A 100-watt electric blanket costs roughly 15 cents a night to run at the 2026 U.S. average rate — about $22 across a 150-night heating season. Central heating costs vastly more per hour.
That comparison gets repeated everywhere and it's technically true, but it answers a question nobody is really asking. You're not choosing between a blanket and a heated house. You're asking whether owning a blanket lets you turn the heat down — and by how much that's worth.
The Number That Actually Matters
Two sides to the equation:
- What the blanket costs: 100W × 8 hours × 150 nights = 120 kWh × 18.4¢ ≈ $22 for the season
- What the setback saves: roughly 1% of your heating cost per °F, sustained over 8 hours. On a $1,200 annual heating bill, a 7°F overnight setback ≈ $84
- Net: about $62 a season
Notice the asymmetry. The blanket is a rounding error; the thermostat does essentially all the work. Push to a 10°F setback over 10 hours and the net climbs toward $130. On a $2,400 heating bill it's roughly $278.
You can run your own figures — including the space heater case, which behaves completely differently — in our personal heating savings calculator.
What Each Device Costs
At 18.4¢/kWh, running 8 hours a night for 150 nights:
- Heated mattress pad (~60W): ~9¢/night, ~$13/season
- Electric blanket, full/queen (~100W): ~15¢/night, ~$22/season
- Heated throw (~130W): ~19¢/night, ~$29/season
- Electric blanket, king (~150W): ~22¢/night, ~$33/season
- Space heater (~1,500W): ~$2.21/night, ~$331/season
That last line is why space heaters belong in a different conversation. At fifteen times the draw of a blanket, a space heater only nets out if it lets you leave a large part of the house genuinely cold. Our blanket vs space heater comparison works through where the line falls.
Two things make real-world blanket costs lower than the table: they cycle a thermostat rather than drawing full power continuously, and most people use a medium setting rather than maximum. Treat these as conservative ceilings.
Three Floors You Shouldn't Cross
Most articles on this topic stop at "it's cheaper." The limits matter more than the pennies:
~55°F — frozen pipes. The standard floor for an unoccupied house. Pipes in exterior walls, crawl spaces and unheated garages sit well below whatever the hallway thermostat reads. A burst pipe costs more than a decade of heating savings.
~60°F — condensation and mould. This is the one people actually hit. Warm moist air from cooking, showering and breathing condenses on cold walls and windows. Heat only yourself through an entire winter and you can find mould behind furniture on exterior walls come spring. Running extractor fans and briefly airing rooms after showers matters more here than an extra degree.
~64°F — general health guidance. The WHO's suggested minimum indoor temperature, rising to about 68°F where infants, elderly or unwell people live. Personal heating is a way to be comfortable at a lower setting, not permission to go below this with vulnerable people in the house.
Free Things That Make a Lower Setting Bearable
The blanket is one lever. These cost nothing and often matter as much:
- Stop draughts. Air moving across skin reads as cold whatever the air temperature says. Sealing gaps around doors, windows and outlets is the highest-return comfort fix in most homes.
- Raise humidity. Dry air feels colder. Winter indoor humidity often falls below 30%; bringing it to 40–45% lets many people sit a degree or two lower. See our humidifier running cost calculator for what that costs.
- Close curtains at dusk. You radiate heat toward cold glass. Heavy curtains make a measurable difference to how a room feels at the same thermostat setting.
- Move where you sit. Away from large windows and exterior walls. Free, and often worth more than a degree.
Where This Sits Against Real Fixes
Worth being straight about the trade: personal heating saves money by making you accept a colder house. Insulation and air sealing lower the bill without that trade-off, and they keep paying every winter.
If you're choosing where to put money, our insulation savings calculator shows what the structural route returns. Personal heating is best understood as a cheap complement — something that makes an already-sensible setback comfortable — rather than a substitute for a house that holds heat.
For the setback side in more depth, including schedules and the myth that turning heating off entirely costs more to reheat, see best thermostat settings to save money and how to lower your heating bill.
The Bottom Line
Yes, an electric blanket is far cheaper to run than central heating — but that framing hides the actual mechanism. The blanket costs about $22 a season and saves nothing by itself. Lowering the thermostat 7°F overnight saves about $84 on a typical bill. The blanket's job is making that setting tolerable.
So the honest answer to "is it cheaper" is: it's cheap enough to be worth owning, and worth roughly $60–130 a season if you actually turn the heat down — while staying above 60°F to avoid trading a heating bill for a mould problem.