What a freeze dryer costs to run, state by state

The method comes before the numbers on this page, because the method is what decides whether the numbers mean anything. The unit that matters is the batch, not the hour. The figure is computed at nameplate draw across the whole run, which makes it an upper bound rather than a prediction. Daily supply charges are left out entirely. And the unit we can actually publish here is the hour rather than the batch, for a reason set out below that is itself the most useful fact on the page.

Tariffs, machine specifications and power figures checked 10 September 2026

The method, stated first

1. The unit is the batch, not the hour. A freeze dryer is not a continuous appliance. It runs a cycle of somewhere between one and two days and then stops, so a cost per hour tells a buyer almost nothing they can act on and a cost per batch tells them everything. Where a cost per batch can be computed, this site computes it.
2. Every figure is computed at nameplate draw for the whole run, so it is an upper bound. Draw is not constant across a cycle: the compressor and the vacuum pump do not run at a flat load from start to finish, and the final defrost draws differently again. Manufacturers publish a nameplate rating, not a duty cycle. A real cycle costs less than any figure derived this way, and how much less is not published by anybody.
3. Daily supply charges are excluded. They are paid whether or not the appliance exists, so folding one into an appliance running cost overstates that cost, sometimes by more than the appliance itself uses. They are shown on this page as context and used in nothing.
4. Tariffs are default or regulated offers, not typical bills. A household on a competitive market plan usually pays several cents less per kilowatt hour, so every figure here is an order of magnitude rather than a prediction.

Why this register publishes an hour and not a batch

A cost per batch is one multiplication: wattage by cycle hours. Australian sellers publish neither number often enough for it to be done.

Six listings publish an amp figure, which looks like a way around the problem and is not. four of them state a 10 amp plug on a 240 volt outlet, which describes the socket and the circuit rather than the machine's draw. Treating a plug rating as a power consumption would overstate the running cost by an unknown margin, so it is not done here. The two genuine wattage figures come from CryoDry, which publishes 1920 watts at 240 volts and 8 amps on both of its machines. Note that this is itself the product of the voltage and the current rating, which is a maximum rather than a measurement.

Cost per hour at 1920 watts, by jurisdiction

8 jurisdictions, each at its published default or regulated residential usage rate. The cost column is 1.92 kilowatts drawn for one hour, which is the only Australian nameplate anybody publishes. The supply charge column is context and is used in nothing.

The tariff spread is the finding

The machine matters less than the postcode. TAS sits at 27.95c per kilowatt hour and SA at 41.91c, a spread of 13.96c or about 50 per cent. The same machine running the same cycle costs roughly half as much again in SA as in TAS, and no difference between the machines on sale here comes close to that.

Two of the eight figures are averages rather than single published rates, and the file says so: New South Wales and Victoria each have several distribution zones with different published defaults, and the figure used is the unweighted mean of the zone rates. Victoria is the more sensitive of the two, with about six cents per kilowatt hour between its cheapest and dearest zones, so a Victorian estimate depends materially on which side of Melbourne the machine is plugged in.

What a batch would cost, using the 110 volt US machine

This section exists because the shape of the cost is worth seeing even when the Australian figures cannot produce it. Everything below is the 110 volt United States machine, using the wattage and the cycle range Harvest Right publishes on its US store. It is not the 240 volt machine an Australian reseller ships, which publishes neither figure, and it should not be read as describing that machine.

Harvest Right publishes a single cycle range for foods generally rather than a per-model one: 13 to 35 hours. At the nameplate wattage for each size, that is the energy below.

Two of the four US sizes are missing from that table. Harvest Right publishes a combined power figure for the Small and Medium rather than a single nameplate for each, so neither has a wattage this site will use in a calculation.

Run at a stated two batches a week, which is our assumption and not a published figure, the Harvest Right Large lands between $566.90 and $2,288.30 a year in electricity across the cheapest and dearest jurisdictions and the shortest and longest published cycles. The width of that range is the honest answer to how predictable this cost is.

What to take from this

• An hour is cheap and a habit is not. One hour at the dearest jurisdiction's default rate costs $0.80, which sounds like nothing. The 110 volt illustration above turns that into $566.90 to $2,288.30 a year at two batches a week, which is a real line on a bill rather than a rounding error. How often you run it decides this, not which machine you buy.
• Your postcode matters more than your model. A 50 per cent tariff spread between TAS and SA swamps any efficiency difference between the machines on sale here, none of which publish enough to be compared on efficiency anyway.
• Ask the seller for a wattage and a cycle time in writing. Both are ordinary specifications, both are missing from almost every Australian listing, and a seller who will put them in an email has given you the two numbers this page could not source.
• Every Australian purchase price in one table is on the price register, and the import arithmetic is on the landed cost register.

Common questions

What does a freeze dryer cost to run in Australia?

At the only nameplate wattage published by an Australian listing, 1920 watts, one hour of running costs $0.54 in TAS and $0.80 in SA at the default tariff in each. That is an upper bound, because it assumes the machine draws its full nameplate rating continuously, which no freeze dryer does across a cycle. Daily supply charges are excluded: they are paid whether or not the appliance exists.

Why is this page a cost per hour rather than a cost per batch?

Because the batch is the unit that matters and the data to compute it does not exist. A cost per batch is wattage multiplied by cycle hours. Of the 24 Australian listings, two publish a wattage and zero publish a cycle time, so zero publish both. The only machines in this dataset carrying both figures are the 110 volt US listings, and using those to describe the 240 volt machine an Australian reseller ships would be presenting a different product's specification as this one's.

Which Australian state is cheapest to run a freeze dryer in?

TAS, at 27.95c per kilowatt hour on the default tariff, against SA at 41.91c. That is a spread of 13.96c per kilowatt hour, or about 50 per cent, and it is the largest single variable in any Australian running cost figure. The same machine running the same cycle costs half as much again in SA as in TAS.

Should the daily supply charge be counted in a running cost?

No, and most online calculators get this wrong. A daily supply charge is billed every day whether or not the appliance is plugged in, so adding it to an appliance running cost charges the appliance for something it did not cause. The supply charges are published on this page as context because they matter to a household bill, and they are used in no calculation on it.