add them up.

Worked example 1: a small inkjet left on all month

Assume the Canon inkjet above prints about 40 pages a month, which takes roughly one hour of printing in total, and is otherwise left in standby, never switched off. A 30-day month has 720 hours.

• Printing: 11 W x 1 h = 11 Wh = 0.011 kWh
• Standby: 1.7 W x 719 h = about 1,222 Wh = about 1.22 kWh
• Total: about 1.23 kWh a month

Standby is responsible for over 99% of it. If the same printer is switched off with its power button when not needed, say for 600 of those hours, standby falls to 1.7 W x 119 h (about 0.20 kWh) plus 0.3 W x 600 h off (0.18 kWh), for a total of roughly 0.39 kWh. Either way the energy is small; multiply by your tariff to see the money.

Worked example 2: a mono laser

Assume the Brother laser above prints for about 30 minutes a month, sits in ready mode for about 3 hours in total after jobs before falling asleep, and is otherwise in sleep.

• Printing: 470 W x 0.5 h = 235 Wh = 0.235 kWh
• Ready: 44 W x 3 h = 132 Wh = 0.132 kWh
• Sleep: 3.8 W x 716.5 h = about 2,723 Wh = about 2.72 kWh
• Total: about 3.1 kWh a month

Two lessons. First, sleep power again dominates. If the printer reaches deep sleep (about 0.4 W) for most of those hours, the sleep share falls to under 0.3 kWh. Second, a laser that is set never to sleep would sit at about 44 W: 44 W x 720 h is about 31.7 kWh a month, around ten times more. That is the case to avoid.

These are illustrations built from the published figures and the stated assumptions. Your own result depends on your model, settings and habits.

How to measure it yourself

For a real number, plug the printer into a plug-in energy monitor (sold in hardware stores). Leave it for a typical week, read the kWh, and multiply by about 4.3 for a month. Measure once with your current settings and once after changing them, so you can see what the changes save.

Ways to cut printer electricity use

1. Keep sleep and auto-off settings on. ENERGY STAR notes that devices are often set at their maximum energy-saving performance as the factory default, and advises keeping those settings. Shorten the sleep timer if your printer allows it.
2. Switch off with the power button when you will not print for several days. On an inkjet, use the button rather than pulling the plug or using a switched power strip, so the print head is capped properly; see print head clogging.
3. Do not disable deep sleep to make the printer wake faster. The saving in waiting time is seconds; the cost runs all month.
4. Print in batches. For a laser, several pages in one job need one warm-up instead of several.
5. Print less. Two-sided printing and printing only the pages you need save paper as well as energy; see how to print double-sided and our eco-friendly printing tips.

Unplugging to save power: do it in the right order

Pulling the plug is the only way to get a printer to zero watts, and for a printer you use once a month it can make sense. The order matters on an inkjet. Canon’s TS3300 manual says to press the ON button first, because turning the power off that way lets the printer cap the print head and stop it drying out, and to unplug only when the ON lamp is off; unplugging while the lamp is lit or flashing may damage the printer so that it cannot print. The same routine applies when you move house: see how to move a printer.

If you find the printer is unplugged more often than it is used, it is worth asking whether you need one at all. Our guide do I need a printer at home helps you count what you actually print and compare it with a print shop or library.

Should energy use decide which printer you buy?

For most homes, no. The cost of ink, toner and paper is usually much larger than the electricity, so start with cost per page. But energy is a useful tie-breaker. Look for the ENERGY STAR mark, which ENERGY STAR says can mean savings of up to 35 percent against conventional equipment, check the sleep and off figures in the manual before buying, and prefer a model that sleeps quickly. If you are choosing between a laser and an inkjet, the monochrome laser guide puts power use alongside the other trade-offs.