What a vacuum really costs to run each year in Australia

Spread the purchase over cleans, not over years

A robot run 5 days a week does 260 cleans a year. Over 5 years that is 1,300 cleans, so a $900 machine contributes $0.69 to each one. Over 3 years it is 780 cleans and $1.15 each; over 8 years it is 2,080 cleans and $0.43 each. The machine price barely matters next to the number of years you get out of it.

That is why the spare parts question from our guide on choosing a machine feeds straight into this one. The eight-year column is only available to a machine whose filter, brush and battery can be bought, and the Australian Consumer Law guarantee on repairs and spare parts in section 58 of Schedule 2 is what makes that a reasonable expectation rather than a hope.

The table below is machine cost alone. Consumables and power are added in the next two sections, and the totals at the end combine all three.

Consumables are the line people forget

Four parts wear out on a robot, and three of them wear out more than once a year. On the example intervals and prices below, filters cost $84 a year, side brushes $24, the main brush $29, and the battery $32 once it is spread across the 3 years it lasts. That is $169 a year.

Put next to $180 of machine, the consumables are almost the same size. A buyer comparing a $900 robot with a $450 one is arguing about $90 a year of machine while ignoring a $169 line that is identical on both. That is the single most common error in this category.

The intervals are the part worth personalising. A household with two shedding dogs clears brushes far more often than one without, and the consumable-interval arithmetic on this site exists precisely so you can put your own interval in rather than inherit ours.

Electricity is real and small

A robot that cleans 260 times a year and sits on a dock the rest of the time uses roughly 40 kWh. At an assumed 35 cents per kilowatt hour that is $14 a year, or 5 cents a clean. It is the smallest of the three lines by a factor of twelve.

It is also the line rising fastest. The Australian Bureau of Statistics recorded electricity up 12.8 per cent in the 12 months to September 2026, against overall CPI of 4.3 per cent and just 0.8 per cent for furnishings, household equipment and services. Applied to this budget, a 12.8 per cent rise on $14 is $1.80, which does not change any decision.

That comparison is the useful one. The appliance category barely moved in price over the year, the electricity to run it rose sharply, and neither movement is large enough in dollars to outweigh keeping the machine two more years.

What changes the total, in order of size

Keeping the machine longer is the biggest lever available. Moving from 5 years to 8 years takes the machine line from $180 a year to $113, cutting $67 from a $363 total, or about 18 per cent, with no change in behaviour and no second purchase.

Buying filters in multipacks is the second. A filter bought at $9 instead of $14 takes the filter line from $84 to $54, saving $30 a year. That alone is more than twice the entire electricity bill for the machine.

Replacing the machine early is the biggest lever in the wrong direction. The same $900 robot discarded at 3 years costs $300 a year of machine instead of $180, pushing the total to $483 and the cost per clean to $1.86. The difference between the best and worst case here is a factor of four on the machine line alone.

• Keep the machine 8 years instead of 5: machine line falls from $180 to $113 a year, total falls 18 per cent
• Buy filters at $9 instead of $14: filter line falls from $84 to $54 a year
• Replace at 3 years instead of 5: machine line rises from $180 to $300 and the total reaches $483
• Halve the filter interval for a pet household: filter line rises from $84 to $168 a year

Comparing a robot with a barrel on the same basis

A corded barrel has no battery and usually no side brush, so its consumable line is smaller: bags or a washable filter plus a brush bar. On example figures of $45 a year for bags and filters and $0 for batteries, a $400 barrel kept 8 years costs $50 of machine and $45 of consumables, plus $21 of electricity at 1,400 W for 43 hours a year.

That is $116 a year against $363 for the robot, which looks decisive until the time column from our guide on choosing a machine is added back: 43 hours a year of your time against 17. The robot is buying 26 hours for $247, which works out at $9.50 an hour.

Whether that is a good trade is a household decision rather than an arithmetic one, and it is the honest place to leave the comparison. What the numbers do settle is that the trade is about time and consumables, not about suction or about electricity.

Before you buy

• Write down how many cleans a week you will realistically run before comparing any two machines
• Divide the purchase price by cleans per year multiplied by the years you expect to keep it
• Price a filter, a main brush, a side brush and a battery from the manufacturer's parts page
• Add those four to an annual consumable figure before deciding between two models
• Use your own tariff from your bill rather than the 35 cents per kWh assumed here
• Check whether a self-emptying dock adds a bag line, and price it per year
• Re-run the arithmetic at 8 years as well as 5, because that column is where the savings are

Questions readers ask

Why is the battery only $32 a year when it costs $95?

Because the example interval is 3 years, so $95 is spread across three annual budgets: $95 divided by 3 is $31.67, rounded to $32. If your robot runs harder and the battery lasts 2 years, that line becomes $48 a year and the annual total rises from $363 to $379.

Does a more expensive robot have cheaper consumables?

Not reliably, and it is worth checking rather than assuming. Filter and brush prices are set by the manufacturer's parts catalogue, not by the machine's price tier. Since consumables are 47 per cent of the annual total on these figures, a model with a $22 filter instead of a $14 one adds $48 a year regardless of what the machine cost.

How much does self-emptying add?

The dock bags are an extra consumable line. On example figures of $6 a bag changed every 6 weeks, that is roughly 9 bags and $54 a year, which would take the consumable line from $169 to $223 and the annual total from $363 to $417. Weigh that against the 4 minutes of attention per clean used in the time arithmetic.

Is electricity worth optimising at all?

Not on these figures. The whole electricity line is $14 a year, so even halving it saves $7. Buying filters at $9 instead of $14 saves $30, and keeping the machine three extra years saves $67. The order of size is clear enough that electricity is the last place to look.

What happens to the numbers if I clean less often?

The denominator moves and most lines move with it. At 3 cleans a week the robot does 156 cleans a year rather than 260, so the $900 machine over 5 years becomes $1.15 a clean. Consumables fall too, because filters and brushes wear by use, but the battery still ages on the calendar.

Sources

1. Australian Bureau of Statistics — Consumer Price Index, Australia, September 2026 (CPI 4.3%, electricity 12.8%, furnishings and household equipment 0.8%) — checked 2026-11-03
2. Competition and Consumer Act 2010, Schedule 2 — Australian Consumer Law, s 58 guarantee as to repairs and spare parts — checked 2026-11-03
3. Greenhouse and Energy Minimum Standards Act 2012 — product classes become regulated only through a GEMS determination — checked 2026-11-03