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Aircon size and cost calculator

Room size gives the capacity band, published guides give the national price range, and your own electricity rate turns kilowatts into dollars.

Figures checked

Your room, your climate, your state

Where is the home?
What kind of system?
30 m²

Length times width. For ducted, add up the rooms the system will serve.

What will it replace?

Not sure? Search your postcode on the ABCB climate map.

It is on your bill, usually listed as the usage or peak rate. We do not guess it for you.

National installed price range, before any discount

$1,200 to $6,300

Unit $600 to $5,500, plus installer $600 to $800 or more (CHOICE, 2023). Not sized to your room.

Capacity to ask for
3.6 to 4.5 kW
Power drawn at full heating output
0.7 to 1.5 kW
Cost per hour at full output
Add your rate

Discounts

No Queensland rebate is open: the Climate Smart Energy Savers rebate is closed, and Energex says PeakSmart cashback has closed.

Read the details

Climate

Zone 2 is described as warm humid summer, mild winter. energy.gov.au says evaporative coolers are less effective on humid days, which is why humid zones lean on refrigerated air conditioning.

How quotes will work

An estimate from a published rule of thumb and price guides, not a quote. Full output is the ceiling: inverter systems spend most of their time below it.

How this estimate is built

Four published figures do the work here, and none of them is ours. Capacity comes from Canstar Blue's rule of thumb, 0.12 to 0.15 kW per m²src of floor area. Split system prices come from CHOICE's 2023 guide: $600 to $5,500src for the unit and $600 to $800 or moresrc for the installation. Ducted prices come from the same guide, starting from about $5,000src for a small home.

One limit to know about: the price does not change as you move the room size slider. No source we could verify publishes prices for each kW size, so the calculator shows the full national range for a split system, or the starting price for the type of home you pick for ducted. For a recent reference point, split system installation jobs on ServiceSeeking averaged about $1,712 a jobsrc in 2026.

Running cost starts with efficiency. Energy Rating says a reverse cycle system moves 3 to 5 units of heat per unit of electricitysrc, so the power drawn is the heat you want divided by that. Multiply by your own usage rate and you have dollars per hour at full output.

Why does it ask for your electricity rate?

Because we could not verify a single national tariff worth printing, and a wrong default would quietly make every dollar figure on the page wrong. Your bill has the number, usually labelled as the usage or peak rate.

What the estimate cannot know

The rule of thumb ignores ceiling height, orientation and glazingsrc. It also assumes full output, which an inverter system rarely runs at for long. Treat the result as a way to judge a quote, not as a quote.

Where the discounts come from

Victoria's figures are the Victorian Energy Upgrades maximums for replacing gas heating: up to $5,530src for ducted gas and up to $1,610src for a room heater. New South Wales publishes up to $550src for a new 6 kW system. Queensland has nothing open: the state rebate is closedsrc.