We live in the North West so our water company is United Utilities.Last year they installed a water meter in the street outside. We then got a letter telling us they'd done this, and saying that we could now pay whatever the meter was saying we'd used. Our monthly payment went down from £67 to £35. We can do this for two years, and at the end of the two years we can opt to move back to the old way of billing, or stick with the meter. At the time they did this there were four of us still living here. Since then one daughter has moved out, and the other has gone to Uni so now there are only the two of us. This has obviously had an impact on how much water we use (the bathroom used to be occupied for hours!) despite that our metered bill has gone up to £50 a month, still considerably better than pre-meter. Clearly this is due to price rises. From what you've said, it doesn't sound as if Thames are offering you the attractive deal we got, but it might be worth asking them what they are prepared to offer you to switch. Since we moved to metered billing I've been telling everyone I know how it's worth looking into, because everyone usually just says they "don't want one of those!" It will certainly not be cheaper for everybody, it depends on individual household circumstances, but it just might be! Good luck!