Do Wax Warmers Use a Lot of Electricity? The Costs Explained

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Do you want to know if wax warmers use a lot of electricity? This is a question that many people have. In this blog post, we will answer that question and also discuss the costs associated with using a wax warmer. We will look at how much power the average wax warmer uses and how much it costs to operate one for an hour. So, if you’re curious about whether or not these devices consume a lot of energy, keep reading!

A photo of my electric wax warmer on a shelf
Modern wax warmers use electricity to heat the wax melts but just how expensive are they to run?

Do wax warmers use a lot of electricity?

Ok, I’m sure it isn’t news to anyone who is reading this blog post that we are facing an energy crisis at the moment. Our bills for gas and electricity have skyrocketed and hit our pockets hard!

So it makes sense that we are questioning the costs of items in our home that use electricity and are not essential to our wellbeing. One such item may just be our favorite wax warmers.

Some may argue that they are essential for our wellbeing, they are great at making our homes smell fresh and for relaxing after a hard day’s work. But if it is costing a small fortune to run then maybe you may be thinking about getting rid of it.

So do wax warmers use a lot of electricity?

Well to work that out we need to know how an electric wax warmer works. Basically, a small lightbulb is used underneath the wax bowl to provide enough heat to melt the wax and release the fragrance.

The average wax warmer uses a very small light bulb of around 20 to 25 watts of power. To put that into perspective, a standard home light bulb uses 60 watts of power. So if you ran your wax warmer for one hour, it would cost you around $0.02 in electricity (based on the U.S. National Average).

So as you can see a fairly average wax warmer does not cost very much to run.

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Is using a wax warmer cheaper than scented candles?

Some people are die-hard candle lovers and others prefer wax warmers with wax melts. I have to be honest, I love them both just as much. But if you were to choose which one is the cheapest to scent your home with do you know which one it would be?

I decided to do a little math to find out.

So to find out if candles are better than wax melts in terms of costs I found the below out.

So the way I see it is that the average “good” scented candle (one of the ones that actually releases fragrance) is around $15 for around 40 hours of burn time.

We know that the average wax warmer costs $0.02 per hour, so if we time that by 40 hours we get $0.80. However, we also need to factor in the costs of the wax melts we are going to use. I will base this on a decent pack of 8 wax melts for $8, so that’s $1 per wax melt. From my own studies I found out that the average wax melt last around 8 hours until the fragrance runs out, so we will need 5 wax melts to match our candles 40 hours.

So in total, it will cost $5.80 to run our wax warmer for the same time as a $15, 40-hour burn time candle.

That seems like a bargain price to me!

Is there anything you can do to make your wax warmer use less electricity?

It is understandable given what is going on that we want to reduce our electric bills as much as possible. I have shown that generally wax warmers are quite cheap to run but are there any ways to make them even more efficient?

Well as it happens, yes there are. Depending upon the model of wax warmer that you own there are many types out there now such as these that have dimmable lights which means you can turn down the power and still get great scent throw.

Or failing that you can instead buy a tea-light wax warmer that heats up the wax melt bowl with a tea-light candle. This option means that you will use no electricity for your wax melts however you will need a handy supply of tea-light candles.

Final thoughts.

Wax warmers are a great way to make your home smell wonderful without costing the earth in electricity. You can further reduce your costs by opting for a tea-light or dimmable model.

They are a fair bit better value than using the traditional scented candle to fragrance your home and banish unruly smells.

To further cut down the electricity costs of your wax warmer you may find it beneficial to use it for less time and instead opt for a stronger smelling wax melt so that you get a more lasting fragrance in your home.

I hope you have found this post useful in understanding a bit more about how electric wax warmers work and the costs of running them. If you have any questions please leave me a comment below and I will aim to answer as soon as possible.

By the way, if you would like to read a fun article about if its cheaper to use candles than your homes lights have a quick read.

Happy melting!​

Andrew Scents and Aroma
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