Got a quote from an electrician and no idea whether it's fair? This electrical cost calculator gives you a realistic price range based on 2026 US pricing. No email, no sign-up.

Pick the job, add a couple of details, and the estimate updates as you go.

Electrical pricing is more opaque than most trades, and there's a reason for it. You're rarely paying for parts. An outlet costs a few dollars; the invoice is labour, travel and code compliance. Almost every licensed electrician charges a service-call minimum — typically $79 to $179 just to show up, before the hourly rate even starts. That single fact explains most of the "why was that so expensive?" moments homeowners run into.

The thing this calculator does that others don't

Every electrical calculator online will price one outlet. None of them price four outlets properly, and that's where the real money is.

The service-call fee is charged once per visit, not once per item. So the second outlet on the same trip costs dramatically less than the first — the truck is already there, the tools are out, and only the labour minutes are new. On small jobs, that trip fee can be more than half the invoice.

This tool lets you set a quantity on any per-item job and shows two numbers: your total, and the cost per item as it falls. It also shows what you'd have paid booking each one as a separate visit. On four outlets that gap is usually several hundred dollars, and it's the single easiest saving available to a homeowner.

How to use it

Pick the job. Rewiring, panel upgrade, outlets, switches, fixtures, EV charger, a dedicated circuit or an inspection. These aren't variations of one price — a switch swap and a whole-home rewire sit at opposite ends of the scale.

Set the quantity if it's a per-item job. This is where the batching maths kicks in.

Enter home size. This matters most on whole-home work. Rewiring is priced largely by wire runs and circuit count, and both scale with the size of the house. On a single outlet, home size barely moves the number.

Set access and complexity. The hidden cost driver. Running cable through an open basement ceiling or unfinished walls is fast. Fishing wire through finished drywall means cutting access holes, then patching, sanding and repainting them. On a full rewire, that drywall repair alone can add $3,000 to $8,000 on top of the electrical work.

You'll get a low–high range, never one number. Two things sit outside most estimates and belong in your budget: a permit, usually $75 to $350, and that service-call minimum.

Why one outlet costs $250 and four cost $450

This is the part worth internalising before you call anyone.

A residential electrician's invoice on a small job has three parts: the service-call or dispatch fee, the labour minutes, and the materials. The fee runs $79 to $179 in most US markets and is charged per visit. The materials on a standard outlet are a few dollars. The labour is fifteen to thirty minutes.

So on a single outlet, the trip fee is often the largest line on the bill. Add three more outlets to the same visit and you pay three more sets of labour minutes — but zero extra trip fees. The per-outlet cost falls sharply.

The same logic runs in reverse on emergencies. An after-hours or weekend call typically carries a 1.5× to 2× premium on top of everything else, so a Saturday-night outlet fault costs multiples of the same fault on a Tuesday morning. If it isn't a safety issue, it can wait until Monday.

Electrical work costs by job

National 2026 ranges, installed. Small-item prices assume a single visit and include the service-call fee; add more items to the same visit and the per-item cost drops.

Rewiring and panel figures follow Angi's 2026 house rewiring data and Angi's electrical panel replacement guide, cross-checked against 2026 contractor flat-rate schedules. Ranges represent installed cost including labour.

When you need a permit — and why it matters

Rules vary by municipality, but the pattern is consistent across most of the US.

Permit almost always required: panel upgrades and replacements, service upgrades, new circuits, whole or partial rewiring, EV charger installation, hot tub circuits, generator transfer switches, and any new wiring inside walls.

Usually not required: swapping a like-for-like outlet, switch, or light fixture where no new wiring is run.

Your electrician should pull the permit and schedule the inspection as part of the job. If someone offers to skip it to save you a few hundred dollars, that's the moment to end the conversation. Unpermitted electrical work can void a homeowners insurance claim, and it surfaces during a sale — buyers' inspectors look for panel work that has no matching permit record, and the fix at that point costs far more than the permit would have.

Wiring problems worth spending money on now

Some electrical work is discretionary. Some isn't.

Aluminium branch wiring. Roughly two million US homes were wired with aluminium branch circuits between the late 1960s and mid-1970s, when copper prices spiked. A survey conducted for the Consumer Product Safety Commission found that homes built before 1972 with aluminium wiring were dramatically more likely to have connections reach what the CPSC calls fire hazard conditions than copper-wired homes. The CPSC's own guidance on repairing aluminium wiring recognises specific permanent repair methods, and a general-purpose electrician may not be certified for all of them. Ask before booking.

Knob-and-tube. Common in homes built before 1950. It has no ground conductor, the insulation embrittles with age, and many insurers now decline or surcharge homes that still have active knob-and-tube circuits. Partial rewiring is usually the answer rather than a full tear-out.

Obsolete panels. Certain older panel brands have a long-documented history of breakers failing to trip. These aren't optional upgrades in the way a new light fixture is, and some insurers now refuse coverage on homes that still have them. An inspection will tell you what you have.

The scale is worth understanding. According to the Electrical Safety Foundation International, citing NFPA data, electrical malfunctions or failures were the second leading cause of US home structure fires over a recent five-year period, and accounted for the highest share of direct property damage. Separately, a US Fire Administration analysis found residential electrical fires cause hundreds of deaths and close to a billion dollars in direct loss each year, with building wiring the most commonly involved equipment.

None of this means you should panic-rewire a functioning house. It means that when an electrician flags aluminium connections, an ungrounded circuit, or a failing panel, that recommendation belongs in a different mental category from a suggestion to add recessed lighting.

Electrical cost questions, answered

The things homeowners ask most before hiring an electrician.