Mining Academy

ASIC Payback: How to Calculate Mining Profitability

ASIC payback is simple to calculate: divide the cost of the hardware by the net daily income, meaning revenue from mined coins minus electricity and other costs. The hard part is that nearly every input — coin price, network difficulty, price per kilowatt-hour — changes over time, so any payback figure is an estimate, never a promise.

The basic formula

Mining profitability can be written in three steps.

Daily revenue = hashrate (TH/s) × revenue per 1 TH/s per day.
Daily electricity cost = power (kW) × 24 hours × price per kWh.
Daily net income = revenue − electricity − other costs (hosting, maintenance, taxes).

Payback in days = cost of the ASIC and accessories ÷ daily net income. If net income is close to zero or negative, payback never happens, which is a legitimate result of the calculation and not an error.

The pool fee is already deducted from your earnings: at RuPool it is 1%, and the pool covers network fees for payouts, so you do not need to add them as a separate cost line.

ASIC efficiency: joules per terahash

The key metric of a device is its energy efficiency in joules per terahash (J/TH). It shows how much energy the device uses for each terahash per second. The lower the number, the better, all else equal.

Power in watts = hashrate (TH/s) × efficiency (J/TH). For example, a 200 TH/s unit at 17.5 J/TH draws about 3,500 W, or 3.5 kW. Manufacturers publish nominal values; actual consumption depends on the operating mode, frequency, temperature and power supply quality, so it is better to measure draw at the socket.

Electricity is the largest cost of mining on industrial hardware, and a difference of 2–3 J/TH between models turns into serious money at farm scale.

What goes into revenue per 1 TH/s

Revenue per unit of hashrate (often called hashprice) is not constant. It depends on four factors.

Block reward. Fixed by the protocol and halved at each halving. Check upcoming dates on the halving page.
Network difficulty. Grows as more hardware joins the network. The higher the difficulty, the fewer coins each terahash earns.
Coin price. Revenue is calculated in coins, but your costs are in your local currency. A falling price at constant difficulty immediately cuts your revenue in that currency.
Transaction fees in blocks. They add a variable part to the reward. Under FPPS, which RuPool uses, they are included in your earnings.

Since difficulty and price move constantly, take current values from a calculator rather than computing by hand from old data.

A worked example with illustrative numbers

The following is a teaching example. All figures are illustrative and serve only to show the logic; plug in your own.

Suppose you have a 200 TH/s ASIC at 17.5 J/TH drawing 3.5 kW. Illustrative revenue is 2.5 currency units per 1 TH/s per day, and the unit costs 150,000 including delivery.

Daily revenue: 200 × 2.5 = 500.
Daily consumption: 3.5 kW × 24 h = 84 kWh.

Electricity price per kWh	Daily cost	Daily net income	Payback
3	252	248	about 600 days
5	420	80	about 1,900 days
6	504	−4	never pays back

The example shows the main point: for identical hardware, payback is driven by the electricity price and hashprice. A difference of 2 units per kilowatt-hour turns "pays back in roughly a year and a half to two years" into "more than five years", which may be longer than the model stays competitive. That is why mining depends so much on region and tariff.

What else affects the real result

Difficulty growth. A calculation based on today is usually optimistic: difficulty tends to rise and revenue per terahash declines over time. Build in a margin.
Coin price. It can rise or fall. Do not base a payback plan on expected price growth.
Halving. Every few years the reward is halved, and a power-hungry device may stop being viable.
Uptime and cooling. Downtime, overheating and rejected shares lower real hashrate relative to nominal.
Location. Home, rented premises and hosting have different cost models; at a hosting provider your calculation includes a per-kW rate and a monthly fee for the slot.
Taxes. Mining income is taxable in most countries, and in Russia as well, so tax is a cost to include; see mining taxes in Russia.
Resale value. After a year or two an ASIC can be sold, which reduces the real cost of ownership. But second-hand prices fluctuate too, so do not rely on a specific resale price in advance.

How to test the sensitivity of your estimate

A single scenario says very little. It is more useful to learn which parameter moves the result most and keep an eye on it. Change inputs one at a time and watch daily net income.

Electricity price. In the example above, raising the tariff from 3 to 5 cut net income to a third. If your tariff is variable or time-of-day based, use a monthly weighted average.
Hashprice. At a tariff of 5, a drop of about 16% in revenue per terahash is enough to wipe out the profit entirely. This is the break-even point: the hashprice at which revenue equals electricity cost. Knowing it tells you how much safety margin the configuration has.
Actual hashrate. If overheating or an unstable network makes the device deliver 95% of nominal, revenue falls by the same 5% while you still pay for full power.
Operating mode. Many devices offer a low-power mode with reduced frequency. It lowers both hashrate and consumption; sometimes J/TH improves, and net income at a high tariff turns out better. Test this on your own unit rather than by general rules.

The break-even electricity price is: revenue per day ÷ (power in kW × 24). In the example that is 500 ÷ 84, about 5.95 per kWh. Above that price the device runs at a loss at the illustrative hashprice.

Decide separately what to do with an unprofitable device: switch it off, move it to a region with cheaper power, sell it, or keep it as a way to accumulate coins. That is a matter of strategy and risk tolerance, not arithmetic.

Calculating quickly: the calculator

A manual calculation helps you understand the logic, but in practice the RuPool profit calculator is easier: you enter a model or hashrate, power draw and electricity price, and get an estimate under current network conditions. To cross-check, rerun the result for several scenarios: optimistic, base and pessimistic (for example, coin price 30% lower and difficulty 20% higher).

Keep in mind that the calculator gives an estimate for the current moment. It does not know your future hashrate, power instability or changes in tariffs.

A step-by-step self-check

Write down the device's hashrate and power from the spec sheet and measure real consumption.
Determine the price per kilowatt-hour including all surcharges (at hosting, the per-kW service rate).
Get the current revenue per 1 TH/s from the calculator.
Compute daily net income and payback.
Run the three scenarios and find the hashprice at which you break even.
Decide what is acceptable to you: payback period, price risk, the risk of switching the device off.

If you end up at a loss in the pessimistic scenario, treat it as a signal to reconsider the purchase rather than a reason to hope for a higher price.

FAQ

How long does an ASIC take to pay back?

There is no single answer: it depends on hardware cost, energy efficiency, electricity tariff, coin price and network difficulty. In some configurations with expensive power a device never pays back. Calculate for your own case in the calculator.

Does the calculation include the pool fee?

The pool fee is deducted from your earnings. At RuPool it is 1%, and network fees are not deducted from payouts on top of it. Other costs — electricity, hosting, taxes — you must add yourself.

What matters more: ASIC price or efficiency?

Both, but over the long run energy efficiency and the kilowatt-hour price often outweigh the purchase price, because you pay for electricity every day. Compare models by total cost of ownership.

Should I count on the price going up?

No. Plan so that the calculation remains acceptable at an unchanged or lower price, and treat any rise as a bonus rather than the foundation of the plan.