What does a dishwasher cost to run?
Around 30p a cycle, and it is almost certainly cheaper than doing the same dishes by hand under a hot tap.
Price cap is 26.11p
29p per cycle, 260 cycles a year, 286 kWh in total — about £6 a month.
Nearly all of a dishwasher's electricity goes on heating water — the motor and pump are trivial by comparison. That is why eco mode is cheaper despite running for three hours: it heats less water to a lower temperature and compensates with time.
Washing the same load by hand typically uses more hot water, and if that water is heated by an immersion heater it will cost more, not less. A full machine on eco is the cheapest option available to most kitchens.
The one habit worth changing is rinsing plates under a running hot tap before loading. It can cost more than the cycle itself, and modern detergents are designed to work on food residue.
The short answer: About 25–35p a cycle on eco. Run it full, skip the pre-rinse, and it beats the sink.
What actually helps
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This is the small stuff
Every appliance on this site put together is usually less than a third of a typical energy bill. Heating the house is the rest of it. If the numbers here bothered you, the number that actually matters is what your heating costs — and whether a heat pump would make it better or worse in your particular house.
Work out your heating costOther appliances
Energy figures checked 2026-08-26. Electricity priced at the Ofgem cap for 1 July – 30 September 2026. Your own machine and tariff will differ — put your figures in above.