The arithmetic, step by step
You need three inputs. Two are local, one is on your appliance.
Step 1: get your delivered fuel price. Call two or three local suppliers and ask for the price of a full cord, stacked and delivered, and the price of a ton of pellets, delivered. Insist on the unit. "Face cord," "rick," and "truckload" have no fixed definition, and a price per "cord" that turns out to be a face cord is roughly a third of the wood at the same price.
Step 2: convert to energy. The energy in a cord varies substantially by species and moisture, which is exactly why we are not handing you one number. Ask your supplier what species you are buying, and use a published heat-value table for that species at 20% moisture rather than a generic figure. Pellets are more uniform because the fuel is manufactured to a specification, and the bag or the supplier's spec sheet will state the heat content.
Step 3: divide by your appliance's efficiency. A stove at 73% HHV delivers 73% of the fuel's energy into your room. The other 27% goes up the flue. This step is what makes a nominally cheaper fuel sometimes lose.
Step 4: multiply by how much heat you actually need. Your prior heating bills are the best available estimate for that, converted to BTU using the factors above.
A worked example, with the numbers labeled as inputs
This uses the two prices we can source nationally, so you can check the method against figures you can verify yourself.
Natural gas. At $19.83 per thousand cubic feet (EIA, May 2026) and 1,036 BTU per cubic foot (EIA, 2026 estimate), a thousand cubic feet carries 1.036 million BTU. That is $19.83 ÷ 1.036 = $19.14 per million BTU of fuel purchased. At a hypothetical 80% appliance efficiency, delivered heat costs $19.14 ÷ 0.80 = $23.93 per million BTU delivered. The 80% here is an illustrative appliance figure, not a measured one, and it is labeled as such.
Propane. At $2.674 per gallon (EIA, March 30, 2026), with propane's heat content taken from your supplier's spec, the same two divisions give you the comparable number.
Run cordwood and pellets through the identical arithmetic with your local prices. Whichever produces the lower cost per million BTU delivered is cheaper to run for you, in your market, this year. That answer legitimately differs by state and sometimes by county, which is the real reason no national figure is worth publishing.
The annual costs that are not fuel
Fuel is the biggest line but not the only one, and these are the ones that get left out of comparisons.
Sweeping and inspection. Every solid-fuel appliance needs its flue swept and inspected on a schedule. Both wood and pellet appliances need it; pellet vent systems are not exempt.
Catalytic combustor, on catalytic models. A consumable with a replacement interval and a real part cost. Amortize it: divide the part price by the manufacturer's stated interval in years and add it to the annual cost. Our EPA database ingest shows 314 catalytic and 40 hybrid models among 1,438 listings, so this applies to a meaningful minority of the field, and those are disproportionately the high-efficiency models.
Pellet stove electricity. The auger, igniter, and blowers draw power whenever the stove runs. It is a small number, and it is not zero, and it belongs in the comparison because a wood stove's equivalent is zero.
Gaskets and glass. Door and window gaskets are annual-to-biennial consumables on both types.
Your labor, if you cut your own wood. Not a cash cost, and not free. Price it however you price your Saturdays.
Why the efficiency figure you use matters so much
The efficiency divisor moves the answer more than most buyers expect. Across EPA-listed models that publish a figure, wood stoves range from 59% to 84% HHV and pellet stoves from 51% to 87%. At the extremes, the same cord of wood delivers materially different heat depending on which appliance burns it.
Two cautions on using that number:
- Most models publish nothing. 532 of 1,438 listings carry an efficiency figure; 906 are blank. A blank field means EPA does not publish one, not that the appliance is inefficient. If yours is blank, use the class median and know that you are using a median.
- Rated efficiency assumes correct operation on dry fuel. A stove rated 80% and run on wet wood at a smoldering burn does not deliver 80%. Fuel moisture swamps a few points of rating, which is why our first-season guide leads with the moisture meter.
What we will publish when we can
When our dealer registry carries enough dated, real fuel-price and quote data to state regional ranges with the scope attached, this page gains them. Until then it gives you the method and the sourced conversion factors, which is the part that does not go stale.
Methodology and freshness
Efficiency figures and model counts: our own full ingest of EPA's certified wood heater database, 1,438 models, 2026-08-15; medians and ranges computed only over models publishing a figure. Fuel prices and conversion factors: EIA, cited inline with the period each covers (natural gas, propane, conversion calculators). No cordwood or pellet price is asserted, because no primary national source publishes one. The 80% appliance efficiency in the worked example is labeled an illustrative input, not a measured figure. Refresh cadence: quarterly, and on any EIA revision to a figure cited here.
Corrections: if a figure here is wrong, tell us and we will correct or remove it.
This page is a reference directory, not tax, legal, or installation advice. We do not sell, install, or service stoves and we do not arrange installation work.