Does a slow cooker cost less than the oven?
Yes — it runs for hours, but at the wattage of a light bulb, so a full day's cooking costs less than an hour of the oven.
Typical model is rated 200W
Price cap is 26.11p
18p per use, 156 uses a year, 109 kWh in total — about £2 a month.
A slow cooker's trick is a tiny heating element — often under 200 watts — wrapped in a well-insulated pot. Eight hours on low uses less electricity than an hour of a 2kW oven, because it is barely trickling heat in and losing almost none of it. For stews, curries and braises it is both the cheapest way to cook and, conveniently, one of the best.
The oven wins only when you need browning, roasting or capacity for a crowd. For the long, low, one-pot meals a slow cooker is designed for, nothing in the kitchen does it cheaper.
The short answer: Cheaper than the oven for long, slow meals — one of the best-value ways to cook.
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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.