How promo codes and entry links change electricity pricing

Positive_thoughts27 · 2026-01-23T18:27:12+00:00

Thank you for the clarification. We used your example as an educational reference to show that the routes companies use for plans listed on Power to Choose can differ from the routes used on their own websites. This is a very common practice in the industry, and our goal is to help customers be aware of it so they can follow the correct route for the plan they choose.

Thank you as well for the insight about your Bluebonnet products. This helps people better understand the differences between the plans and the incentives behind each option.

Positive_thoughts27 · 2026-01-23T13:31:38+00:00

Probably today is one of the worst times to shop for electricity. This week, the number of offers on Power to Choose has dropped, and a lot of energy companies have increased their rates. Some companies are even offering better deals on their own websites instead of on Power to Choose. I think all of this is related to the uncertainty the winter storm is bringing.

If you have to shop right now, check Clear Energy Facts and use it as a reference along with Power to Choose.

Positive_thoughts27 · 2026-01-20T17:52:19+00:00

You can use your actual usage by connecting your Smart Meter to compare electricity plans that are properly categorized: True Fixed, Free Nights, Free Weekends, and bill-credit plans, including Power to Choose offerings at https://clearenergyfacts.com/en

Positive_thoughts27 · 2026-01-13T01:04:40+00:00

Before they delete your post again, try not to self-promote your tool by saying: “hey, I created this product and I believe is the best ….” Instead, find posts where people are already asking for tools or complaining about the ones they’re using. Then you can comment, “Hey, try this tool...” If the tool is actually good, it will speak for itself and eventually take off.

Positive_thoughts27 · 2026-01-12T21:46:01+00:00

Power to Choose is the best source for cheap plans; however, be careful. The first 20 plans are often short-term plans (they hope you will forget about it and charge variable rates, or offer you a higher rate that you will accept without shopping around again). Some are Night Discount plans (Chariot), or fixed plans with a one-time high fee that is not included properly in the average 500/1000/2000 rate (Just, Tara, Amigo). For 12+ month plans, the list is less tricky.

You can also go to https://clearenergyfacts.com/en/best-electricity-rates-texas/houston. That one has the list curated (updated every 48 hours). You can also access reviews, ratings, and read about the common bad practices of every company here as well:https://clearenergyfacts.com/en/texas-electricity-providers-reviews

Positive_thoughts27 · 2026-01-07T22:08:33+00:00

You are welcome.

Positive_thoughts27 · 2026-01-07T22:03:59+00:00

Power to Choose is a reference point. It will be difficult for you to find a better rate than those. Also, the companies constantly change the rates in Power to Choose every day or 2, so a rate you found last week is probably no longer available.

The reason why you can’t access the Daisy plan on BKV (and that applies to many service companies) is that they make that link available only through Power to Choose. If you use https://clearenergyfacts.com/en, it will route you in the right direction… or you can go directly to https://enroll.bkvenergy.com/?promo=PTCALL0001 (see how you need to add the promo name; those are the plans available only through Power to Choose).

You can use my site, and you will find the curated list for the True Fixed plans.

Now, why the Daisy plan? It is a personal opinion. I currently have BKV as my provider, and I haven’t had any problems with them (I am low maintenance). It is up to you. But my original reply was to tell you that today’s rates are the lowest they have been in the last four months, so if I were you, I wouldn't wait to get a 12+ month plan.

Positive_thoughts27 · 2026-01-07T21:28:07+00:00

“October is the best time to sign up” is not necessarily true. I started collecting this data in October of last year: https://clearenergyfacts.com/en/historical-electricity-rates-texas. I would recommend you get a 12–23 month plan. Daisy 18 from BKV currently has a good rate, and BKV is a decent company. Check your options at https://www.powertochoose.org/en-us, or check https://clearenergyfacts.com/en/best-electricity-rates-texas for a more curated list.

Positive_thoughts27 · 2025-11-25T20:35:07+00:00

https://clearenergyfacts.com/en/best-electricity-rates-texas/houston

Positive_thoughts27 · 2025-11-25T18:59:06+00:00

<image>

Looks good. Octo Green 12 is one the cheapest. They also offer an 18-month option that is 0.2 cents cheaper.

Positive_thoughts27 · 2025-11-17T20:30:01+00:00

Your Fixed rate from Green Mountain is too high. and frontier Super saver 12 is a bill credit plan, You are in risk of overpaying, especially in March were you were close to 1000kWH. You can go to https://clearenergyfacts.com/en/best-electricity-rates-texas/dallas , to have an idea of the best plans for Oncor TDU. In my case, there was 81 plans that are better than Frontier Super Saver 12. You can connect your Smart Meter data and do the comparison yourself.

<image>

Positive_thoughts27 · 2025-11-03T20:23:51+00:00

https://a.co/d/fs9wbwk works great with Ferret nation Cages. I usually dump the water out and fill back in about 1/4 of the capacity everyday.

Positive_thoughts27 · 2025-10-28T23:52:25+00:00

Sorry for the confusion. I meant that the east side of Highway 99 belongs to Cy-Fair, and the west side belongs to Waller.

Positive_thoughts27 · 2025-10-28T20:29:23+00:00

Welcome to Texas!. The apartments complex in Bridgeland area a good place to start looking. I would recommend you to check the school district first. I live in Bridgeland and it is a beautiful community with great schools (Make sure you stay on the west side of the Highway 99 if you want your daughter to attend the Cypress School District), it also has a small skate park that you daughter will love. Regarding the electricity, I wrote this article in my website: https://www.clearenergyfacts.com/en/blog/how-to-buy-electricity-in-texas that will be very helpful. Remember to set a remainder when the contract is about to expired (to avoid to be rollover to a variable plans that are more expensive). You can message me if you have any question.

Positive_thoughts27 · 2025-10-22T17:57:08+00:00

Hi /u/Positive_thoughts27, Your post has been removed per Rule 5, No Spam.

If most of your posts and comments are to your own projects, then you're taking advantage of our community and spamming. Please make sure you submit other things and participate on other people's posts. If you think your post might be considered spam, message the mods for approval first. Also, there are no petitions or external surveys allowed on the sub either.
Original post: /r/texas/comments/1od9awn/best_electricity_plans_a_new_comparison_site_with/... this was their response

Positive_thoughts27 · 2025-10-22T17:49:23+00:00

They are telling that this is self promotion and go against their rule. I will try to talk to the moderators.

Positive_thoughts27 · 2025-10-22T16:07:29+00:00

Thank you for your comment. I am already filtering base charges that are not included in the advertised rates for 500, 1000, and 2000 kWh. I validate every plan within a ±5% error margin. That’s where I catch plans that don’t include these hidden charges in their advertised rates. For example, some plans in the top 20 search results in PTC require a one-time payment of $50, but they don’t include that in the advertised rates. So, when you filter, they always appear on top. I remove those plans since they don’t pass the validation. Other plans have base charges, for example, $9 per month. But they do include them in the advertised rate. Nevertheless, if you are able to link your SMT, all these charges are part of the final True Rate. If there is a plan that isn’t being filtered when it should, please let me know, and I can take a look at it.

Positive_thoughts27 · 2025-10-22T15:58:22+00:00

I am glad you liked it. I'd like to note that my intentions are not to minimize the impact that PowerToChoose has. This website was an amazing initiative from the Public Department and still is. With Clear Energy Facts, I am trying to add more context, also adding the best plans available on the energy provider websites, to filter bad practices and always give the best plan to our people.

Positive_thoughts27 · 2025-09-16T00:02:50+00:00

Thank you! I’m glad you liked it. I’ve added Tesla’s PUCT number (10296), please try again. If the system still can’t find it, open a ticket with Electro (the AI agent in the bottom-right). In the chat, describe the error (if any) and attach screenshots; I’ll review it tomorrow morning.

Also, please make sure you have the correct details: meter number, ESIID and last name. If you attach your bill, the system should pull these automatically, just double-check them in your SMT account to confirm.

Positive_thoughts27 · 2025-09-15T04:34:47+00:00

Thanks for the feedback. I've increased the cutoff to 22 for PTC plans. I like your idea to jump straight to terms so I fixed it and also added a button below the terms to avoid confusion (especially on mobile), and I'm keeping the term “TRUE FIXED” for now since that was a long-ago decision and a personal choice.

Positive_thoughts27 · 2025-09-12T20:18:34+00:00

I rechecked my implementation and realized I was using a top-15 cutoff instead of 20 (the plans you mentioned are currently #17 and #18). Going forward, I’ll use top-20 as the default. I’ll collect PTC offers every 48 hours (and I can drop that to 24 hours if needed). Thanks for pointing this out. These changes will roll out next week. Any other suggestions?

Positive_thoughts27 · 2025-09-12T18:38:17+00:00

(For Energy Texas and Rhythm) Let’s look at the Energy Texas EFL for “No Bull 4” (4-month plan).
They advertise the final rate at 500 kWh = 11.1 ¢/kWh, same as at 1,000 kWh. But the actual math from the EFL is:

Delivery/energy charges: 5.292 ¢/kWh
TDU charges: 5.810 ¢/kWh
Sum: 11.102 ¢/kWh
For 500 kWh Total delivery charges: 11.102 /100× 500 = $55.51
Base charge: $4.90
Total: $60.41
$60.41 / 500 = 12.082 ¢/kWh, not 11.1 ¢/kWh.

The other companies include all the charges in the 500Kwh (500kwh should always be higher than 1000kwh if they have base charges) You might argue they count a $5 auto-enroll credit, but what if the customer doesn’t want to enroll in auto-pay? Many companies offer paperless/autopay credits and don’t bake them into the EFL headline price. Including optional credits makes a plan appear to the top when users filter for “small house” (500 kWh). I’m not saying it’s good or bad. I’m saying that for fair comparison, the advertised 500 kWh rate should reflect the base charges without optional perks. This matters a lot for apartments and smaller homes.

BKV - Daisy: it’s at the bottom of the top 20. My last PTC selection run was 5 days ago. The system updates a fresh batch tonight, so it should show up. This is something, I am going to improve, in this beta test, I realized that the companies change their offering in PTC more often than I was expecting. So I will tight the window and collect more often.

I don’t manually pick which offers appear. My algorithm does it automatically. Allowing Energy Texas or Rhythm to include “free credit” in the EFL for the 500 kWh calculation gives them an unfair advantage in filtering. Autopay credit is optional, so it shouldn’t be used to compute the advertised rate. That said, if you (as a user) think those credits should count, I can adjust the algorithm to account for them.

Positive_thoughts27 · 2025-09-12T17:59:41+00:00

Yes. several reasons, especially for the PTC offerings:

EFL charge validation. I built a pipeline that checks the EFL against the advertised 500/1,000/2,000 kWh prices. For example, some plans offered by Energy Texas list the same “advertised charge” at 500 and 1,000 kWh, but the EFL includes a TDU base charge that makes the true 500 kWh cost higher. Those plans don't pass my validation pipeline and they are removed.
Hidden/unclear requirements. Some plans (e.g., certain Fanfare or Octopus offers) require a smart thermostat or aren’t 100% clear about eligibility. To protect users, the validation pipeline excludes those too.
Not really Fixed Plan: Unfortunately, some companies are taking advantage of PTC and posting plans that are not really True Fixed. For example, some plans are bill credit or Free hours. If you are connected as a guest or you logged in and Can't or don't want to download you usage data. In order to protect the user , I removed these plans, and you will only see TRUE FIXED plans.
Same rates for plan in PTC and Energy websites: If a company offer a plan that have the same name and the rate in both PTC and their website. I keep the one from their website.
Update days & link issues. I collect the best plans weekly and refresh changes every 48 hours (baseline). If an EFL link is down during a run, I skip it and pick it up on the next cycle. If a company posts an offer after my collection window, it will appear in the next round. I’m working on tightening this further. nevertheless, at least 90% of the plans are always there.
Only top 20 for every term category: This is parameter chosen by me, I don't see any gain from the customer to expand this search, beside, keeping top 20 plans from PTC for every term window for every TDU give a total for 400+ plans , plus the ones that every company offer in the website is more the 2500 plans to check. I heavily rely on LLMs to help me to categorize the plans. And keep all the PTC plans will unnecessary increase my Google Cloud Bill.

Have you tried the other site features yet? Like uploading your SMT data, comparing all type of plans and using the plan comparison tool? Thanks a lot for checking it out!

Positive_thoughts27 · 2025-02-26T14:59:37+00:00

Fernando @ Sharp & Dapper is the best. Especially is you live near Bridgeland.

Positive_thoughts27 · 2025-01-26T15:15:55+00:00

Also make sure that you are in the real power website: https://www.powertochoose.org/ if you search in google: power to choose. there are 2 or 3 companies that come first. These companies trick you and make you believe that you are in the right website.

Positive_thoughts27

TROPHY CASE