The Complete Guide to Crypto Mining Profitability
By Arshi Khan, Founder of Just4Marketing · Last reviewed October 2026
Whether a mining rig makes money comes down to a race between two numbers: the coins your share of the network earns each day, and the electricity it burns to earn them. This guide shows how daily rewards are estimated from hashrate, why electricity price usually decides profitability, and what the estimate leaves out.
The mining profit formula
Coins per day = (your hashrate ÷ network hashrate) × blocks per day × block reward × (1 − pool fee). Revenue = coins per day × coin price. Electricity cost = watts ÷ 1,000 × 24 × price per kWh. Profit = revenue − electricity.
Example: one Bitcoin ASIC
| Item | Value |
|---|---|
| Hashrate / network hashrate | 200 TH/s / 900 EH/s |
| Coins per day (after 2% pool fee) | 0.000098 BTC |
| Revenue at $100,000 per BTC | $9.80 per day |
| Electricity (3,500 W at $0.08/kWh) | $6.72 per day |
| Profit | $3.08 per day |
| Payback on $4,000 hardware | About 1,299 days |
These are example figures — enter today's network hashrate and price for a current estimate.
What decides whether mining pays
Electricity price
Most profitable miners pay well under $0.06 per kWh. At typical household rates, many rigs lose money.
Efficiency (J/TH)
Newer machines use fewer joules per terahash. An efficient rig stays profitable at prices that shut older ones down.
Rising difficulty
Network hashrate tends to grow, shrinking your share of rewards over time even if your rig doesn't change.
Frequently asked questions
How are daily mining rewards estimated?
Your expected share of blocks equals your hashrate divided by the network hashrate. Multiply that by the number of blocks per day (144 for Bitcoin) and the block reward, then subtract the pool fee. With 200 TH/s on a 900 EH/s network, that's about 0.000098 BTC a day after a 2% fee.
What electricity price makes mining unprofitable?
Divide daily revenue by the kilowatt-hours your rig uses per day. In the default example, $9.80 of revenue against 84 kWh means mining stops paying above about $0.117 per kWh.
Why do my actual earnings differ?
Network hashrate keeps rising as more miners join, coin prices move, and luck varies day to day. Transaction fees add a little extra reward, while cooling, internet, and hardware failures add costs.
What happens at a halving?
Bitcoin's block reward halves roughly every four years, most recently to 3.125 BTC in 2024. Halving cuts mining revenue in half overnight unless the price rises to compensate, so payback estimates should account for it.