Some links on our site may earn us a commission at no extra cost to you. Learn more.
Updated September 2026: every plug’s price re-checked against its maker’s own store — Wyze’s and Kasa’s both moved up, Govee’s moved down enough to flip the payback ranking below.
Two of the assumptions this page made before are no longer true. Wyze was the cheapest, fastest-payback plug here; it isn’t anymore, at roughly $15 a plug instead of $6.25. Govee was the priciest and slowest to earn back its cost; it’s now the cheapest per plug of all five, once you buy it in the multi-pack its own store actually sells. Nothing about what these plugs do changed — only what they cost, and that’s enough to rewrite the ranking.
Which Assumptions About These Five Plugs No Longer Hold?
We checked each plug’s current price directly against its own manufacturer’s store, then cross-checked with a second retailer, before touching the payback math below. Two of the five had moved enough to matter.
| Plug | What this page said before | What the maker’s own store says now | Verdict |
|---|---|---|---|
| Wyze Plug | $6.25–$7.50 a plug, the cheapest option here | $14.84–$14.99 a plug, confirmed on both wyze.com and Home Depot’s listing | No longer the budget pick on a per-plug basis |
| Govee Smart Plug Pro | ~$30.99 for a single unit, the priciest here | $8.25–$9.50 a plug in the 2-pack and 4-pack Govee itself now sells, confirmed on govee.com and Rakuten | Now the cheapest per-plug price of all five |
| Kasa KP125M | Priced above meross for a similar feature set | $44.99 for a 4-pack (~$11.25/plug) at B&H, undercutting meross’s $13.25/plug | The price relationship reversed |
| “$165 a year” vampire-power figure | Cited without a date, reading like a fresh number | Traces to NRDC’s 2015 Home Idle Load study — still the most recent major research on the topic, but a decade old | Real number, needs its age stated plainly |
How Much Does Each Plug Actually Cost to Own?
NRDC’s 2015 Home Idle Load research put average household standby power waste at $165 a year — Energy Star’s own figure is a bit lower, over $100 — spread across dozens of devices, not one outlet. We keep the same deliberately conservative model as before: assume one smart plug’s auto-off schedule eliminates 10% of that household total, or about $16.50 a year ($1.38 a month). That’s a yardstick for comparing five products against the same assumption, not a promise of savings.
| Plug | Current price per plug | Months to pay for itself* |
|---|---|---|
| Govee Smart Plug Pro | $8.25 (4-pack) | ~6.0 months |
| Kasa KP125M | $11.25 (4-pack) | ~8.2 months |
| Amazon Smart Plug | $12.99 (common sale price) | ~9.4 months |
| meross MSS315 | $13.25 (4-pack) | ~9.6 months |
| Wyze Plug | $14.84 (2-pack) | ~10.8 months |
*Based on the conservative 10%-of-NRDC’s-average assumption above. Treat the ranking as the takeaway, not the exact month count — a plug controlling a power-hungry entertainment cluster pays back faster than this table shows, and one controlling a phone charger pays back slower. Every plug here still earns back its price well within a normal 3–5 year service life. The genuinely new information is the order: eighteen months ago this same table would have put Wyze first and Govee last.
Is meross Still the One to Buy?
The MSS315 is still the only plug here doing two things well at once: it’s Matter-certified, so it genuinely works across Apple Home, Alexa, and Google Home without picking a side, and it tracks real-time energy use in the meross app without a second, ecosystem-specific tool. Kasa’s KP125M now undercuts it slightly on price and matches its Matter certification, which is worth knowing — but meross’s single-app energy dashboard and 2026 track record of not getting discontinued or repriced overnight still make it the safer default for someone who wants to buy once and stop thinking about it.
Best for: households that want one plug to work with whatever ecosystem they’re on today — or switch to tomorrow — without losing energy tracking. Skip this if you don’t care about energy data at all; you’re paying a few dollars more than Govee or Kasa for a feature you won’t use.
Does Kasa’s Price Drop Make It the New Budget Matter Pick?
TP-Link’s Kasa line is the smart plug most people have already heard of, and the KP125M is its Matter-certified, energy-monitoring model — UL Certified, compact, and backed by one of the more polished apps in this category. At $44.99 for a 4-pack, it’s now the second-cheapest Matter-certified option here, a real change from when it cost more than meross for a similar feature set. It’s also the most widely stocked in physical stores, which matters if you want to swap a dead unit same-day.
Best for: buyers who want a nationally recognized brand with in-store support at a price that no longer carries a real premium over meross. Skip this if you’ve already standardized on the meross app for other plugs — there’s little reason to run two apps for the same job.
Should the Fastest Payback Change Your Pick?
Govee’s Smart Plug Pro pairs Wi-Fi with Bluetooth, so the Govee Home app can manage it even through a brief Wi-Fi hiccup, and it tracks power usage without leaning on Matter or a second app. What changed is entirely the price: buying it in Govee’s own 4-pack brings it to roughly $8.25 a plug, cheaper than every other monitoring-capable plug in this comparison and the fastest payback of the five by our math. It still skips Apple Home and Matter entirely, so iPhone households should look at meross or Kasa instead.
Best for: Android/Alexa households that want a built-in energy dashboard and no longer have to pay a premium for it. Skip this if you’re on Apple Home — none of Govee’s current lineup gets you there.
Who Should Still Buy the Wyze Plug at Its New Price?
At roughly $15 a plug, the Wyze Plug is no longer the impulse-buy price it was, but it still supports Alexa, Google Assistant, and IFTTT, includes a vacation mode that randomizes on/off timing, and sets up in a few minutes by most owner accounts. What it still lacks — energy monitoring, Apple Home, Matter certification — hasn’t changed, and now it costs about as much as plugs that do have those features. It also depends on Wyze’s cloud for scheduling, with no local-only fallback.
Best for: Alexa or Google households already invested in the Wyze ecosystem for cameras or sensors. Skip this if price per plug is the deciding factor — Govee and Kasa now both undercut it while offering Matter certification or energy monitoring it doesn’t have.
Why the Amazon Smart Plug Stays the Alexa-Only Answer
If Alexa is the only smart home platform in the house, the Amazon Smart Plug remains the least friction of any pick here: it sets up inside the Alexa app in minutes with no separate account and no second app to learn. List price is still $24.99, but it’s commonly discounted to around $12.99. The dealbreaker hasn’t moved: it works with Alexa and nothing else — no Google Home, no Apple Home, no Matter, no energy monitoring.
Best for: committed Alexa households who want the simplest possible setup and don’t need usage data. Skip this if there’s any chance you’ll add an Apple or Google device to the house later — every unit you buy stops working the day you switch ecosystems.
Prices are approximate, current as of publication, and change frequently — confirm the latest price with the retailer before buying.
Bottom Line
Buy the meross MSS315 if you want the plug most likely to still make sense in two years, across whatever ecosystem you land on. Buy the Kasa KP125M if brand recognition and in-store support matter and you want to pay slightly less than meross for nearly the same thing. Buy the Govee Smart Plug Pro if price per plug and a built-in energy dashboard matter more than Apple Home support — it earned that recommendation by getting cheaper, not by us changing our mind. Buy the Wyze Plug only if you’re already in its ecosystem; its price no longer does the arguing for it. And buy the Amazon Smart Plug if Alexa is the only platform you’ll ever run. See how the same ecosystem questions play out in our smart thermostat comparison and our smart lock comparison, or check your Wi-Fi coverage first in our mesh Wi-Fi comparison.
