Mining is only profitable when reward revenue beats the electricity it burns. This calculator takes your hashrate, power draw, and the live network difficulty and price, then works out your expected daily and monthly coins, revenue, electricity cost, and net profit.
How it works
The chain of formulas, all proof-of-work standard:
network hashrate = difficulty × 2^32 / block time (s)
your share = your hashrate / network hashrate
coins per day = block reward × (86400 / block time)
your coins/day = coins per day × your share × (1 − pool fee)
revenue/day = your coins/day × coin price
power cost/day = (watts / 1000) × 24 × rate per kWh
net profit/day = revenue/day − power cost/dayHashrate units must match: a TH/s ASIC and a difficulty quoted at full scale are reconciled internally so the share ratio is dimensionless.
The variables that move profitability most
Electricity rate is the single biggest lever for most miners. Compare, for example, a 3,000-watt miner running 24 hours:
| Rate (per kWh) | Daily electricity cost |
|---|---|
| $0.05 | $3.60 |
| $0.08 | $5.76 |
| $0.12 | $8.64 |
| $0.20 | $14.40 |
A rig that earns $10 per day in revenue moves from $6.40 profit to $4.24 profit to $1.36 profit to a $4.40 loss — same hardware, same price, just different electricity costs. Miners in jurisdictions with low industrial power rates have a structural cost advantage that hardware improvements cannot easily overcome.
Difficulty is the other critical variable. As more miners join the network, difficulty rises and each miner’s share of daily rewards shrinks — even with the same hashrate and coin price. This is why monthly projections become unreliable quickly: difficulty historically trends upward during bull markets.
Coin price is volatile and unpredictable. This tool shows a snapshot at today’s price; monthly projections assume price stays constant, which it rarely does.
How to use this calculator for hardware decisions
When evaluating a new ASIC or GPU, the key ratio is efficiency: watts per terahash (W/TH) for Bitcoin, or watts per megahash (W/MH) for other coins. More efficient hardware earns the same hashrate for less electricity. To compare two rigs:
- Run each through the calculator with the same difficulty and price inputs.
- Subtract the electricity cost from revenue for each.
- Note the difference in daily net profit.
- Divide the price premium of the better hardware by the daily profit advantage to get your payback period in days.
What this calculator does not include
- Hardware purchase cost — this models ongoing operating margin, not full ROI.
- Pool variance — solo mining and small pool miners will see high variance; this is an expected-value estimate.
- Mining pool payout minimums and withdrawal fees — these can matter for small-scale miners.
- Taxes — mining income is typically taxable; in many jurisdictions mined coins are income at the time of receipt at market value.