Energy Made Easy is genuinely good, and free
The government comparison tool is independent, covers the whole market, and takes no commission. Anyone claiming it is useless is selling something. If you want a one-off check and you are prepared to do the work yourself, it will do the job.
It is worth being straight about that, because a comparison that starts by rubbishing the free option is not one to trust about anything else.
Where a paid tool actually adds something
- It keeps going
- A one-off comparison decays. Prices change, discount periods end, and nobody writes to tell you. Ongoing monitoring against your usage is the difference between saving once and staying saved.
- It reads the bill for you
- The accuracy of any comparison depends on entering your usage and rates correctly. Reading them off the document — and then verifying the reading against the bill total — removes the step where most people get it wrong.
- It models what you own
- Solar with time-varying feed-in, a battery, an EV, controlled load and demand charges are where the real money sits for the households that have them, and where a simple comparison is least reliable.
- It filters what you can buy
- Removing plans you are not eligible for means the top of your list is actionable rather than aspirational.
- It shows its working
- The reproduction check tells you when the figures are verified — and, more importantly, when they are not.
Reconciling with the government figures
For smart-meter customers the government tool can use real interval data and true time-of-use costing. A tool that used a cruder method would show a bigger saving simply by being less careful — which is a good way to look better and be wrong.
Comparisons are therefore run so that they reconcile with the government figures rather than diverging from them flatteringly. Where the numbers differ, the difference should be explainable, not convenient.
What is not claimed
No claim is made to find a cheaper plan than the free tool on a single one-off comparison for a straightforward flat-rate household with no solar. Often the answer will be the same plan, and that is the honest position.
The value is in accuracy for complicated households, in the verification, and in the fact that it keeps checking after you stop.
Frequently asked questions
Should I use the free tool as well?
By all means. Agreement between two independent methods is a reasonable thing to want before switching.
Why should I pay for this?
For continuous monitoring, verified bill reading, and modelling of solar, batteries and demand charges. For a simple household wanting one comparison, the free tool may well be enough.
Do you cover every retailer?
The comparison runs across the published market, including retailers that pay nobody anything, which is only possible because there are no commissions.