Costs and pricing
LED upgrade payback calculator
What the swap costs against what it saves, and how many months until it pays for itself.
Printed on the bulb. Old incandescents are usually 40, 60 or 100.
From the LED packaging — the actual watts, not the 'equivalent to 60W' figure.
Per kilowatt-hour. Total bill divided by kWh used gives your real rate.
Bulbs, plus any fitting work. Leave blank to see the saving without a payback period.
Why the saving is larger than it looks
Swapping a 60 watt bulb for a 9 watt LED cuts that bulb's consumption by about 85%. On one bulb that is pocket change. On the fifteen or twenty bulbs in an average house, running several hours a day, it becomes a line you can see on the bill.
The payback is usually measured in months rather than years, which is unusual for anything sold as an energy upgrade. That is the whole reason lighting is the first thing worth changing.
The equivalent-watts trap
LED packaging leads with a phrase like “60W equivalent”, which describes the brightness, not the consumption. The number you want is the actual wattage, usually printed smaller and often around 8 to 10 watts for that same bulb.
Enter the real figure. Using the equivalent number by mistake will show you almost no saving at all, which is precisely backwards.
What this does not cover
Running cost only. It says nothing about whether a particular LED will work on your dimmer, fit your fitting, or suit the room — and it certainly does not cover any installation work.
Bulbs that are already efficient are also not worth the swap on these numbers. The saving comes almost entirely from replacing old incandescent and halogen bulbs, particularly the ones that are on for hours every evening.
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