How to Calculate Bitcoin Miner Profitability (and Your Break-Even Power Price)

Every mining decision, which machine to buy, where to host it and when to switch it off, comes down to one question: does this machine earn more than it costs to run?

You don't need a spreadsheet full of tabs to answer it. You need three numbers.

The three numbers

1. Hashprice. How much one unit of hashrate earns per day, usually quoted in dollars per PH/s per day (or per TH/s per day). It moves every day with Bitcoin's price, network difficulty and transaction fees. It's the market's price for hashrate.

2. Efficiency. How much energy a machine needs per unit of hashrate, in joules per terahash (J/TH). Lower is better. An Antminer S21 XP, for example, runs at about 13.5 J/TH: 270 TH/s from 3,645 W.

3. Your power price. What you pay per kWh, at home, at your own site or at a hosting provider, all-in.

Revenue and cost per day

Revenue per day = hashrate (TH/s) × hashprice ($ per TH/s per day)

Power cost per day = power draw (kW) × 24 hours × power price ($ per kWh)

Profit per day = revenue minus power cost, minus pool fees and any hosting service fees.

A worked example

The numbers below are an illustration, not today's market. Say hashprice is $50 per PH/s per day, which is $0.05 per TH/s per day.

For one S21 XP:

• Revenue: 270 TH/s × $0.05 = $13.50 a day
• Power use: 3.645 kW × 24 h = 87.5 kWh a day
• At 5¢/kWh, power costs: 87.5 × $0.05 = $4.37 a day
• Profit before pool fees: about $9.10 a day

Now change only the power price:

Swipe the table for more →

Same machine, same day, very different businesses.

The number that matters most: your break-even power price

Your break-even power price is the price per kWh at which a machine earns exactly what it costs to run. Above it, the machine loses money every hour it's on.

Break-even ($ per kWh) = hashprice ($ per TH/s per day) ÷ (efficiency in J/TH × 0.024)

The 0.024 turns joules per terahash into kWh per TH/s per day. With our example hashprice of $0.05 per TH/s per day:

This is why efficiency matters so much. When hashprice falls, older machines hit their break-even first and have to be switched off, while efficient ones keep earning.

What the simple math leaves out

• Pool fees, usually 0 to 2.5% of revenue.
• Hosting service fees, if your host charges them on top of the power rate.
• Uptime. A machine that runs 95% of the time earns 95% of the revenue.
• Difficulty growth. As more hashrate joins the network, each machine earns less Bitcoin over time.
• The halving. Roughly every four years the block subsidy halves. The last one was in April 2024; the next is expected around 2028.
• The machine itself. Its price, how long it lasts and what it's worth when you sell it.

Do it with live numbers

You don't have to do this by hand. Our ASIC Board (cryptosites.io/asic-board) tracks more than 450 machines with live revenue, power cost and profit per day. Set your own power price and see which machines still make sense at it, and how long each one takes to pay for itself.

The bottom line

Profitability isn't a property of a machine. It's the meeting point of the machine's efficiency, today's hashprice and your power price. Know your break-even power price for every machine you run, and you'll know when to buy, where to host and when to switch off.

CryptoSites.io is a marketplace for powered land, mining sites and hosting capacity worldwide. The hashprice in this article is an example for illustration; real values change daily. This is not financial advice.