What does a hot tub cost to run?
The one appliance here that can rival the heating. A hot tub holds its water hot around the clock, so it sips electricity every hour of every day — and far more in winter.
Typical model is rated 2,000W
Price cap is 26.11p
£1.31 per day, 365 days a year, 1,825 kWh in total — about £40 a month. Costed over 365 days, not the whole year — this is a winter appliance.
A hot tub's cost is not the odd soak — it is keeping 1,000 litres of water at 38°C every hour it is switched on. A well-insulated rigid tub with a tight cover might average three to four kWh a day across the year; an inflatable tub with a thin cover, left outside in winter, can easily double that. The number swings more on insulation and cover than on how often anyone actually uses it.
Winter is where the money goes: the colder it is outside, the harder the heater works to hold temperature. Lowering the set temperature a couple of degrees, keeping the cover on religiously, and using a thermal blanket underneath make a bigger difference than anything else. If you only use it in summer, draining it for the coldest months can save more than any efficiency tweak.
The short answer: Genuinely expensive — often several hundred pounds a year. A tight-fitting cover and good insulation matter more than usage.
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.