Comparison Sites - How Can I Compare Current Offers?

Crispy796

I have been trying to compare current offers from the major suppliers to my area for Electricity. All the comparison sites either base their advice on your current direct debit payments (not very acurate in my opinion) or compare savings against your current supplier.

What I was after was a way to list the suppliers exact tariffs including standing charges and unit costs. It was very difficult even going direct to each suppliers website to actually find exact costs in money!!!

I have economy 7 and have spent all morning finding prices, inputting the data into a spreadsheet and comparing how much my bills would be depending on which supplier i used. I based the readings on what i would have paid based on my last statement.

examples...

N-Power / Fixed Dec '17......... 12.33p standing charge/day
......... 18.29p kWh Day Rate
......... 6.34p kWh Night Rate

EDF Blue / Fixed Mar '17......... 18.9p standing charge/day
......... 18.68p kWh Day Rate
......... 6.75p kWh Night Rate


Is there a site which shows the tarriffs in a sheet rather than you getting a comparrison based on your readings.?

Nada666

Why on earth would you want to do that? 24 tariffs from the big six, more from others. How long is that going to take?

Three datum points needed: your postcode, your likely annual usage in kWh of gas and of electricity.

Bung those three into a comparison site. On the results page see the range of prices. If you must, click the 'further details' or '?' to see the pop-up containg the price data you want. Bung the to-three-decimal places info for the three or four or twenty-four that intrigue you into your spreadsheet if you like.

But that last step is optional.

Nada666

(You are correct to be wary and to want to double-check the savings figure. And you want to try different mixes of usage, particularly with E7. But that can be done a whole lot quicker on a comparison site.)

(I suggest uswitch as a start for no other reason than that they tend to retain already input data reliably - you can pop back a page or two to alter scenarios with ease.)

Crispy796

I have worked out what my costs would have been for the following readings if i switched (ignoring any discounts...) .....

Based on my last quartly bill of

92 days
858 kWh daytime units
222 kWh nightime units


N-Power / fixed Dec'17 £182.35
N-Power / fixed Apr'15 £164.43

Southern Electric / 2yr Fix £180.47
Southern Electric / 1yr Fix £166.41

E-On / 2yr Fix £187.36
E-On / 1yr Fix £168.77

British Gas / Fixed March 2016 £205.66
British Gas / Fixed November 2014 £196.59

Scottish Power / Fixed March 2015 £152.01

EDF Blue / Fixed March 2017 £192.65
EDF Blue / Fixed March 2015 £159.71

now these costs dont reflect any discounts - like 5% off for online accounts etc and also it doesn't show the 5% tax either but it does show a true comparrison for the suppliers base prices on packages available today



There has to be a way to do what i spent all morning doing, in just a few clicks???

Nada666

In what way is the results table you listed in #4 any more useful than the results table the comparison sites yield? You haven't listed any details.

Crispy796

Nada666 wrote: »

Why on earth would you want to do that? 24 tariffs from the big six, more from others. How long is that going to take?

Three datum points needed: your postcode, your likely annual usage in kWh of gas and of electricity.

Bung those three into a comparison site. On the results page see the range of prices. If you must, click the 'further details' or '?' to see the pop-up containg the price data you want. Bung the to-three-decimal places info for the three or four or twenty-four that intrigue you into your spreadsheet if you like.

But that last step is optional.

I just get fed up with the comparrison sites saying they will save you xxx pounds but what they dont say is the real costs.

I did the comparison thing earlier and it said i could save £19 by switching to a specific smaller supplier but when i looked at the small print and found the unit costs and standing charges, they were more than i currently pay so how on earth could this company save me money by chargeing higher?

I dont understand how the sites do it but then again i didnt understand why you would pay for credit protection ontop of what you already received with a credit card, some people still paid because they were told it would be best... now look at the PPI scam!

apt

You have wasted your time working out costs based on one quarter as use varies between quarters. Use annual figures as a better guide. The better comparision sites do give unit costs and standing charges. Click on the estimated annual cost and it will give you the details alongside details of your current tariff.

Nada666

You can gather the detailed data about prices on the results table tariff by tariff. It take too long to do that before you have an idea of the results as you would have to gather the data for every possible tariff.

Crispy796

Nada666 wrote: »

In what way is the results table you listed in #4 any more useful than the results table the comparison sites yield? You haven't listed any details.

The details were specific to my case, I have economy 7 etc. it wasn't a table to show everyone the savings they could make but a table to show what I could save. I only showed it to illustrate the differences if you looked into it in detail and not trust comaprison sites soley on their bottom line.
I know the sites help alot and are a good thing but I wanted to know a few more details in regards to actual costs rather than blindly accepting what i was told.

Could one of the comparison sites allow users to just see the costs implemented by the suppliers in a list of tariffs.

Of course, I could be the only one not getting the point and am totally barking mad??!! prob.:mad:

Nada666

How on earth are you able to multiply x by 365, y by 9,500, z by 2,300, multiply that by 94% (where y and z are to three decimal places), and muliply by 1.05 in your head? Retain that information and twiddle y and z a bit. Then do that for another three tariffs times another six suppliers plus the two or three other suppliers that you have heard of (what about the ones you don't know about?).

Even if not in your head why repeat the rigmarole with a spreadsheet?

I am not saying for a moment that you do not have to do the sums for your current tariff manually and that you should not double-check likely tariffs thrown-up by the comparison sites manually. But you need a bit of a pointer no matter what Ofgem is pretending.

Crispy796

apt wrote: »

You have wasted your time working out costs based on one quarter as use varies between quarters. Use annual figures as a better guide. The better comparision sites do give unit costs and standing charges. Click on the estimated annual cost and it will give you the details alongside details of your current tariff.

Use might vary and basing my workings on 1 quarter was so i could compare rather than work out what it would cost me....

I now know that if i fix for 2 years, southern electric would charge less than E-on..... if i fixed for 4 years, N-power would cost less than EDF blue. The same as comparison sites might have said the same..... but....

U-Switch has just told me a second ago (as i just inputted all my details again) that I could switch to another tariff with my current supplier and only pay £10.89 a month more than i currently pay. they say i will pay £65.25/month which considering i pay £65/month set by the supplier, is interesting.

I was just making a point that if i could see in a list the charges each tariff has, i could make a decision myself based on what i saw...

I'm probably the only one who doesn't trust the comparison sites completly,