ASIC Miner ROI: How to Calculate Your Break-Even

In short. One formula, six variables, and a spreadsheet are enough. For an Antminer S21 Pro at the median 2026 hashprice: +$6.78 per day hosted at $0.07/kWh, against −$0.80 per day at home at $0.16/kWh. The method below applies to any machine.

The formula

Profit per day = (hashrate_TH × hashprice_$_TH_day)
                 − (power_kW × 24 × kWh_rate)
                 − pool_fees
                 − amortized_setup_fee

Everything else is filling in those six terms correctly.

The six variables

1. Hashrate, in TH/s. Manufacturer spec. An Antminer S21 Pro is rated at 234 TH/s nominal, with a practical tolerance of 3 to 5 %.

2. Power, in watts. Manufacturer spec, the "power on wall" line. The S21 Pro draws 3,510 W, so 3.51 kW.

3. Hashprice, in dollars per TH per day. Read from Hashrate Index, WhatToMine, or ASIC Miner Value. It oscillates between $0.03 and $0.08 across 2026. For a conservative calculation, take the median of the last thirty days rather than the peak.

4. The kWh rate. At home in the US, around $0.16 on the national average and far higher in California or the Northeast, to be verified against your own bill with delivery charges included. In hosting, between $0.055 and $0.10, often quoted before taxes, which the contract will confirm.

5. Pool fees. Between 1 and 2 % of gross revenue on a standard FPPS scheme.

6. The setup fee, in hosting only. Between $100 and $350 one-off, amortized over the contract term: $150 across twelve months is $0.41 per day.

The worked example

Assumptions: hashprice of $0.055 per TH per day, pool fees of 1.5 %.

Daily gross revenue comes to 234 × 0.055 = $12.87.

Daily electricity cost depends entirely on location:

• at home, at $0.16/kWh: 3.51 × 24 × 0.16 = $13.48;
• hosted, at $0.07/kWh: 3.51 × 24 × 0.07 = $5.90.

Pool fees come to 12.87 × 1.5 % = $0.19 per day.

The net result follows:

Configuration	Net per day
Home	12.87 − 13.48 − 0.19 = −$0.80
Hosted, before setup fee	12.87 − 5.90 − 0.19 = +$6.78
Hosted, setup fee amortized	6.78 − 0.41 = +$6.37

Projecting across twelve to twenty-four months

Difficulty rises. Bitcoin network difficulty climbs 10 to 20 % per year on average across 2024 to 2026. Your BTC revenue falls in the same proportion at constant hashrate. Over twelve months, subtract 12 to 15 % from average gross revenue, or 7 % if you reason on the period average rather than its endpoint.

The 2028 halving. If your horizon runs past spring 2028, add a step change at that date: gross revenue halves, absent a compensating price move. The detail sits here.

BTC price. Your revenue is denominated in BTC. Converting immediately to dollars exposes you to daily volatility, accumulating amounts to taking a position. Both choices are defensible, but the model has to state which one on its own line.

The twelve-month calculation

At home, at $0.16/kWh

Line	Annual amount
Gross revenue, constant difficulty	$4,698
Difficulty adjustment, −7 % on average	$4,369
Electricity	−$4,920
Pool fees	−$66
Net result	−$617

Hosted, at $0.07/kWh

Line	Annual amount
Gross revenue, constant difficulty	$4,698
Difficulty adjustment, −7 % on average	$4,369
Electricity	−$2,154
Pool fees	−$66
Setup fee	−$150
Net result	+$1,999

Paying back the machine alone, around $6,000, therefore takes about three years hosted. At home, it never happens: the machine loses money every day it runs, and the capital invested never returns.

The model stays theoretical. Hashprice can collapse and BTC price can fall away, and any projection is only worth its assumptions. Rerun the calculation each quarter with current values.

Online tools

WhatToMine offers a multi-asset calculator, ASIC Miner Value gives an estimated return per ASIC model, and Hashrate Index provides spot hashprice along with its history.

Those calculators do not expose their formula or their difficulty assumptions. They serve to check an order of magnitude, not to build a purchase decision. The method above can be contested line by line, which is precisely its value.

Four traps in the quick calculation

Ignoring the rise in difficulty. Calculating on today's hashprice as though it held for twelve months overstates the result by 10 to 15 %.

Mixing pre-tax and delivered rates. The advertised rate is usually pre-delivery and pre-tax for commercial supply, all-in for residential. Comparing the two directly distorts the whole calculation.

Overestimating uptime. A home machine runs at 90 to 95 %, not 100 %. Count on 5 to 10 % of cumulative downtime, including outages, reboots, and maintenance.

Ignoring replacement cost. At three or four years, the machine will be economically outdated. A long-term model has to include the repurchase, or the expected residual resale value, which collapses alongside hashprice.

Further reading

• Bitcoin mining electricity cost
• Is bitcoin mining profitable in 2026?
• Bitcoin mining colocation cost
• Best ASIC miners 2026

No profitability figure constitutes a guarantee of results.