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Wireless sensor networks (WSNs) have received considerable interest in recent years. These sensor nodes can gather information from the surrounding environment and transmit it to a designated location. Each sensor node in WSN typically has a battery with a limited capacity. Due to their large number and because of various environmental challenges, it is sometimes hard to replace this finite battery. As a result, energy-efficient communication is seen as a critical aspect in extending the lifespan of a sensor node. On the other hand, some applications that require large coverage and generate various sorts of data packets require multi-hop routing and quality of service (QoS) features. Therefore, in order to avoid network failure, these applications need an energy-efficient QoS MAC protocol that can support multiple levels of data packet priority and multi-hop routing features while focusing on energy conservation. An energy-aware QoS MAC protocol based on Prioritized Data and Multi-hop routing (EQPD-MAC) is proposed in this article. The EQPD-MAC protocol offers a simple yet effective cross-layer communication method. It provides timely delivery of multi-priority packets, uses an adaptive active time to limit idle listening, and integrates a robust routing protocol. Finally, the EQPD-MAC protocol’s performance was evaluated and compared to three other well-known QoS MAC protocols. The simulation findings show that the proposed protocol significantly decreases sensor node energy consumption by up to 30.3%, per-bit energy consumption by up to 29.6%, sink node energy consumption by up to 27.4% and increases throughput by up to 23.3%. © 2022 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.