Power consumption: what hosting costs you
How much electricity a hosting PC actually draws, how to estimate your monthly cost in one formula, and how that compares to what a node earns.
in this article
Hosting only pays off if earnings comfortably beat your electricity bill. They generally do, but you should be able to check that for your own rig and your own energy price. Here is the honest math.
what a hosting PC draws
Three states matter:
- Idle, waiting for sessions: a modern gaming PC sits around 60-100W. The node OS keeps the machine ready but is not rendering anything.
- Streaming a session: the GPU does real work. Depending on the card and the game, expect roughly 250-450W total system draw. An RTX 3060 system sits at the low end, a 4090 rig at the high end.
- Powered off or booted back into your own OS: zero hosting draw, and zero earnings.
Your node is not streaming 24/7. Utilization depends on player demand in your region; sessions cluster in evenings and weekends. As a rule of thumb, assume roughly half your online hours are active sessions.
the one formula you need
Monthly cost = average watts x hours online per day x 30 / 1000 x your price per kWh.
A realistic example, mid-tier rig, 12 hours online per day, EU energy price of 0.30 EUR per kWh:
- Average draw: half idle (80W), half streaming (300W) is about 190W
- 190W x 12h x 30 days / 1000 = about 68 kWh per month
- 68 kWh x 0.30 EUR = about 20 EUR per month
The same setup running licenses at the published 40-60 USD per license per month earns multiples of that. On flagship hardware running several licenses, electricity is a rounding error. On entry hardware with one license, it still leaves clear margin, but check your local kWh price, because energy prices vary a lot by country.
how to keep the cost side low
- Let the machine sleep when you are done hosting. A PC that is off draws nothing; the network only pays for time you are online anyway.
- Undervolting your GPU can shave 10-20% off draw with no meaningful performance loss for streaming workloads.
- Wired ethernet over Wi-Fi does not save power, but it avoids failed sessions, and failed sessions are hours that cost electricity without earning.
checking your real numbers
- A 10-20 EUR smart plug with power metering gives you the true draw of your specific rig in a day.
- The YOM app shows your earnings per host per day; put the two side by side for your own break-even picture. See Understanding earnings and payouts.
Earnings figures above use the published per-license network rates. Actual results vary by region, demand, and uptime.