Queensland is really two electricity markets: a competitive south-east on Energex, and a regional Ergon network where the state sets the price. Which one you are in decides whether shopping around does anything.
Queensland is the state where "compare every plan" needs the most care. The Default Market Offer and genuine retail competition exist in the south-east corner on the Energex network. Across the vast Ergon Energy region, prices are notified by the state and the Uniform Tariff Policy holds regional prices near south-east levels — a subsidy that is good for regional households and does mean there is far less to shop for.
The AER's Default Market Offer covers South East Queensland, not the state. If you are on the Ergon network in regional Queensland, the DMO is not your benchmark and the competitive retail field the south-east enjoys is not really available to you.
This is the sort of distinction a national comparison flattens, and flattening it produces confident advice that does not apply where you live.
Both Energex and Ergon run an evening network peak of 4pm–9pm, with a shoulder overnight and through the morning to 11am. The window from 11am to 4pm is priced as off-peak — Queensland's answer to a midday solar glut.
For a household that can move a pool pump, a dishwasher or an EV charge into the middle of the day, that is a genuine and under-used lever, and it is priced differently to the explicit "solar sponge" windows used in South Australia and parts of NSW.
Your distributor is set by your address and cannot be switched. Its charges are regulated, so no retailer can discount them away — which is why a comparison has to be run for your actual network, not a state average.
The DMO applies in SOUTH-EAST Queensland only — the competitive Energex area. Regional Queensland on the Ergon network is not a contestable retail market in the same way: prices there are set through the state's notified prices, supported by the Uniform Tariff Policy that keeps regional prices in line with the south-east.
Source: AER — Default Market Offer
These are the network windows published by each distributor, not your retailer’s billing windows — a retail plan can bill different times. We use your own plan’s rates when we cost a comparison.
$399.47 a year (including GST)
Queensland publishes a lower figure ($386) on its concessions-finder subdomain; the main qld.gov.au page, updated 10 July 2026, gives $399.47.
Concession names, amounts and eligibility are set by government and change — most reset on 1 July. We publish only figures we could verify against an official source, and we link every one so you can check it yourself. There is currently no federal energy bill rebate: the Energy Bill Relief Fund ended on 31 December 2025 and was not renewed in the 2026-27 Budget.
591 g CO2-e per kWh
This is an emissions figure and never a price signal. Your rate is fixed by your plan and does not move with the grid, so nobody should tell you power is "cheaper right now" because the grid happens to be cleaner. Where it does matter: it sets how much carbon each kilowatt-hour of solar you self-consume actually displaces.
Upload a bill and we reproduce your current cost first, then cost all 1,976 residential electricity plans the AER publishes for Queensland, from the 29 retailers we track on the same usage and rank them by real annual dollars. Because we take no commissions, the ranking is not for sale.
Every retailer publishing a residential electricity plan to the AER for Queensland, straight from the data we compare. We rank all of them the same way.
Yes. Queensland is part of the National Electricity Market, so you can switch to any retailer that services your network. Switching is free, does not touch your physical supply, and most plans have no exit fee.
We compare all 1,976 residential electricity plans the AER publishes for Queensland, from the 29 retailers we track. We re-check them nightly. We exclude wholesale spot-price pass-through plans, because the AER reference rates for those are not what a customer actually pays — we would rather leave a plan out than rank it on a number we know is wrong.
Energex, Ergon Energy, Essential Energy — which one serves you is fixed by your address. The distributor runs the poles and wires and its charges are set by the regulator, not your retailer. It is not something you can shop for.
Default Market Offer (DMO 8), set by the Australian Energy Regulator for 1 July 2026 – 30 June 2027. The DMO applies in SOUTH-EAST Queensland only — the competitive Energex area. Regional Queensland on the Ergon network is not a contestable retail market in the same way: prices there are set through the state's notified prices, supported by the Uniform Tariff Policy that keeps regional prices in line with the south-east.
The main one is the Queensland Electricity Rebate, $399.47 a year (including GST). Queensland publishes a lower figure ($386) on its concessions-finder subdomain; the main qld.gov.au page, updated 10 July 2026, gives $399.47. Eligibility and amounts are set by government and change — always confirm with the official source before relying on a figure.
Energex: 4pm–9pm, every day. Ergon Energy: 4pm–9pm, every day. These are the network windows published by each distributor, not your retailer’s billing windows — a retail plan can bill different times. We use your own plan’s rates when we cost a comparison.
Over the last 85 days of AEMO's carbon-intensity index, the QLD1 region averaged about 591 grams of CO2-e per kilowatt-hour, which ranks 3 of 5 NEM regions we track (1 = cleanest). This is an emissions figure, not a price signal: your rate is set by your plan and does not move with the grid.
No. We take no commission from any retailer, which is why we can tell you to stay put when staying put is right. You pay a small yearly subscription (around $39), so the ranking answers to you.
Every figure on this page was checked against a government primary source. Where we could not verify a number, we left it out rather than estimate it — that is the whole reason to pay us instead of trusting a page funded by retailer commissions.
Upload one bill. We reproduce it, cost the market against it, and prove the saving in dollars — or tell you to stay exactly where you are.
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