How Much Does It Cost To Run a Neon Sign?

A working neon shop's breakdown of what glass neon and LED neon actually cost to run each month in Los Angeles, plus a calculator you can slide to your own hours. If you're trying to budget a sign - or decide between glass and LED - the electricity cost is a real variable, and LA rates make it hit harder than most of the country. The two things that determine your number more than anything else are where you live and what type of sign you're running, so let's get into both.

What affects your running cost?

The two variables I see matter most in our shop are linear footage of tube and hours per day. A small, simple sign running 4 hours a night is a fundamentally different electricity conversation than a 30-foot installation burning 12 hours a day, 365 days a year. Beyond those two, transformer type is the other big lever on glass neon - our standard 12,000V, 30mA unit draws up to 360W at full load, and that wattage is what gets multiplied against your rate.

That rate is the part most online calculators quietly understate. Los Angeles electricity runs around $0.29/kWh at a typical blended rate - LADWP-served addresses often land in the 22–28¢ range, while SCE-served addresses can push past 34¢. The national average sits closer to $0.17/kWh according to EIA data. That gap is significant: a sign that costs $15/month to run in Texas can cost $25/month or more at an LA address. If you're comparing neon sign running costs you found on a national blog to what you'll actually pay, adjust for your local rate before you trust the number.

Glass neon vs. LED neon - the real cost difference

The calculator above puts the monthly gap at $19.84 - $25.06 for glass neon versus $5.22 for LED, at 240 hours per month and $0.29/kWh. That's not a rounding error. Annualized, you're looking at roughly $238/year in savings by choosing LED over glass for the same 20-foot sign. Over five years, that's $1,190 - before you factor in any rate increases, which in California have been trending upward.

Most competitors stop there. What they don't tell you is that this isn't purely an efficiency comparison - it's also a look comparison. Glass neon produces light through ionized gas inside a hand-bent glass tube. The glow has depth, warmth, and a slight flicker character that comes from the physics of the discharge itself. LED neon flex is a silicone-jacketed strip of diodes shaped to approximate that look. It's brighter in a flat, even way, and it photographs cleanly, but it reads differently in person - especially in a dim room where the glass tube's ambient glow wraps around surfaces in a way that LED can't replicate.

I'm not saying one is better. I'm saying they're genuinely different products, and the $238/year difference is the price of that difference. For a bar or restaurant where the sign is part of the atmosphere, that distinction matters. For a trade show display or a backlit photo prop, LED is often the smarter call. You can dig deeper into that tradeoff in our LED vs. glass neon comparison guide - but the electricity cost alone shouldn't be the only thing driving the decision.

What affects neon sign power usage?

Size is the obvious one. More linear footage of glass tube means more gas to ionize, which means more draw on the transformer. A simple 10-foot script sign and a detailed 30-foot installation with multiple colors and layered elements aren't in the same conversation.

Design complexity matters more than most people expect on glass neon. Every bend, every electrode junction, every color change is a point where the tube load shifts. More electrodes mean the transformer is managing more load segments, and that affects how close it runs to its full-load rating. A simple single-line script in one color runs cooler and draws less than a multi-element design with the same total footage.

Color and power draw: Color is a factor that rarely gets mentioned, but it matters if power draw is a concern. Red tubing runs on pure neon gas and needs higher operating voltage, drawing more power and running hotter. Blue, green, and white tubes typically use argon with a mercury dose, which requires lower operating voltage — so they draw less power and run cooler than red or orange. If minimizing power draw is a priority on a build, color is genuinely a lever you can pull.

Tube diameter and power draw: Diameter matters just as much, and the relationship isn’t intuitive. Thinner tubing — 6mm, 8mm — actually requires more voltage to strike and sustain a stable arc than wider tubing like 12mm or 15mm. So a thin-diameter sign can draw more power to run than a wider one of the same length, which is the opposite of what most people assume. It’s one of those realities of neon that only becomes obvious once you’ve spec’d transformers for both

Indoor versus outdoor matters for longevity more than wattage, but outdoor signs typically run longer hours and may need weatherproof transformers with slightly different load characteristics. And hours of use is the multiplier on everything - it's the variable you have the most direct control over, which is why a timer is the first thing I recommend to anyone trying to manage running costs.

How to reduce your neon sign's running cost

The single biggest lever is a timer or smart plug. If your sign runs 12 hours a day instead of 24, you've cut your electricity cost in half - no new hardware, no efficiency upgrade, just scheduled operation. For glass neon, this is easy and doesn't harm the sign. Cycling the sign on and off does not damage the tube. What it does affect over time is the transformer, which is why running 24/7 indefinitely shortens transformer life more than regular on/off cycling does.

Dimmer compatibility is worth knowing about before you buy. LED neon flex is generally dimmable - most quality LED drivers support 0–10V or PWM dimming, so you can run the sign at 50% brightness during off-peak hours and cut the draw proportionally. Glass neon is more limited here. Some transformers support dimming, but it's not universal, and running a glass neon transformer outside its designed range can affect tube life. If dimming matters to you, confirm compatibility before spec'ing the transformer.

Peak-hours scheduling is a small but real optimization if you're on a time-of-use rate plan (common with SCE). Running your sign during off-peak hours - typically after 9 p.m. - can reduce the effective rate you're paying per kWh. Right-sizing the transformer is the other shop-side variable: a transformer that's matched to your actual tube load runs more efficiently than one that's significantly over- or under-spec'd for the job.

Running costs for business signage

Scale the math to a real commercial scenario and the numbers get meaningful fast. Take a bar or restaurant with three glass neon signs - a logo sign, a tagline sign, and a decorative piece - each running on a standard 12,000V, 30mA transformer. At full-load rating (360W each), that's 1,080W total. Running 12 hours a day, 365 days a year, at $0.29/kWh:

1,080W × 12 hrs × 365 days ÷ 1,000 = 4,730 kWh/year × $0.29 = $1,372/year in electricity for those three signs alone.

Run the same scenario with three LED neon signs at 75W each (225W total):

225W × 12 hrs × 365 days ÷ 1,000 = 986 kWh/year × $0.29 = $286/year.

That's a $1,086/year difference - real money for a small business, and it compounds over the life of the signs. Whether that savings justifies the aesthetic tradeoff is a business decision, not just an electricity decision. If you're weighing it, it's worth getting a proper quote that includes both options side by side. We build custom neon signs Los Angeles businesses use for exactly this kind of permanent installation, and we can spec both glass and LED versions of the same design so you're comparing apples to apples.

For more on what the upfront fabrication cost looks like before you get to running costs, the custom neon sign pricing guide walks through that in detail.

Frequently asked questions

How much does it cost to run a neon sign per year?

At 240 hours per month (8 hours/day) and $0.29/kWh - a typical Los Angeles rate - a medium glass neon sign running on a 12,000V, 30mA transformer costs roughly $300/year at full-load rating. The same sign in LED neon flex costs roughly $63/year. Your actual number will vary based on your local rate, your sign's specific wattage, and how many hours it runs. The calculator at the top of this page lets you adjust for your own hours.

Do neon signs use a lot of electricity?

Less than most people expect. A medium glass neon sign at full transformer load draws 360W - about the same as a household clothes iron running intermittently. LED neon at the same footage draws around 75W, closer to a laptop. Neither is a major electricity draw on its own. Where it adds up is hours: a sign running 12 hours a day, 365 days a year accumulates real kWh. The wattage isn't the surprise - the hours are. You can find a broader breakdown of neon sign energy data in our buyers guide to neon signs.

Is it cheaper to leave a neon sign on or turn it off?

Turn it off. The idea that cycling a neon sign damages it is a myth that's been floating around for decades - it doesn't apply to modern signs. What 24/7 operation does do is shorten transformer life, because the transformer is the component under continuous electrical stress. A timer that cuts the sign off overnight extends transformer lifespan meaningfully. If your transformer does eventually need attention, neon sign repair is a straightforward job when it's caught early - but avoiding unnecessary runtime is the cheaper path.

How much does LED neon cost to run vs. glass?

At Los Angeles rates ($0.29/kWh), LED neon costs roughly $5/month versus $25/month for glass neon on a comparable 20-foot medium sign at 240 hours of monthly use. That's approximately 80% less per month to run. Over a year, the gap is about $238. Over five years, $1,190 - and that's before accounting for California's ongoing rate increases. The upfront cost of LED neon is also typically lower than glass, so the total cost of ownership difference is even larger than the electricity number alone suggests.

What wattage is a typical neon sign?

For glass neon, a medium sign with real design detail - script lettering, multiple elements, roughly 20 linear feet of tube - typically runs on a 12,000V, 30mA transformer, which has a full-load rating of 360W (12,000V × 0.030A). Because the transformer is self-regulating, actual draw is often lower than that ceiling, depending on the tube load. For LED neon, the same 20-foot piece runs at approximately 75W (20 ft × 3.75W/ft), powered by a 12V or 24V DC driver rather than a high-voltage transformer. The wattage difference between glass and LED is the core reason the running costs diverge so sharply.

The electricity numbers above are part of a larger dataset on how the industry is shifting - the neon sign industry statistics page pulls together LED versus glass adoption data alongside the power figures that feed this calculator, if you want the broader market context behind the cost difference.