In short: the load that decides your Guatemalan home-office UPS is Starlink, and Starlink publishes it: “Average: 75 - 100 W”. Against that, the cheapest unit on the shelf — Q454 for 500VA/300W — is a third consumed before you plug in a laptop. Buy on watts, not VA, and note that on 2026-09-17 the same 1000VA/600W class listed at Q792 at one retailer and Q1,159 at another. Runtime we will not quote, because no Guatemalan listing publishes a battery capacity.
Every remote-work guide about Guatemala tells you to get a UPS. None of them tells you which one, and the reason is that sizing requires two numbers most of the advice never states: what your connection actually draws, and what the box on the shelf actually delivers. Both are published. Here they are.
Start here: the only device wattage that matters
| Device | Published draw | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Starlink Standard 4X kit (dish + Router 3) | Average: 75 – 100 W | Starlink, Standard 4X Specifications sheet, retrieved 2026-09-17 |
| Starlink power supply rating | 100–240V ~ 2.5A 50–60 Hz | same sheet |
| Your laptop charger | Read the number printed on your own charger | — |
| Your monitor | Read the label on the back | — |
That table is short on purpose. We will not invent wattages for your laptop or your monitor, because those vary by model and the label on your own hardware is a better source than any figure we could publish. Starlink is the exception, because it is one product with one published number, and because on a Guatemalan home-office circuit it is usually the largest continuous load in the room.
A note on scope: Starlink’s own figure is for the Standard 4X kit. We did not obtain a figure for Starlink Mini or for older Gen-2 hardware, so none is quoted. If you are on Tigo or Claro fiber instead, the satellite load disappears entirely and the whole calculation gets easy — a router and an ONT are small, and the cheapest unit on this page is genuinely enough.
The VA-versus-watts trap, priced
VA is apparent power. Watts are real power. The ratio is the power factor, and Guatemalan listings are inconsistent about publishing it — which is exactly how two boxes with the same number on the front end up 100W apart inside.
Every row below is a live retail listing read on 2026-09-17. Both retailers state prices are subject to change; treat the date as part of the figure.
| Retailer | Product, as listed | VA | Watts | Ratio | Price (2026-09-17) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Kemik | APC EASY Interactivo 500VA / 300W 120v 6 Tomas | 500 | 300 W | 0.60 | Q454.00 (from Q572, “21% off”) |
| Intelaf | Forza NT-1011 1000VA 6 Salidas Línea Interactiva (500W) | 1000 | 500 W | 0.50 | Q568 normal · Q545 efectivo/ACH |
| Kemik | APC BVX900L-LM 900VA / 480W, 6 tomas | 900 | 480 W | 0.53 | Q695.00 (from Q853, “19% off”) |
| Intelaf | APC BE600M1 600VA, 7 salidas + USB | 600 | not published | — | Q779 normal · Q745 efectivo/ACH |
| Intelaf | Forza HT-1000LCD 1000VA 600W, 12 NEMA 5-15 / 6 tomas + 2 USB | 1000 | 600 W | 0.60 | Q792 normal · Q760 efectivo/ACH |
| Kemik | Forza Interactivo 1000VA/600W, 8 tomas, LCD táctil | 1000 | 600 W | 0.60 | Q1,159.00 |
| Kemik | Forza Interactivo 1500VA / 900W, 10 tomas | 1500 | 900 W | 0.60 | Q1,774.00 |
Sources: intelaf.com and kemik.gt product pages, each read 2026-09-17. Warranty as published — Intelaf, on all three of its listings: “12 Meses de garantía”. Kemik, on the 1000VA/600W unit: “Garantía: 24 meses”.
Three things fall straight out of that table:
- The ratio is not constant. It ranges 0.50 to 0.60 across these listings. A “1000VA” unit is either 500W or 600W depending on which one you grabbed — a 20% difference in the number that matters.
- The most expensive Intelaf unit publishes no watt rating at all. The APC BE600M1 at Q779 lists “600VA” and nothing else. You cannot size a load against it from the listing.
- Price and capacity are only loosely related. The Q779 APC (600VA) costs more than the Q568 Forza (1000VA/500W) and the Q695 APC (900VA/480W). Brand and outlet count are doing work that capacity is not.
The same class, two prices, one day
Intelaf listed a 1000VA/600W unit at Q792. Kemik listed a 1000VA/600W unit at Q1,159. Same day, same published capacity class — a Q367 gap, 46.3% above the lower one.
They are almost certainly not the same product: Intelaf’s carries MPN HT-1000LCD, while Kemik’s listing publishes only “SKU: 6B64877AF2” and no manufacturer part number, so we cannot and do not claim model identity. What the comparison does establish is that within one published capacity class, on one day, a Guatemalan buyer faced a 46% spread. Check both before buying, and check whether the cheaper one is in stock at a branch you can reach — on the day we looked, Intelaf’s HT-1000LCD showed availability only in Mazatenango, with home delivery unavailable, while its other two units showed stock across Guatemala City. Stock moves daily; capacity and price are what this table is for.
Headroom: what the dish alone eats
Using Starlink’s published upper figure of 100 W:
| Unit | Watt rating | Consumed by Starlink alone | Left for everything else |
|---|---|---|---|
| APC EASY 500VA | 300 W | 33% | 200 W |
| Forza NT-1011 1000VA | 500 W | 20% | 400 W |
| APC BVX900L-LM 900VA | 480 W | 21% | 380 W |
| Forza 1000VA/600W (either listing) | 600 W | 17% | 500 W |
| Forza 1500VA/900W | 900 W | 11% | 800 W |
Arithmetic on two published figures: Starlink’s 100 W upper bound ÷ each listing’s published watt rating. At Starlink’s lower bound of 75 W each percentage drops by a quarter.
A UPS held near its rated ceiling is a UPS with a short, hot life, and the Kemik spec block is explicit about the limit: “Protección para equipos de consumo 600W o menor”. If you are on Starlink and you also want a laptop, a monitor and a desk lamp to survive a cut, the 300 W class is not the purchase.
What the listings do publish, and what they hide
The Kemik 1000VA/600W listing is the most complete spec block of the six. Condensed from two separate blocks on that listing, with the retailer’s own strings quoted individually below:
- “Capacidad : 1000VA/600W”
- “Tiempo de transferencia: 2-4ms”
- “Regulación automática de voltaje: Esencial en áreas donde las fluctuaciones de voltaje ocurren con frecuencia, proporcionando energía limpia y estable.”
- “Opción de arranque en frío. Si”
- “Cubierta: Plástico retardador de llama ABS” · “Dimensiones: 320x130x182mm” · “Peso: 18.07 libras”
- “Protección para equipos de consumo 600W o menor”
Useful, and it tells you three practical things:
- 2–4 ms transfer time. A transfer that fast is the difference between a device riding through the switchover and rebooting; how short a gap your particular hardware tolerates is not something the listing states, and neither do we.
- Automatic voltage regulation is arguably the bigger win in Guatemala. The bigger long-term threat to a home office here is not the outage — it is what the voltage does on the way back. Our power outages guide covers reporting and outage maps.
- 18.07 lb in a 320 × 130 × 182 mm box is a battery weight, not an electronics weight — which is why it sits on the floor, and why the battery will need replacing before the electronics do. What kind of battery, the listing does not say: cell chemistry is published on none of the six listings we read.
What none of the six listings publishes: the battery. No amp-hours, no watt-hours, no runtime chart, on any of them. That absence is why this page prints no your-call-will-survive-N-minutes claim. Runtime is capacity divided by load; with capacity unpublished, a minute figure would be invented. Measure it once the unit is on your desk — unplug it at a moment you can afford to, and time it.
Two units that look like bargains are dead. Both of these carry Kemik’s banner “Producto Descontinuado · Este producto probablemente no volverá a estar disponible” as of 2026-09-17: the APC Back-UPS ES 600VA/330W and the Forza RT-601LCD 600VA. They still surface in search results with prices attached. Do not plan around them.
Running cost: the CNEE arithmetic
The UPS draws almost nothing. The connection it protects runs 24/7, and that is a real line on a Guatemalan bill.
Tariffs below are the CNEE regulated rates carried in this site’s live electricity feed, feed date 2026-09-16, published at cnee.gob.gt/precios-regulados/. They move on a quarterly cycle — the electricity page carries the current ones and a bill calculator.
| Distributor | Where | Social tier (GTQ/kWh) | Non-social tier (GTQ/kWh) |
|---|---|---|---|
| EEGSA | Guatemala City, Sacatepéquez, Escuintla (partial) | 1.42 | 1.51 |
| Energuate (DEOCSA / DEORSA) | Rest of Guatemala, 17 departments | 1.98 – 2.03 | 2.06 – 2.12 |
Energuate is shown as a range because DEOCSA and DEORSA are tariffed separately and the feed carries both. “Social” is the BTSS subsidised band for residential use under roughly 300 kWh/month; “non-social” is BTS, residential above that and small commercial.
Monthly consumption of a device left on continuously: watts ÷ 1000 × 24 × 30.
| Starlink draw | kWh / month | At EEGSA Q1.51 | At Energuate Q1.98 – Q2.12 |
|---|---|---|---|
| 75 W (published low) | 54.0 | Q81.54 | Q106.92 – Q114.48 |
| 87.5 W (midpoint) | 63.0 | Q95.13 | Q124.74 – Q133.56 |
| 100 W (published high) | 72.0 | Q108.72 | Q142.56 – Q152.64 |
Arithmetic from Starlink’s published range and the CNEE rates above. The midpoint row is a midpoint of Starlink’s published band, labelled as such — not a measurement.
Two readings of that table. First, a Starlink dish outside the EEGSA area costs roughly Q30–Q44 more per month in electricity than the same dish inside it, purely on tariff — that is the tier-matched gap, comparing non-social against non-social (Q1.51 vs Q2.06–Q2.12) and social against social (Q1.42 vs Q1.98–Q2.03), both of which land in the same band. Compare across tiers and the floor drops to about Q25. Second, the electricity is small next to the subscription — which is the real argument for leaving the thing on.
For anything past a UPS — running a fridge, an hours-long outage, going off-grid — the conversation is solar in Guatemala, not this page.
Buying notes
- Cash and ACH are cheaper at Intelaf. Its “Beneficio Efectivo / ACH” price was Q23–Q34 below the normal price on all three units we read — Q545 vs Q568, Q745 vs Q779, Q760 vs Q792.
- Warranty differs by retailer, on comparable goods. Intelaf published 12 months; Kemik published 24 months on its 1000VA/600W unit. On a product whose battery is the wear item, that is not a detail.
- Check branch stock, not just the site. Intelaf publishes per-branch availability on the product page, and on the day we read it one unit was single-branch in Mazatenango with no home delivery.
- Six listings is not a market survey. These are two retailers on one day. We are not claiming either is cheaper overall, and we have no basis to.
What this page does not cover
- Inverters and battery banks. No Guatemalan retail page for standalone inverters was captured, so no inverter price appears here. The title of this page mentions inverters; the sourced content is UPS units, and we would rather say so than pad the table.
- True sine wave vs stepped output. Not published on any of the six listings. If it matters for your equipment, ask the retailer directly and get it in writing.
- How often the power actually goes out where you live. That is a different dataset, and one we have not yet published by distributor.
Related
- Starlink in Guatemala: pricing, coverage, setup
- Internet speed in Guatemala by region
- Guatemala internet: 5 ISPs tested
- Power outages in Guatemala: reporting and maps
- Electricity in Guatemala: rates and bill calculator
- Solar in Guatemala
- When your provider under-delivers: who actually regulates it
Sources
- Starlink, Standard 4X Specifications — https://starlink.com/public-files/specification_sheet_standard.pdf — retrieved 2026-09-17
- Intelaf, Forza NT-1011 — https://www.intelaf.com/precios_stock_detallado/ups-frn1011-100 — retrieved 2026-09-17
- Intelaf, APC BE600M1 — https://www.intelaf.com/precios_stock_detallado/ups-apc-60vbe6m — retrieved 2026-09-17
- Intelaf, Forza HT-1000LCD — https://www.intelaf.com/precios_stock_detallado/ups-fr-ht1000lc — retrieved 2026-09-17
- Kemik, Forza 1000VA/600W (and the comparison listings shown on that page) — https://www.kemik.gt/forza-ups-interactivo-1000va-600w-8-tomas-pantalla-lcd-tactil-120v — retrieved 2026-09-17
- Kemik, APC Back-UPS ES 600VA/330W (discontinued) — https://www.kemik.gt/apc-back-ups-es-de-600va-330w-a-120v-7-tomas-1-usb — retrieved 2026-09-17
- Kemik, Forza RT-601LCD 600VA (discontinued) — https://www.kemik.gt/ups-forza-rt-601lcd-600va-8-salidas — retrieved 2026-09-17
- CNEE, precios regulados — https://cnee.gob.gt/precios-regulados/ — as carried in this site’s electricity feed, feed date 2026-09-16, read 2026-09-17
Full capture ledger, including every claim we deliberately left out:
content/research/ups-inverter-for-a-home-office-2026-09-17.md.
Frequently Asked Questions
What size UPS do I need to stay on a video call through a Guatemalan power cut?
Start from the load, and the load is dominated by one device. Starlink’s own published specification sheet for the Standard 4X kit gives ‘Power Consumption: Average: 75 - 100 W’. At the top of that range a 500VA/300W unit is already 33% loaded before your laptop is plugged in, and a 900VA/480W unit is 21% loaded. On cable or fiber instead of satellite the picture is completely different, because a router and an ONT are small loads and a modest UPS goes a long way. The number that decides everything is therefore not the UPS rating — it is whether a satellite dish is on the circuit.
Why do two UPS units both labelled 1000VA cost Q568 and Q792?
Because VA is not watts. On 2026-09-17, Intelaf listed the Forza NT-1011 at ‘Precio normal Q568’ as ‘1000VA 6 Salidas Linea Interactiva (500W)’, and the Forza HT-1000LCD at ‘Precio normal Q792’ as ‘1000VA 600W’. Same VA headline, 100W apart in real capacity, plus an LCD and more outlets. VA is apparent power and watts are real power; the ratio between them is the power factor, and Guatemalan listings publish it inconsistently. Buy on the watt figure. If a listing publishes only VA, you cannot size against it.
How much does a UPS cost in Guatemala?
Across six live listings read on 2026-09-17 the range was Q454 to Q1,774. At the bottom, Kemik listed an APC EASY 500VA/300W at Q454.00, down from Q572. In the middle, Intelaf listed a Forza NT-1011 1000VA/500W at Q568 (Q545 for cash or ACH) and an APC BE600M1 600VA at Q779, while Kemik listed an APC BVX900L-LM 900VA/480W at Q695.00. At the top, Kemik listed a Forza 1500VA/900W at Q1,774.00. Every one of these is a retailer’s published price on that date and all of them say prices change.
Does running a UPS cost much on a Guatemalan electricity bill?
The UPS itself is a rounding error; the device it protects is not. Using Starlink’s published 75-100W and the CNEE regulated tariffs carried in our live electricity feed as of 2026-09-16, a dish running 24/7 uses 54-72 kWh a month. On EEGSA’s non-social residential rate of Q1.51/kWh that is Q81.54-Q108.72 a month. On Energuate’s Q1.98-Q2.12/kWh band it is Q106.92-Q152.64 a month. Those are arithmetic from two published figures, not a measurement of your house.
How long will a UPS actually keep me online?
We cannot tell you, and neither can the retailers. Not one of the six Guatemalan listings we read on 2026-09-17 publishes a battery capacity in amp-hours or watt-hours, and none publishes a runtime chart. Runtime depends on battery capacity divided by the load you put on it, and with the first term unpublished the honest answer is that you buy on watt rating and outlet count, then measure runtime yourself once the unit is on your desk. Anyone quoting you a precise minute figure for a specific Guatemalan listing is quoting something the listing does not say.
Should I buy a UPS or an inverter?
This page is about UPS units only, because that is what we could price from Guatemalan retail pages on 2026-09-17. A UPS is a sealed box that switches to battery in milliseconds, sized in hundreds of watts and hours of standby. An inverter-plus-battery-bank is an installed system sized in kilowatt-hours and days. If your outages run hours rather than minutes, the UPS class on this page is the wrong tool and the conversation is a solar or battery installation instead.
