So, How Is Switchbuddy Different?

First, how is your electricity bill calculated?

Electricity plans have two major charges - a daily charge, and a usage charge;

  • The daily charge is the same everyday, no matter how much electricity you use.

  • The usage charge is the price you pay for each unit of electricity, the more you use, the more you pay.

Electricity companies have different plans with different rates for these charges, but generally speaking, the lower the daily charge, the higher the usage charge and vice versa.

Switchbuddy analyses your individual usage and compares it to over 20,000 available plans, recommending you the best mix of daily charge and usage charge so that you pay less.

Let’s run through some examples of how this might work:

This is Gillian, she is out for most of the day with her coffee club friends and when she is home, can be found mainly catching up on her favourite tv shows before heading to bed early.

This is Ben, when he works from home he uses a lot of electricity. The TV, computer, air fryer and many other electrical devices are all in use until early in the morning.

Gillian and Ben both use a comparison website to renew their electricity. Both have the same heating and cooling and people in the household and so, are shown the same plans.

But Ben uses far more electricity than Gillian. The trouble is, traditional comparison websites often use averages to work out which plan would be your best fit. They take the average energy use of a household of your size and assume that you would use the same.

In reality, Gillian could trade off paying more for her electricity, as she doesn’t use much, for a cheaper daily rate.

And Ben? He needs the cheapest electricity going, never mind the more expensive daily charge, he’ll claw that back in a week with the cheaper usage charges!

Switchbuddy was created to fix a simple problem: most people are matched to energy plans using assumptions that do not reflect how they actually use electricity or gas.

Our process starts with real data, your own individual usage. We analyse your actual energy consumption from your bill to understand how you use your energy. That usage profile is then compared against all available electricity plans to identify options that genuinely reduce your costs.

We do not rank plans based on advertising spend or household averages. Each recommendation is calculated against your individual usage, so the results are specific, transparent and most of all, relevant.

“Switchbuddy exists to remove guesswork from choosing energy providers, and give households clarity, confidence and control over what they pay for.”

- Matthew Harbottle, founder of Switchbuddy