Your existing bulb
Default is the US average. Check your electric bill for your local rate. Hawaii: ~$0.40, Texas: ~$0.13, California: ~$0.32.
Your Result
Annual cost comparison (1,000 hours/year)
Enter your bulb's watts, or your target lumens, and see the LED match plus the annual savings.
Watts to lumens conversion for incandescent, halogen, CFL, and LED. Convert your old bulb's watts to the brightness (lumens) an LED needs to match it, or go the other direction, so you know which bulb to buy.
Or flip to Lumens to Watts mode above if you already know your brightness target.
When you buy a light bulb today, ignore the watts. Lumens is the number that tells you how bright the bulb will be.
Watts measure power consumption, not brightness. A 60-watt incandescent and a 10-watt LED can produce exactly the same amount of light. The difference is that the LED produces that light using one-sixth the electricity. If you have been choosing bulbs by wattage for decades, you were actually comparing energy use, not brightness output.
Wattage is a measure of power: how many joules of electrical energy the bulb consumes per second. A 60-watt bulb draws 60 joules per second from your electrical panel. An incandescent bulb converts about 5 percent of that energy into visible light and wastes the remaining 95 percent as heat. That is why incandescent bulbs are warm to the touch and why they were such an easy target for efficiency standards.
Lumens measure light output: the total amount of visible light a bulb produces. A standard 60-watt incandescent produces approximately 800 lumens. That same 800 lumens from a modern LED requires only 9 to 11 watts, because LED technology converts electrical energy into light far more efficiently, at around 80 to 100 lumens per watt versus 15 lumens per watt for an incandescent.
The technical term for this ratio is luminous efficacy, expressed in lumens per watt (lm/W). Higher efficacy means more light per watt of electricity consumed.
The US Department of Energy updated efficiency standards for general service lamps, effective 2023, that effectively ended the retail sale of standard incandescent bulbs. The new standards require a minimum efficacy of 45 lumens per watt. Incandescents average around 15 lm/W and cannot meet this threshold. LEDs, which average 80 to 100 lm/W, comfortably exceed it. Most halogens are also expected to phase out under a forthcoming 2028 standard that raises the bar further.
If you still have incandescent bulbs at home, they work fine until they burn out. You simply cannot buy replacements at most retailers any longer.
This table shows the standard equivalences confirmed by DOE-funded sources and VOLT Lighting. When you see an 800-lumen LED at the hardware store, that is the 60-watt equivalent you are looking for.
| Brightness (lumens) | Incandescent (W) | Halogen (W) | CFL (W) | LED (W) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 100 lm | 7W | 6W | ~2W | 1–2W |
| 375 lm | 25W | 20W | ~7W | ~4W |
| 450 lm | 30W | 25W | 9–13W | 6–8W |
| 800 lm | 60W | 45W | 13–15W | 9–11W |
| 1,100 lm | 75W | 53W | 18–25W | 13–15W |
| 1,600 lm | 100W | 72W | 23–30W | 18–20W |
| 2,600 lm | 150W | 145W | 30–52W | ~27W |
| 3,000 lm | 200W | 175W | N/A | ~32W |
| Sources: SmarterHouse.org (DOE-funded); VOLT Lighting. The 800 lm / 60W equivalence is the FTC Lighting Facts standard reference. | ||||
Look closely at this page and you will find two different lumen figures for the same 60-watt incandescent bulb. The equivalence table above says 800 lumens, matching the FTC Lighting Facts standard. The plain watts-times-efficacy math (60W x 15 lm/W) gives 900 lumens instead. Neither number is wrong; they answer different questions.
The 15 lm/W figure this calculator uses for incandescent is a midpoint efficacy value published by DOE-funded sources, useful for converting any wattage in general. Real 60-watt incandescent bulbs, the specific product that shipped for decades before the 2023 phase-out, measured closer to 13.3 lm/W in practice, which is where the FTC's 800-lumen reference figure comes from. Multiply a real-world bulb's actual efficacy by its wattage and you land on the label number; use the technology-wide average instead and you land a bit higher.
Watts to lumens, using this page's formula (watts x efficacy): a 60-watt incandescent bulb at the 15 lm/W midpoint gives 60 x 15 = 900 lumens. Ask the calculator above for the LED wattage that reproduces those 900 lumens (lumens / efficacy, at 90 lm/W for LED) and you get 900 / 90 = 10 watts, matching the "60W incandescent = 10W LED" swap shown in the table.
Lumens to watts, starting from the label instead: a 60-watt incandescent's actual box says 800 lumens. Divide by LED efficacy (90 lm/W) and you get 800 / 90 = 8.9 watts, which the equivalence table rounds to the 9 to 11 watt range you see on shelf tags. Both paths land an LED buyer in roughly the same 9 to 11 watt neighborhood, which is why the mismatch between 800 and 900 lumens rarely changes what you actually buy.
The calculator above defaults to $0.16 per kWh, and at that rate, a 60-watt incandescent running 1,000 hours a year (roughly 2.7 hours a day) costs about $9.60 annually, while a 10-watt LED producing the same 800 to 900 lumens costs about $1.60, a savings of $8.00 per bulb per year. The EIA's most current reported average residential electricity rate is higher than that default, 18.4 cents per kWh nationally as of 2026 (EIA, Electric Power Monthly). Enter that rate instead and the same 60-watt-to-10-watt swap saves closer to $9.00 a bulb: $10.80 for the incandescent versus $1.80 for the LED. Either way, before accounting for the incandescent's much shorter lifespan, the LED wins.
A household with 20 light sockets, switching all of them to LED, saves roughly $160 a year on electricity at the calculator's $0.16 default, or closer to $180 at the EIA's current 18.4-cent average; your actual utility rate may run lower (under 12 cents in Idaho) or dramatically higher (over 40 cents in Hawaii), which is why the FigureNerd LED savings calculator lets you plug in your own state's rate rather than a flat national average. LED bulbs also last 15,000 to 25,000 hours versus 1,000 hours for incandescents, so you replace them far less often.
LED bulbs that match the standard equivalences in the table above are widely available. A19 base (the standard household shape) is the most common. Look for the lumens value on the Lighting Facts label, not the wattage.
A standard 60-watt incandescent bulb produces approximately 800 lumens. This is the number to look for on the Lighting Facts label when shopping for an LED replacement. A quality LED producing 800 lumens uses only 9 to 11 watts, so you get the same light at roughly one-sixth the electricity.
Multiply the wattage by the luminous efficacy of the bulb technology in lumens per watt (lm/W). For an incandescent bulb, the average efficacy is about 15 lm/W, so a 60-watt incandescent produces 60 x 15 = 900 lumens. For LED, the average modern A-bulb efficacy is around 90 lm/W, which is why a 10-watt LED can match a 60-watt incandescent. The calculator at the top of this page does this math both directions.
Both are correct for what they measure. 800 lumens is the FTC Lighting Facts label figure for an actual 60-watt incandescent product, closer to 13.3 lm/W in practice. 900 lumens comes from this calculator's formula, which uses a 15 lm/W midpoint efficacy for incandescent bulbs generally. Use the label figure when replacing a specific bulb; use the formula when estimating in the abstract. Both paths land you on roughly the same 9 to 11 watt LED replacement.
A typical bedroom benefits from 1,000 to 2,000 lumens of total ambient light, depending on room size. For a 10 x 12 foot bedroom (120 square feet), a common rule of thumb is 10 to 20 lumens per square foot, which gives you 1,200 to 2,400 lumens. A single 1,600-lumen LED bulb (100-watt incandescent equivalent) works well for a small to medium bedroom with a ceiling fixture; add bedside lamps for layered task lighting.
Yes, for most households. At the calculator's $0.16/kWh default, a 10-watt LED producing 800 to 900 lumens costs about $1.60 a year to run 1,000 hours versus $9.60 for the equivalent 60-watt incandescent, an $8.00 annual savings per bulb. At the EIA's more current 2026 average residential rate of 18.4 cents per kWh, that gap widens to about $9.00 a bulb ($1.80 versus $10.80). Either way, LED bulbs also last 15,000 to 25,000 hours versus 1,000 hours for incandescents, so you replace them far less often.
The US Department of Energy updated efficiency standards for general service lamps, effective 2023, that effectively ended the sale of most standard incandescent bulbs. The new standards require bulbs to produce at least 45 lumens per watt, a threshold incandescents (which average 15 lm/W) cannot meet. LEDs, CFLs, and some halogens meet the standard. If you still have incandescent bulbs at home, they work fine until they burn out, but you can no longer buy new ones for most applications.
CRI stands for Color Rendering Index, how accurately a light source renders colors compared to natural daylight, on a scale of 0 to 100. A CRI of 80 or above is generally considered good for residential use and is the minimum for ENERGY STAR certification. A CRI of 90 or above renders colors very accurately, which matters where color perception counts, such as kitchens, bathrooms, and art studios.
This calculator is designed to help estimate light output (lumens) from wattage, or the wattage needed to achieve a target light output, using published industry efficacy ranges. Actual lumens output varies by specific bulb model, manufacturer, and age of bulb. For accurate lumens, check the Lighting Facts label on the bulb package. Cost estimates use US average electricity rates and may not reflect your local utility rate. Efficacy ranges are based on US Department of Energy and ENERGY STAR published guidance as of May 2026. Regulatory dates (2023 incandescent phase-out, forthcoming 2028 CFL/halogen standard) reflect publicly reported DOE policy; verify current status at energy.gov.
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