What CHOICE actually tested
There's no mandatory Energy Rating Label for a slow cooker in Australia, the same gap our air fryer vs oven guide ran into, so there's no government registry median to fall back on. CHOICE filled that gap the way it did for ovens and air fryers: it tested a spread of real slow cookers on the market and published what they cost to run, on both the low and high settings, each run 8 hours a day, 3 days a week, at its own flat 30¢/kWh assumption. The figures it publishes are dollars a year, not kilowatt-hours, so the table below works backward from CHOICE's own cents to get the energy each end of the range actually used, the same technique our air fryer guide already uses on its own CHOICE source. That's what lets it re-price the same spread on your own state's rate instead of the single national one CHOICE used.
What this costs, state by state
CHOICE's own tested range on the low setting, the realistic all-day setting, priced per single 8-hour session against a single 1-hour oven session, both on the same 3-day-a-week cadence. Multiplied out over a year, South Australia's least-efficient-model session cost becomes the $125 a year shown in the Quick answer above.
| State | Rate | Oven, 1 hr (1.0 kWh) | Slow cooker on low, most efficient tested (0.68 kWh) | Slow cooker on low, least efficient tested (2.09 kWh) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| New South Wales | 32.4¢ | 32¢ | 22¢ | 68¢ |
| Victoria | 29.8¢ | 30¢ | 20¢ | 62¢ |
| Queensland | 31.2¢ | 31¢ | 21¢ | 65¢ |
| South Australia | 38.1¢ | 38¢ | 26¢ | 80¢ |
| Western Australia | 33.6¢ | 34¢ | 23¢ | 70¢ |
| Tasmania | 28.9¢ | 29¢ | 20¢ | 60¢ |
| Australian Capital Territory | 27.4¢ | 27¢ | 19¢ | 57¢ |
| Northern Territory | 31.7¢ | 32¢ | 22¢ | 66¢ |
Reference rates for 2026–27. Your row is highlighted once you set your location.
Why the gap is smaller than the wattage alone suggests
A slow cooker's whole selling point is that it draws far less power than an oven, and on an hour-for-hour basis that's true: CHOICE's own figures put a slow cooker on low somewhere between 85 W and 261 W, against an oven's 2.5 to 3.5 kW plate. But a slow cooker runs for eight hours to an oven's one, so most of that per-hour advantage gets spent on the extra time rather than banked as a saving. The result, on CHOICE's own numbers, is that whether the slow cooker actually wins depends on which one you own: the most efficient model it tested still beats an hour of oven use in every state, but the least efficient one costs roughly twice as much as the oven on the low setting, despite drawing a fraction of the wattage every hour it runs. A flat "slow cookers use a fraction of the energy of an oven" claim, the kind that shows up on a lot of cooking blogs working from wattage alone, is only telling half that story.
None of this changes if the slow cooker has a timer, a keep-warm function or a digital display. Like the oven and air fryer comparison above, those features control how many hours the element draws power, not how efficiently it turns that power into heat once it's running.
Try it on your own cooking
This one runs the efficient end of CHOICE's own range, the scenario where the slow cooker wins outright. Three sessions a week for a year works out at roughly $51 of oven against $34 of slow cooker on the New South Wales rate. Swap in the least efficient model from the state table above and the result flips the other way.
Common questions
Is it worth buying a slow cooker just to save on the running cost?
Not on the running cost alone, no. Even the most efficient model CHOICE tested only saves about $17 a year in NSW against an oven doing the same three-nights-a-week job, and a slow cooker itself costs money to buy. The genuine case for one is convenience and flavour (a stew that looks after itself while you're out), not electricity. If your model turns out to be one of the less efficient ones CHOICE tested, there's no running-cost saving to chase at all.
How many watts does a slow cooker use?
CHOICE's own published Australian figures imply somewhere between 85 W and 261 W on the low setting, worked back from what it charged for an 8-hour session at its stated 30¢/kWh rate. That's a wide range because it's measuring a spread of different real slow cookers, not one machine on two settings.
Does turning the slow cooker to high instead of low save money?
On CHOICE's own numbers, yes, and the direction is the opposite of what you'd expect. Two different figures are worth keeping apart here. CHOICE's own raw national estimate, at its flat 30¢/kWh rate with no state adjustment, puts a full day on high at $23 to $84 a year, below its own low-setting estimate of $32 to $98. Re-priced on our state rates the same way as the rest of this page, high setting comes out at $21 to $29 a year for the most efficient model tested and $77 to $107 for the least efficient, both still below the equivalent low-setting figures further up this page. CHOICE doesn't publish which specific models sat at each end of either setting, so this page can't say why the pattern runs that way, only that it holds in both CHOICE's own national numbers and this page's state-repriced ones.
Why doesn't this page use the government appliance registry like your other guides?
Because there isn't one to use. Slow cookers, like air fryers, carry no mandatory Energy Rating Label in Australia, so there's no government-registered draw figure to price from. CHOICE's own published testing is the most reliable Australian substitute available.
Is a slow cooker cheaper to run than an air fryer?
That's a different comparison with a different answer; see our companion guide on air fryer vs oven running costs for CHOICE's own metered test of the other bench-top appliance.
Sources
Annual running-cost ranges for a slow cooker on low and high settings (8 hours a day, 3 days a week) and for a wall oven (170°C, 1 hour, 3 times a week), both priced at CHOICE's own stated 30¢/kWh: CHOICE, Which cooking appliances are the cheapest to use? (last updated 27 Jul 2022; the kWh figures on this page are ours, worked back from CHOICE's own published dollars at the rate it states, the same technique our air fryer vs oven guide already uses on this same source). The 1.0 kWh-an-hour oven figure used for this page's own primary comparison is our oven and cooktop running cost calculator's own figure rather than a fresh derivation from CHOICE's oven range, so it can never disagree with the calculator or the air fryer guide; CHOICE's own oven range implies a very similar 0.66–1.39 kWh an hour. Slow cookers, like air fryers, carry no mandatory Energy Rating Label in Australia, so there is no government registry figure to check either range against. Electricity rates: AER Default Market Offer, the Victorian Default Offer and each remaining state’s regulated reference tariff, current for 2026–27. Fetched August 2026.