Abstract Wave energy has significant worldwide exploitable resource and its exploitation has attracted renewable energy investigator’ attention. Great progress on calculating device performance has been made by means of theoretical, numerical and model tests. This paper presents a method of calculating the energy extraction of a wave energy converter (WEC) based on Wave Height Take-off (WHTO). The method provides a means to improve the capture efficiency of designs, including demonstrating how well different kinds of WEC are optimized for certain wave conditions. Numerical simulations of a heaving buoy and a bottom-hinged pendulum in a 2D wave flume with different damping types (linear and nonlinear) are presented. The results show that the difference between the calculated energy extraction from the wave height reduction and from the model power take-off (PTO) was not significant in a 2D flume. Physical model tests were conducted using a simplified PTO consisting of a system of lifting weights, used to measure the energy extraction directly. Based on both numerical and physical model analyses, the article defines WHTO, which is equivalent to energy extracted by PTO, but determined without taking direct measurements. This paper aims to promote and validate the concept of the WHTO.