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HUB 05 · Running Costs & Power

Air Fryer vs Toaster Oven: Which Uses Less Electricity?

The honest answer surprises people: a full air fryer oven and a full toaster oven usually draw the same power. What decides the bill is how long each runs and how much air it heats.

By Stephen V.Updated How we rank
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We earn a commission if you buy through our links. It does not change the price you pay, and it does not decide our picks — the scoring rubric is published in full, including what disqualifies an oven. How this works.

The surprise: they usually draw the same

A full-size air fryer toaster oven and a full-size plain toaster oven are both, almost always, 1,800-watt machines — because that is the ceiling of a standard 15-amp kitchen circuit. Per hour of oven-on time, they cost the same: 33.9¢ at 18.83¢ per kWh. The fan in the air fryer draws a handful of watts on top, which is lost in the rounding.

So what decides the bill?

Time and cavity size, not the label. The air fryer's fan makes it cook faster, so for the same food it may run fewer minutes — which makes it slightly cheaper per task despite identical wattage. Against that, a small basket air fryer heats a much smaller cavity than a large toaster oven, so it reaches temperature faster and wastes less energy getting there.

Same wattage, different time:
1800 W oven, 30 min = 0.9 kWh = 16.9¢
1800 W air fryer, 22 min (fan, faster) = 0.66 kWh = 12.4¢
Illustrative times, same rated power. The fan does not raise the draw meaningfully; it lowers the minutes. Rate: 18.83¢ per kWh.

Where a real difference appears

At the budget end. A small radiant toaster oven may run 1,150 or 1,300 watts rather than 1,800, which is genuinely cheaper per hour — 21.7¢ and 24.5¢respectively — because it does not need more power to heat a small cavity. That is the one place the “which uses less” question has a clear answer, and it favors the cheap plain oven, not the fancy one. The full method is here.

The hardware

The ovens this page is about

The ovens referred to above, with prices pulled live from Amazon and dated on every card. Full rankings live in the roundups linked from this page.

  • Ninja Ninja Foodi 10-in-1 XL Pro Air Fry Oven (DT201)

    1,800 W

    Ninja Foodi 10-in-1 XL Pro Air Fry Oven (DT201)

    The value pick, and it is not close. Same 1,800 W as ovens costing two and a half times more, two full cooking levels, and a published capacity claim — two 12-inch pizzas — that is specific enough to be checkable rather than a vibe.

    $159.95on Amazon
  • Cuisinart Cuisinart Custom Classic Toaster Oven Broiler (TOB-40N)

    1,800 W

    Cuisinart Custom Classic Toaster Oven Broiler (TOB-40N)

    1,800 W behind three knobs. It has been sold essentially unchanged for over a decade, which in small appliances is the strongest reliability signal available short of taking one apart.

    $108.17on Amazon

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Questions

Frequently asked

Does an air fryer use less electricity than a toaster oven?
Per hour, no — a full air fryer oven and a full toaster oven both usually draw 1,800 watts, costing about 33.9¢ an hour. But the air fryer's fan cooks faster, so for the same food it may run fewer minutes and cost slightly less per task. A small basket air fryer also heats less air, saving energy on small batches.
Is a small basket air fryer cheaper to run than a big oven?
For a small amount of food, yes — it heats a much smaller cavity, so it reaches temperature faster and wastes less energy than a large toaster oven or a full-size oven doing the same small job.

Keep reading

Related

Receipts

Sources

We have not cooked in these ovens and we do not pretend to have. Specifications come from the manufacturer's own published documents; electricity rates come from the US Energy Information Administration; prices come from the live Amazon API. Where a figure is not published, the page says “not published” rather than guessing. Read the full method.