The part the advertising skips
Every electric resistance heater converts essentially 100% of the electricity it draws into heat. Ceramic, PTC, oil-filled, panel, fan, "infrared", "micathermic" — all of them. Two heaters of the same wattage put the same amount of heat into the same room for the same money.
This is not a close call or a matter of testing. It is the basic behaviour of a resistive load, and it means that no brand of plug-in heater can be cheaper to run than another of equal power. When an advertisement implies otherwise, it is either describing zone heating without saying so, or it is simply wrong.
(The exception worth knowing: a heat pump is not a resistance heater. It moves heat rather than making it and can deliver three or four units of heat per unit of electricity. Nothing that plugs into a wall socket for $50 is a heat pump.)
The saving that is real
Here is where the money actually comes from, and it is worth taking seriously because it can be substantial.
Central heating warms the whole house. If you spend the evening in one room, most of that energy is heating space nobody is in. Turning the thermostat down a few degrees and putting a 1,500–2,000 W heater in the room you occupy can cost less than heating six rooms to full temperature — sometimes considerably less, depending on the size of the house, the insulation and the relative price of gas and electricity where you live.
The conditions matter, though, and all three have to hold:
- You have to turn the main heating down. A plug-in heater used on top of normal heating adds to the bill by exactly what it draws. There is no version of this where the extra appliance costs nothing.
- Electricity has to be reasonably priced against your main fuel. Where gas is cheap and electricity is expensive, electric zone heating can cost more than the central heating it replaces.
- You have to actually stay in that room. Heating one room and then moving around the house defeats it.
Put numbers on it
The arithmetic is simple enough to do on a phone. A 2,000 W heater running for four hours uses 8 kWh. Multiply by your tariff — the figure on your bill in your own currency — and you have the evening's cost. Compare that with what you save by dropping the whole-house thermostat.
We have set the calculation out step by step, with the formula and a worked example, on our cost per hour page.
Frequently asked questions
Which type of electric heater is cheapest to run?
None of them, relative to each other. At the same wattage they all cost the same to run. Choose on how the heat is delivered — fan heaters warm a room fast and are noisy, oil-filled radiators are slow and silent — not on efficiency claims.
Are infrared heaters more efficient?
They are not more efficient at converting electricity to heat, because nothing is. They warm objects and people directly rather than the air, which can make you feel warmer sooner in a large or draughty space. That is a comfort advantage, not an efficiency one.
Will a plug-in heater lower my bill?
Only if you use it to replace whole-house heating for the hours you are in one room. Used in addition to your normal heating, it will raise the bill every time.
Sources
- Heatoor, WellHeater and VelaWarm product pages — marketing claims regarding heating costs, recorded 12 September 2026.