When Australians are choosing between a gas and an induction cooktop, the upfront price tag often dominates the conversation. But the more financially significant number — the one that compounds over years of daily cooking — is the running cost. Understanding how much each cooktop type actually costs to operate is one of the most useful things you can do before making a purchase decision, and the numbers in 2025 tell a clear story.
How Energy Costs Are Calculated
To compare cooktop running costs, you need two things: the energy consumption of the appliance and the price you pay for that energy. For gas cooktops, energy consumption is measured in megajoules (MJ) and priced per MJ. For induction and electric cooktops, consumption is measured in kilowatt-hours (kWh) and priced per kWh.
Australian residential energy prices vary considerably by state and supplier, but as of 2025, natural gas is typically priced between $0.025 and $0.035 per MJ, while electricity averages between $0.28 and $0.40 per kWh across most of Australia, with some states sitting outside this range. These numbers matter because the efficiency gap between gas and induction is significant enough to offset the energy price difference.
Efficiency: Where Induction Has a Decisive Advantage
Gas cooktops are fundamentally inefficient in their heat transfer. Only about 40–55% of the energy released by burning gas actually reaches the food in the pot — the rest is lost as heat that radiates into the kitchen environment, up around the sides of the pot, and through the combustion process itself. This isn't a design flaw that engineers can eliminate — it's the physics of open-flame combustion in a domestic kitchen.
Induction is dramatically more efficient. Because heat is generated directly in the base of the cookware, rather than transferred from a flame or heating element, induction achieves around 84–90% energy transfer efficiency. The numbers in Australia look like this: boiling a litre of water on an average gas burner uses approximately 0.12 MJ of gas (at typical input, accounting for efficiency), costing roughly $0.0035–0.004. The same task on induction uses around 0.11–0.13 kWh of electricity (including inverter efficiency), costing roughly $0.031–0.052 depending on your electricity tariff.
At first glance, the per-task cost may look comparable or even slightly favour gas — but this comparison conceals important nuance. The time taken for the task matters: induction boils water two to three times faster than gas, meaning the total cooking session for a given meal is shorter, and electricity is consumed for a shorter period.
Annual Running Cost Comparison
For an average Australian household cooking two to three times per day across all burners, industry estimates suggest the annual cost of running a gas cooktop is approximately $180–$280 per year in gas charges. Running the equivalent induction cooktop costs approximately $100–$180 per year in electricity charges, depending on your electricity tariff.
Importantly, this comparison improves further in favour of induction if you have solar panels. If you cook primarily during daylight hours and have rooftop solar, the marginal cost of running an induction cooktop can approach zero — you're consuming electricity you've already generated rather than paying your energy retailer for it. This is a genuinely significant consideration for the millions of Australian homes now with rooftop solar.
Gas Price Trajectory
Australian natural gas prices have increased substantially over the past several years, driven by a combination of domestic supply issues, increased LNG export competition, and infrastructure costs. The trajectory for residential gas pricing in Australia is widely expected to remain upward. Several Australian states have announced timelines for phasing out new gas connections to homes. Households that currently pay for both a gas supply connection fee (charged as a daily standing charge regardless of use) and actual gas consumption may find the economics of maintaining a gas cooktop become increasingly unfavourable.
Induction cooktops draw from the electricity grid, whose price is also not static — but electricity pricing is more susceptible to downward pressure from renewables and distributed solar than gas is. The long-term energy price outlook for electricity is arguably more favourable than for natural gas in the Australian residential context.
The Whole-of-Cost Perspective
Running costs are only part of the financial picture. Induction cooktops typically cost more to purchase than equivalent gas models, and some households incur a one-time cost upgrading non-compatible cookware. These upfront costs need to be factored into a true comparison.
However, induction also avoids ongoing costs that gas incurs: gas cooktops typically require periodic professional servicing of connections and components, and the rangehood requirements for gas are higher (and therefore more expensive) than for induction due to the need to extract combustion byproducts as well as steam and grease.
For most Australian households cooking with reasonable frequency, the running cost analysis over a five-to-ten year ownership period tends to favour induction — and the case strengthens further with solar, higher gas prices, and the environmental preference for all-electric homes that is driving Australian residential building trends in 2025. It's a decision worth modelling with your own energy rates, but the directional conclusion is consistent: induction is cheaper to run in most Australian household contexts, and that gap is growing.