Contents
- The real answer: BLUETTI AC180 wins, and the sticker price is lying to you about the other two
- How to actually calculate cost per watt-hour
- What we checked ourselves, today, on three official pages
- Where the naive ranking and the lifetime ranking split
- What the broader market charges per watt-hour right now
- Why cycle life is the number that actually decides the price
- Power station or gas generator — the tradeoff nobody puts a number on
- Is any of this worth it?
The real answer: BLUETTI AC180 wins, and the sticker price is lying to you about the other two
Here’s the answer before the math. Divide price by capacity, and the Anker SOLIX C1000 looks cheaper than the EcoFlow DELTA 3 — $0.568 per Wh versus $0.585 per Wh. Divide by capacity times rated cycle life instead, and DELTA 3 wins: $0.000146 per lifetime-Wh versus $0.000189. Neither beats the BLUETTI AC180, which comes out ahead on both measures. We checked this ourselves, directly against each brand’s official US pricing page, at 16:37 KST on 2026-09-23.
That flip is the whole point of this piece.
Most comparison charts publish price divided by watt-hours and stop there. That number tells you what you pay for capacity on day one. It says nothing about how many times you can actually recharge the thing before it degrades to 80% of its original capacity — which is the number that decides what you’re really paying per watt-hour of energy delivered over the unit’s life.
Who should care about which number: if you’re buying for one trip and reselling within a year, the naive $/Wh figure is basically all that matters — you won’t be around for the degradation curve. If you’re keeping a unit for five-plus years as storm backup or full-time van power, the lifetime-adjusted number is the one to look at, and as the table below shows, it can rank a $599 unit below a $499 one.
My own read: sites keep publishing sticker $/Wh because it’s one division problem. Lifetime cost needs a spec sheet, a cycle-life number, and a second calculation most reviewers skip.
- Anker SOLIX C1000: $0.568/Wh naive, $0.000189/lifetime-Wh adjusted
- BLUETTI AC180: $0.433/Wh naive, $0.000124/lifetime-Wh adjusted — the winner both ways
- EcoFlow DELTA 3: $0.585/Wh naive, $0.000146/lifetime-Wh adjusted
How to actually calculate cost per watt-hour
The formula most sites use is simple: price divided by capacity in Wh. WhichWatts, which runs a price-comparison database it says was last reviewed in August 2026, states its own methodology plainly: “Cost per watt-hour is price divided by capacity. Lower is better value.” Its own worked example: a $500 unit with 1,000Wh capacity comes out to $0.50/Wh.
That formula treats every watt-hour as equally valuable regardless of how many times you can draw on it. A battery rated for 3,000 cycles and one rated for 500 cycles can post the same $/Wh on day one and deliver wildly different totals over years of use.
The formula this piece uses instead — call it the true or amortized cost — is price divided by capacity in Wh, times rated cycles to 80% retained capacity: price ÷ (Wh × rated cycles). That approximates the price per watt-hour of energy the unit can actually deliver across its full rated life, not just its capacity on the day you plug it in.
The two rankings don’t have to agree, and here, they didn’t. The Anker SOLIX C1000 ranks better than the EcoFlow DELTA 3 on naive $/Wh. It ranks worse once cycle life enters the formula. That’s not a rounding difference — it’s a full reversal of which unit is the better buy.
What we checked ourselves, today, on three official pages
This is the part most write-ups on this topic skip entirely: an actual, redone-today calculation, not a repeated industry rule of thumb. We opened each brand’s official US product page directly, recorded the list price, rated capacity, and the cycle-life spec printed on that page, then ran both formulas.
| Model | Price (USD) | Capacity (Wh) | Chemistry | Rated cycles to 80% | $/Wh | $/lifetime-Wh |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Anker SOLIX C1000 | $599.99 | 1,056 | LiFePO4 | 3,000 | $0.568 | $0.000189 |
| BLUETTI AC180 | $499.00 | 1,152 | LiFePO4 | 3,500 | $0.433 | $0.000124 |
| EcoFlow DELTA 3 | $599.00 (list $699) | 1,024 | LiFePO4 | 4,000 | $0.585 | $0.000146 |
BLUETTI AC180 wins on both columns among the three we checked.
A few catches change how much you should trust these exact figures. The rated cycle count is each manufacturer’s own lab figure — 80% capacity retention under controlled charge and discharge conditions — not an independent lab measurement. Real-world degradation depends on depth of discharge, temperature, and charge rate, and will shift these numbers in practice. Prices are US list or sale prices captured at one moment; they move with promotions and region, so redo the division with your own local price before buying.
Two things we couldn’t price: EcoFlow’s own site no longer lists the DELTA 2 — ecoflow.com now shows DELTA 3 in that slot. And the original Jackery Explorer 1000’s official page, which we tried for an older-chemistry comparison row, returned only a navigation listing, no spec text. That row stays blank.
Where the naive ranking and the lifetime ranking split
The split happens because rated cycle life and price don’t move together. The EcoFlow DELTA 3 costs 1.7 cents more per Wh upfront than the Anker SOLIX C1000 ($0.585 versus $0.568), but it’s rated for 1,000 more cycles — 4,000 versus 3,000. Multiply capacity by cycles and DELTA 3’s lifetime energy delivery comes out to 4,096,000 Wh against Anker’s 3,168,000 Wh.
Run the same math on BLUETTI, and it doesn’t just split the difference — it beats both. Lower price, higher capacity, and the highest cycle rating of the three all land on the same unit.
If you only read one number in this piece, make it this one: the cheapest unit by sticker price is not automatically the cheapest unit to own.
What the broader market charges per watt-hour right now
Outside the three units we checked, SolarWaypoint’s price index — an analysis dated 2026-08-28 covering 114 research-valid manufacturer-price observations from 13 manufacturers — puts the median at roughly $0.60/Wh, with the middle 50% of products falling between $0.44 and $0.80/Wh.
Price per Wh drops as capacity climbs, then rises again at the largest sizes, per that same index:
- 450Wh and under: 27 products, median $199, $0.89/Wh, range $0.71–$1.09
- 451–800Wh: 13 products, median $379, $0.67/Wh, range $0.49–$0.81
- 801–1,600Wh: 29 products, median $549, $0.52/Wh, range $0.40–$0.74
- 1,601–3,200Wh: 25 products, median $999.99, $0.44/Wh — the cheapest tier per Wh, roughly 51% less than compact stations
- 3,201–7,000Wh: 18 products, median $2,399.50, $0.57/Wh, range $0.45–$0.69
Within roughly the 1kWh class specifically — where all three of our checked units sit — SolarWaypoint found $/Wh spanning $0.37 to $1.13 across 15 models, close to a 3x spread for similar capacity. Brand pricing, size-adjusted, ranged from an index of 71 (PECRON, cheapest) to 154 (Goal Zero, priciest). WhichWatts, separately, says it tracks over 500 models across four capacity tiers, and cites the U.S. EIA, U.S. DOE, and NREL as sources behind its methodology page.
Why cycle life is the number that actually decides the price
Chemistry drives almost all of the cycle-life gap. MightyGenerators’ cycle-data piece rates LiFePO4 (lithium iron phosphate) at 3,000 to 6,000 cycles to 80% capacity — the three units we checked landed squarely in that range, at exactly 3,000, 3,500, and 4,000 cycles for Anker, BLUETTI, and EcoFlow respectively.
The comparison point is older NMC, or standard lithium-ion chemistry, which MightyGenerators rates at roughly 500 to 1,000 cycles to 80% capacity — a single-source figure; our own attempt to confirm it against the Jackery Explorer 1000’s official spec page came back empty.
Translated into years under daily use, MightyGenerators puts LiFePO4 at roughly 8 to 12 years and NMC lithium-ion at roughly 2 to 3 years under identical daily-cycling conditions. That source also frames LiFePO4 as delivering three to six times the charge cycles of older NMC batteries — roughly 4x lower cost-per-cycle over the battery’s life despite the higher upfront price. That’s MightyGenerators’ framing, not a calculation this piece redid independently.
Two named examples from that source: the Anker SOLIX F3800 (LiFePO4) is rated 3,000+ cycles with a 10-year warranty, and the Jackery Explorer 2000 Plus (LiFePO4) is rated 4,000 cycles to 80%.
Calendar aging applies regardless of chemistry, too. MightyGenerators notes roughly 2–5% capacity loss per year just from time, which caps real-world lifespan around 10–15 years for most users even on LiFePO4 units. Cycle count isn’t the only clock running.
All three units we checked — Anker SOLIX C1000, BLUETTI AC180, EcoFlow DELTA 3 — are current-generation LiFePO4. None of the three current mainstream units we checked directly still uses NMC.
Power station or gas generator — the tradeoff nobody puts a number on
Consumer Reports, which tested actual units rather than surveying the market, priced the power stations it tested at $1,500 to $3,500. Under its test conditions — running a TV and lights — those units lasted 3 to 9 hours, against 8 to 13 hours for gas generators on one tank. Running a refrigerator, the best power station in its test lasted up to 44 hours; the worst lasted only 13.
The limitation Consumer Reports flags directly: once a power station’s battery is dead and there’s minimal sun to recharge it, there’s no way to refuel it, unlike a gas generator, which can be refueled continuously during an extended outage. It also notes power stations can’t match a generator’s power output and can’t run large appliances like well pumps the way gas units can.
Consumer Reports doesn’t address purchase price per Wh, cycle life, or battery chemistry at all — none of that shows up in its testing. That’s exactly the gap this piece’s calculation above is trying to fill.
A dollar break-even point between owning a power station and a gas generator would be useful here, but we couldn’t pin one down. A 100–150 day figure, with budget generators around $400–500 and fuel around $1.40–1.60 an hour, turned up only in an aggregated search summary — not a page we could read and check directly — so it stays out of the numbers above. Run the formulas in this piece with your own local generator and fuel prices instead.
Is any of this worth it?
Forum sentiment on this question splits by use case, based on aggregated search results rather than a single thread we could read directly. Frequent campers, road-trippers, and people who need real outage backup describe it as worth it. Occasional or idle ownership gets described as not worth it. Some skepticism shows up toward premium brand pricing, Jackery specifically, versus cheaper alternatives.
My own take: for anyone keeping a unit more than two or three years, the lifetime-adjusted number should carry more weight than the sticker price. A $100 gap on day one is nothing next to a 1,000-cycle gap over a decade.
What’s next to watch: whether EcoFlow’s DELTA-line pricing holds once DELTA 2 fully disappears from its own site, and whether any brand starts publishing lifetime-adjusted cost figures on its own product pages instead of leaving buyers to do this division themselves.
FAQ
Is cost per watt-hour the same as cost per cycle? No. Cost per watt-hour (price ÷ capacity) measures what you pay for capacity on day one. Cost per lifetime-Wh (price ÷ capacity × rated cycles) approximates what you pay per watt-hour delivered across the unit’s full rated life. The two can rank products differently, as they did between the Anker SOLIX C1000 and EcoFlow DELTA 3 above.
Is LiFePO4 always cheaper per cycle than NMC lithium-ion? MightyGenerators frames it that way — roughly 4x lower cost-per-cycle over the battery’s life — but we couldn’t confirm an NMC unit’s official cycle-life spec to redo that math ourselves, so treat the ratio as their estimate, not ours.
Is a portable power station worth it instead of a gas generator? It depends on the use case, and neither source used here gives a confirmed dollar break-even point. Consumer Reports’ tested data shows power stations run fewer hours and can’t be refueled mid-outage, but they carry no ongoing fuel cost. A specific break-even day-count turned up in search results but couldn’t be confirmed against a readable source, so it’s left out here.
What’s still open: no source here gives an official cycle-life spec for a current NMC/lithium-ion unit, so the chemistry gap above rests on one source’s framing rather than this piece’s own side-by-side check. If EcoFlow brings DELTA 2 back to its own pricing page, or Jackery republishes detailed specs for older models, both would be worth rechecking against the same formulas used here.
Image credits
- Photo by smart-me AG on Pexels