The purchase price is the small part. What a heat pump really costs isn't decided the day you buy it, but by the fifteen years after. The installation, the service, the repairs as it ages, and above all the electricity it runs around the clock. Look only at the sticker price and you're looking at the wrong number.

This guide takes the cost in order: the purchase, fifteen years of running it, which part weighs heaviest, and what happens when the pump gets old. Then we compare it with how the same cost looks when it sits inside a subscription.

What does a heat pump cost to buy?

More than the sticker price on the unit itself. On top of the pump comes the installation: pipework, electrical work, drilling if it's ground-source, cutting the openings and balancing the system. The installation can cost as much as the pump, sometimes more, depending on what your house looks like and what you're replacing.

But this is still the part you see most clearly. You get a quote, you pay once, and then it's paid. It's the rest of the sum that tends to surprise people.

What does it cost to own for 15 years?

More than buying it. A heat pump isn't paid off once it's installed. It needs servicing, it breaks down now and then, and it draws electricity every hour for fifteen years. Add those three up and they come to more than the purchase itself, and those are exactly the parts people count too low.

The service is the small, predictable part. A yearly visit, a filter change, a check of the refrigerant. The repairs are the unpredictable part, a compressor or an inverter that gives up after the warranty has run out. And the electricity is the big part, which just keeps going whatever you do.

Which part actually costs the most?

The electricity it draws. By a wide margin. A heat pump is a machine whose whole purpose is to spend electricity to make heat, around the clock, all year. Over 15 years it's the electricity that costs the most, not the pump and not the installation.

It's also the item that varies most between two houses. Two identical pumps can cost completely different amounts to run, depending on how they're controlled. A pump that works hardest when electricity is at its most expensive costs more, year after year. Whoever asks what a heat pump costs is almost always looking at the wrong number.

What happens as it ages?

The last years are usually the most expensive. A heat pump loses efficiency over time. It makes less heat per kilowatt-hour than when it was new, so it draws more electricity for the same 21 degrees in the hall. Around the same time the warranty runs out, and that's when the expensive parts tend to break.

The curve tilts the wrong way. The pump gets less efficient just as it starts to need repairs, and both cost you money at once. The cheapest heat pump is rarely the one that was cheapest to buy.

Is it still worth buying your own?

It can be. If you have the capital, keep up the service, replace parts in time and like staying on top of the technology, buying your own can work out well. You also take the whole gain when it goes as it should.

But that's not the point. The point is that 'what does a heat pump cost' is the wrong question if you only look at the purchase. The real cost is the total over fifteen years, and there it's the running, not the sticker price, that decides. Know that when you buy, and you can make a better decision whichever way you go.

What does a heat pump cost with Elvy?

A fixed amount a month, and nothing on top of it. In an energy subscription the purchase, the installation, the service, the repairs and the running all sit in the same monthly price. If the compressor breaks in year twelve, that's Elvy's problem, not yours. If the pump loses efficiency, Elvy carries it, because we're the ones who own it and trade the electricity.

There is no list price, because that would just be a guess. The price is set individually from an energy analysis of your house and stays fixed for 15 years, adjusted once a year by the consumer price index, never by the spot price. The heat pump never comes alone either, but together with solar panels and a battery as one system. No upfront cost at the start, and no expensive surprise at the end. Who owns the pump is something you notice most the day it breaks.