The current economic and ecological situation emphasizes the importance of energy efficiency for the industry. Widely applied pneumatic systems are particularly affected by this issue because of their comparatively high energy consumption. To increase the efficiency of pneumatics, numerous energy-saving components and circuits have been developed over the last decades. However, the applicability of these measures for different load cases, their impact on the drive performance, and real economic benefit often remain unclear for the end-user. In this paper, the applicability of the energy-saving measures for typical load cases was analysed on example of two pneumatic cylinders (32 and 50 mm bore) based on their technical performance, energy consumption, and costs. The evidence brought by this experimentally verified research can help one to make a correct decision about configuration of a new pneumatic drive or retrofitting an existing system regarding the costs, efficiency, and application specifics. All studied energy-saving measures were compared to a well-sized meter-out controlled reference drive. It is shown that considerable energy savings without performance loss of a well-sized cylinder are achievable only by means of sophisticated cylinder control. In contrast, simple non-electronic components are mostly convenient only for the retrofitting of an oversized cylinder.