The generator is about half of what a standby install costs

A 22 kW air-cooled standby generator has a price on it, and most people plan around that number. Installed, the same project commonly lands between $10,000 and $15,000 in 2026, with the overall range running from roughly $7,000 to $20,000.

The machine is about half of that. The rest is the work of connecting it to a house safely and legally, and none of it is optional.

What the other half is

The automatic transfer switch is the biggest single line after the generator, typically in the region of $700 to $3,700 depending on whether it covers selected circuits or the whole service. It exists to disconnect the house from the utility before the generator energises anything, which protects line workers and stops the generator trying to power the neighbourhood.

Around that sit four more, none of them optional.

• The electrical run from the generator to the panel, conduit, conductors and labour, often $1,000 to $2,000. Distance drives it, which is why siting has a price attached.
• The pad the machine stands on, several hundred to around a thousand in concrete or a composite equipment bed, level and above whatever local flooding looks like.
• The fuel connection, usually $1,000 to $1,500 for natural gas, priced by the foot and more again where a propane tank is involved. The gas meter sometimes needs upsizing to carry the generator alongside the house.
• Permits and inspections, often only $50 to $200 in money and a good deal more in schedule, since electrical and gas are usually separate permits with separate inspections and the startup cannot be signed off until both pass.

Why quotes vary so much

Two houses with identical generators can differ by thousands, and the differences are almost all in the site rather than the equipment.

A long run from the pad to the panel, a gas meter that needs replacing, a panel with no spare capacity, a property with awkward access for a concrete truck, or a local authority with a slow inspection queue all add. So does being the third job that week for the only certified installer in the area.

The generator cost calculator breaks an installed figure into those components so a quote can be read line by line rather than as a single total, which is the only practical way to tell an expensive site from an expensive contractor.

Where the savings actually are

Most of the obvious economies are false ones. The real levers are two.

Covering fewer circuits is the first. A transfer switch serving eight or ten essential circuits costs less than one serving the whole panel, and it lets a smaller generator do the work, which saves on both ends. The trade is that you decide in advance what matters and live with that list during an outage.

Siting the machine close to the panel and the gas supply is the second, and it is free at the design stage and impossible afterwards. Every foot of conduit and gas pipe is priced by the foot, and the difference between a pad beside the meter and one at the far corner of the house is real money.

What is not worth saving on

Sizing down past what the load actually needs is a false economy, because a generator that cannot carry the house gets switched off and the install is wasted. Work the load out properly first with the generator size calculator, then let the cost follow from it rather than the other way round.

The transfer switch is not a place to improvise either. Backfeeding a panel through an improvised connection is dangerous to line workers and to the household, and it is the practice that makes generators notorious rather than useful.

The running cost nobody mentions at the quote

A standby generator exercises itself, typically weekly, for ten or twenty minutes. That burns fuel all year whether or not the power ever goes out.

Add an annual service, a starting battery every few years, and the fuel for any real outages, and ownership has a modest but permanent cost attached. Over a decade it is a meaningful share of the install price, and it belongs in the comparison against a portable that costs nothing while it sits in the garage.