Mining Profitability Calculator
Calculate daily mining profit by subtracting electricity cost from daily mining revenue, given hash rate, power consumption, and electricity price. Use it to evaluate whether mining a specific cryptocurrency is profitable for your hardware before committing to setup costs.
Last updated: May 2026
Compare with similar
About this calculator
The formula is: daily profit = daily revenue − (power consumption W × 24 hours × electricity cost per kWh ÷ 1000). The first term is the revenue your miner generates per day (depends on hash rate, network difficulty, coin price, and block reward). The second term converts watts × hours to kilowatt-hours (W × 24 / 1000 = kWh per day) and multiplies by your electricity rate. Edge cases: zero electricity cost (only theoretical) makes profit equal revenue; very high electricity cost can make profit negative (loss). The formula doesn't include several real-world costs: hardware depreciation (mining ASICs typically lose 30-60% of value per year as new generations launch), pool fees (1-3% of mining revenue), cooling costs (often 20-40% additional power for high-end mining operations), infrastructure (electrical work, networking, security), repair and replacement of failed components. For Bitcoin specifically, mining economics have become extremely competitive: only ASIC miners on cheap electricity (under $0.05/kWh) reliably profit. Home mining of Bitcoin with consumer hardware is rarely profitable since the 2017 ASIC dominance. Other coins (Ethereum Classic, Ravencoin, Ergo, smaller proof-of-work alts) may still be GPU-mineable profitably depending on coin price and network difficulty. Mining profitability is highly time-variable: a coin profitable today may not be profitable next month due to halving events (Bitcoin halving cuts block reward in half every ~4 years), difficulty adjustments (network self-adjusts every 2 weeks for BTC, every ~10 minutes for some altcoins), and price volatility. Always model with conservative assumptions and recover your hardware cost within 12-18 months to account for unpredictable changes.
How to use
Example 1 — Profitable industrial mining. An ASIC miner pulls 3,250 watts of power, electricity cost is $0.05/kWh (industrial rate), and generates $45/day of BTC at current difficulty and price. Enter 3250 for Power Consumption, 0.05 for Electricity Cost, 45 for Daily Revenue. Daily electricity cost = 3250 × 24 × 0.05 / 1000 = $3.90. Profit = 45 − 3.90 = $41.10/day. Verify: matches formula. ✓ At $41/day profit, the miner generates ~$15,000/year before hardware depreciation. A $5,000 ASIC pays itself back in ~4 months; remaining 8+ months of useful life is pure profit before next-gen miners obsolete it. Example 2 — Unprofitable home mining. A consumer-grade rig pulls 800 watts, residential electricity cost $0.16/kWh, daily revenue $4. Enter 800, 0.16, 4. Daily electricity = 800 × 24 × 0.16 / 1000 = $3.07. Profit = 4 − 3.07 = $0.93/day. ✓ Less than a dollar per day profit before considering hardware depreciation, pool fees, and cooling costs. After those, this mining operation is likely losing money. The break-even electricity rate (electricity cost = revenue): 0.16 × (4/3.07) ≈ $0.21/kWh, well above what most residential users pay — making the operation marginally viable only in low-electricity-cost regions, and only if hardware was already owned and depreciating regardless.
Frequently asked questions
Is home mining of Bitcoin still profitable?
Almost never since the rise of ASIC miners around 2017. Bitcoin mining is now dominated by industrial-scale operations using specialized ASICs (Antminer S19/S21, Whatsminer M50/M60) in regions with very cheap electricity ($0.03-0.05/kWh) like Texas, Iceland, parts of Kazakhstan, hydroelectric regions of China. Residential users with $0.10-0.20/kWh electricity cannot compete on operational cost basis. The exceptions: (1) using free or excess solar power, (2) using heat from miners productively (heating a space in winter), (3) mining as a hobby with full understanding of the financial loss. After the 2024 halving, BTC mining requires roughly $0.04/kWh or lower for new-generation miners to break even at current prices; older hardware needs much cheaper power. For consumers wanting BTC exposure, simply buying BTC is vastly more economically efficient than mining.
What about mining other cryptocurrencies?
Some alt coins are still GPU-mineable profitably depending on coin price and difficulty. Historical favorites for GPU mining: Ethereum Classic (ETC), Ravencoin (RVN), Ergo (ERG), Flux (FLUX), Conflux (CFX). Each requires research into current difficulty, block reward, coin price, and exchange liquidity. Profitability calculators (WhatToMine, NiceHash) update daily and let you compare across coins. Real GPU mining margins are typically thin ($0.20-1.00/day per GPU after electricity at $0.10/kWh); economics improve at scale with cheaper electricity, but altcoin mining doesn't support industrial-scale operations the way Bitcoin does. NiceHash provides an alternative: lease your hashing power to others, paid in BTC, without choosing specific coins to mine — typically less profitable than direct mining of the right coin but simpler.
What's the difference between solo mining and pool mining?
Solo mining: you mine alone, attempting to find blocks for yourself. Rewards are infrequent (a small miner might find one BTC block per several years given current network hash rate) but full block reward when you do (currently 3.125 BTC + transaction fees). Pool mining: you contribute hash rate to a mining pool; the pool finds blocks frequently and distributes rewards proportional to each miner's contribution. Pool mining gives steady predictable income but charges 1-3% pool fees and reduces upside variance. For Bitcoin, ~95% of hash rate goes through pools (Foundry, AntPool, F2Pool, Binance Pool, ViaBTC). For altcoins, pool participation is even more universal because individual block discovery is impractical. Use a pool unless you have enormous hash rate (>1% of network) or specific reasons to solo mine.
What are the most common mistakes people make with mining profitability?
The biggest is ignoring hardware depreciation — ASIC mining hardware loses 30-60% of value per year as new generations launch and difficulty increases. The second is using current revenue assumptions without modeling difficulty increases (network difficulty adjusts based on hash rate; more miners join → higher difficulty → lower per-miner revenue) and halvings (Bitcoin halves block reward every ~4 years, cutting mining revenue in half overnight). The third is forgetting pool fees, cooling costs, replacement parts, and infrastructure overhead — many operations look profitable at 90% utilization in calm conditions and lose money at 95% utilization with summer cooling needs. The fourth is paying retail electricity rates when the entire business model assumes industrial rates ($0.04-0.06/kWh). The fifth is treating mining like a stable income source when it's highly volatile based on coin price and difficulty; revenue can swing 50%+ within a month. The sixth is ignoring tax implications — mining rewards are taxable as ordinary income when received, plus capital gains when later sold; without records, tax season is a nightmare.
When should I not use this calculator?
Skip it for non-PoW (proof of work) coins — Ethereum, Cardano, Solana, and most modern Layer-1 chains use proof-of-stake, where "mining" is replaced by staking; use a staking-rewards calculator instead. It is the wrong tool for cloud mining contracts (Hashflare, Genesis Mining, etc.), which historically have been money-losing for retail buyers; the contracts often don't pay out enough to cover the contract cost. Do not use it for short-time-window decisions; daily profitability changes substantially based on coin price moves and network difficulty adjustments, so a snapshot doesn't reflect 6-month or 12-month average profitability. For comprehensive mining decisions, use dedicated mining-profit calculators (WhatToMine, MinerStat, NiceHash Profitability) that pull live difficulty, price, and reward data, and include pool fees. And for actual mining business decisions involving real capital, build a detailed cash-flow model with downside scenarios (coin price drops 50%, electricity cost rises 30%, hardware degradation accelerated) rather than relying on point-estimate calculations.