How Much Does It Cost to Run a Garage Door Opener in the UK? (2026)

A garage door opener runs for about 15 seconds per cycle, so the motor uses almost nothing. Its standby draw of 3 to 8 watts, waiting for the remote, is the real cost.

A typical garage door opener (500 W) costs £0.13 per hour, or about £0.079 per month at 0.02 hours a day in the UK. Cheap to run

Electricity price region

Hours used per day

Wattage	Per hour	Per day	Per month	Per year
Low 300 W	£0.079	£0.002	£0.047	£0.58
Typical 500 W	£0.13	£0.003	£0.079	£0.96
High 800 W	£0.21	£0.004	£0.13	£1.54

Formula: watts ÷ 1000 × hours × price per kWh. Typical use is 0.02 h/day ≈ 4 kWh per year.

One hour of a garage door opener (0.50 kWh) is the same electricity as

2.8km in an electric car
5.0hours of TV
11hours of a laptop
56hours of an LED bulb

Electricity per year at typical use, on a log scale: #1 of 95 appliances, from least to most.

In the UK, with electricity at 26.3p per kWh (source: Ofgem price cap 1 Oct–31 Dec 2026, 2026-10), a typical garage door opener costs £0.13 per hour and about £0.96 per year at 0.02 hours a day. Each £1.00 of electricity buys roughly 7.6 hours of use.

How to lower the cost of running a garage door opener

Choose an opener with a low standby rating when replacing.
Replace the incandescent bulbs in the opener with LED.
Nothing else. The motor cost is negligible.

In standby it draws about 5 W, which adds roughly 44 kWh (£11.53) per year if it is never unplugged.

Frequently asked questions

How much electricity does a garage door opener use?

Around 30 to 70 kWh a year, nearly all of it standby.

Does a garage door opener use power when idle?

Yes, 3 to 8 watts continuously.

How much does one open and close cost?

A fraction of a cent. Fifteen seconds at 500 watts is 0.002 kWh.

Cost by region

US states

Canadian provinces

Related appliances

Use the generic electricity cost calculator · Which uses more? Take the quiz