The one-paragraph answer: most homes should buy the Jackery HomePower 3000, because 3,072Wh and 3,600W cover the fridge, Wi-Fi, lights, phones, and a CPAP for one to two days, and the bundle includes solar panels. Buy the HomePower 3600 Plus if your outages run past a day and you need a furnace blower or a window AC through them, because it expands to 21kWh and wires into your panel through a transfer switch. Buy the Solar Generator 5000 Plus if anything on your must-keep list runs on 240V, a well pump, central AC, or an electric water heater, because it is the only one of the three with 240V and 7,200W.
Three questions decide which unit you need; by the end of the spec table you will probably know which one it is.
The three at a glance
| Unit | Capacity / output | Best for | Buy |
|---|---|---|---|
| Jackery HomePower 3000 (most homes) | 3,072Wh · 3,600W · 120V · panels included · not expandable | Fridge, Wi-Fi, lights, phones, CPAP for 1 to 2 days | Check price → |
| Jackery HomePower 3600 Plus | 3,584Wh · 3,600W · 120V · expandable to 21kWh · transfer-switch ready | Essentials plus a furnace blower or window AC, multi-day outages | Check price → |
| Jackery Solar Generator 5000 Plus | 5,040Wh · 7,200W · 120V/240V · expandable to 60kWh | Well pump, central AC, water heater, hardwired circuits | Check price → |
All three use LiFePO4 batteries, produce zero exhaust, and run at about 30 decibels, so all three live indoors with the windows shut. The differences are capacity, output, voltage, and whether the unit can grow.
The three questions that decide it
1. Do you need 240V?
Make a list of what has to stay on. If it includes a well pump, central AC, a heat pump, an electric water heater, or an electric dryer, you need 240V, and the answer is the 5000 Plus. The HomePower 3000 and the 3600 Plus are 120V only, and no amount of battery changes that. A well pump draws about 1,000W running and two to three times that to start; central AC draws 3,000 to 4,000W with a large surge. Both need the 5000 Plus’s 7,200W as well as its 240V outlet.
If nothing on the list runs on 240V, the 5000 Plus is more unit than you need, and the choice is between the other two.
2. Do your outages run past a day?
Think about the last three outages rather than the worst one you can imagine. If they were measured in hours, or a night at most, the HomePower 3000 carries the essentials with margin and the included panels refill it the next day. If they ran to two or three days, and especially if a furnace blower or a window AC has to run through them, the HomePower 3600 Plus with an expansion pack is the honest buy. The essentials plus a furnace in deep cold use around 6,000Wh a day, which is two days of the base 3600 Plus battery and a week at 21kWh.
3. Do you need to expand later?
The HomePower 3000 is a fixed 3,072Wh. The 3600 Plus starts at 3,584Wh and grows to 21kWh; the 5000 Plus starts at 5,040Wh and grows to 60kWh. If you expect to add a freezer, a second fridge, or a longer outage plan later, the 3600 Plus keeps that door open and the HomePower 3000 does not. If the essentials are all you will ever ask of it, the HomePower 3000 bundle with panels is the better value.
The case for the HomePower 3000
The HomePower 3000 is the unit we recommend in most of our state guides, and the reason is arithmetic. A typical fridge uses 1,000 to 1,500Wh a day, a Wi-Fi router about 240Wh, ten LED bulbs about 50W an hour, phones and a laptop 150 to 300Wh, and a CPAP 300 to 500Wh a night. That is roughly 2,300Wh a day, and 3,072Wh covers it for one to two days with nothing coming in from the panels. With the panels in decent sun, adding 1,500 to 2,000Wh on a bright summer day, it keeps up for as long as the weather does.
It is also the simplest of the three to own: no installation, no electrician, and the panels are in the box. Our full HomePower 3000 review walks through a two-day outage hour by hour.
▶ Shop the HomePower 3000, panels included use code DEAL5
The case for the HomePower 3600 Plus
The 3600 Plus starts only a little larger, at 3,584Wh with the same 3,600W, and on its own battery it runs the same loads for about the same time. The money buys two things the HomePower 3000 does not have.
The first is expansion to 21kWh. That is a week of essentials, or three days of essentials plus a furnace blower, without seeing the sun. The second is a transfer switch connection: an electrician wires the unit to a handful of circuits in your panel, and the furnace, fridge, and a few lights come back on by themselves with no extension cords across the floor. For a cold-climate home, where the furnace is the load that matters and snow covers the panels, those two features are the difference between a battery and a backup system.
It is still 120V. If your list has a 240V load on it, keep reading.
▶ Shop the HomePower 3600 Plus, expandable to 21kWh
The case for the Solar Generator 5000 Plus
The 5000 Plus is where whole-home backup starts. 5,040Wh, 7,200W, both 120V and 240V, and expansion to 60kWh. The 7,200W and the 240V are what a well pump, a central air handler and condenser, or an electric water heater need to start and run, and no smaller Jackery does it.
It is the pick in our Phoenix comparison, where losing central AC in a heat wave is a safety problem rather than an inconvenience, and where a rural home on a well should start. On the essentials alone it runs for two days on its base battery and for weeks at 60kWh. If you do not need 240V, it is more than you need; if you do, it is the smallest unit that works.
▶ Shop the Solar Generator 5000 Plus, 7,200W, 120V/240V
Which one for which household
| Household | The unit | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Apartment or renter, no roof or yard | HomePower 3000 | No installation, panels work on a balcony, essentials for 1 to 2 days |
| Suburban house with a gas furnace, outages under a day | HomePower 3000 | Runs the furnace blower and the fridge for about a day per charge in winter |
| Cold climate, outages of two days or more | HomePower 3600 Plus with an expansion pack | Furnace plus essentials for days on 21kWh, transfer switch keeps the furnace on its own circuit |
| Hot climate where losing central AC is unsafe | Solar Generator 5000 Plus | Central AC needs 240V and 7,200W; the 3600 Plus does a single window unit instead |
| Rural home on a well | Solar Generator 5000 Plus | Well pump needs 240V and a start surge only the 5000 Plus covers |
| Hurricane coast, shuttered house | HomePower 3000, or 3600 Plus for a window AC | Fridge, fans, phones, CPAP for 1 to 2 days; size up for a window AC through a multi-day outage |
Runtime for three load sets
Here is how long each unit carries three common load sets on its base battery alone, with no solar, and how far the expansion packs stretch it. Sun adds to all of these: 1,500 to 2,000Wh on a bright summer day, a few hundred watt-hours on a grey winter day.
| Load set | Energy per day | HomePower 3000 | HomePower 3600 Plus | Solar Generator 5000 Plus |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Essentials (fridge, Wi-Fi, lights, phones, CPAP) | ~2,300Wh | 1 to 1.5 days | 1.5 days (7+ days at 21kWh) | 2 days (20+ days at 60kWh) |
| Essentials plus gas furnace blower, deep cold | ~6,000Wh | About half a day | Half a day (3+ days at 21kWh) | Most of a day (10 days at 60kWh) |
| Essentials plus small window AC, hot night | ~7,000Wh | About half a day | Half a day (3 days at 21kWh) | Most of a day (8+ days at 60kWh) |
Read the table the way an outage goes: the first night you run everything; by day two the freezer stays shut, the furnace cycles at 60°F instead of 70°F, and the lights are the two rooms you are in. Real runtimes beat the table because people adapt. Plan on the table anyway.
One line to say plainly: an electric space heater at 1,500W drains a 3,000Wh battery in about two hours. Heat the house with the gas furnace’s blower, which draws 400 to 600W, and yourself with blankets.
What the price difference buys
Prices move with Jackery’s promotions, so check each product page for today’s figure. What each step up buys is fixed.
From the HomePower 3000 to the 3600 Plus, the money buys about 500Wh more base capacity, the option to expand to 21kWh, and the transfer switch connection. The bundle question cuts the other way: the HomePower 3000 ships with panels, so compare the 3600 Plus price with panels added, not without.
From the 3600 Plus to the 5000 Plus, the money buys 240V, double the output at 7,200W, about 1,500Wh more base capacity, and expansion to 60kWh rather than 21kWh. If you need any one of those, the difference is the cost of the job; if you need none, it is money spent on capability that will sit unused. Our cheapest 240V home backup guide compares the 5000 Plus with the other routes to 240V if that is where you land.
▶ See current Jackery deals on all three
The short version, again
Write down the loads that must stay on. If one of them runs on 240V, buy the 5000 Plus. If your outages run past a day and a furnace or a window AC has to keep going through them, buy the 3600 Plus with an expansion pack. Otherwise buy the HomePower 3000 and charge it to full. Our best solar generators for home backup guide sets all three against the Anker and EcoFlow kits.
Keep reading: HomePower 3600 Plus review · Solar Generator 5000 Plus review · Jackery HomePower 3000 review · Best solar generators for home backup · Best solar generator for a well pump · Which Jackery for a Phoenix home?