Editorial Standards

ChooseMyPower.org is an independent comparison resource for Texas electricity plans. This page explains how we research, rank, and review — and how to tell when content is opinion vs. data.

Independence

No provider can buy a better ranking. We earn a flat referral fee when a reader enrolls through our checkout hand-off — the same fee no matter which plan you pick — so we have no reason to steer you toward one company over another. Live Link, our smart-meter shortcut, runs through the same hand-off for the same reason.

Here's our credential: the same team runs this site and ComparePower, the platform it hands off to. ComparePower is a live Texas electricity marketplace. We enroll real customers every day, so we know how these plans behave after the sign-up screen — where the bill credits vanish, where the "free nights" get paid back in the daytime rate. That's the knowledge this site is built on.

Plan ranking methodology

We rank plans by one thing: the true all-in monthly cost at your home's actual usage — not the advertised teaser rate. There is no provider popularity score baked into the order. The cheapest plan for your usage is the cheapest plan for your usage, whoever sells it.

We build that number by reading each plan's Electricity Facts Label (EFL) — the state-required disclosure — and pricing every charge that hits a real bill:

• The energy rate, plus base and monthly charges the ads leave out.
• Bill credits and minimum-usage cliffs — the plans that look cheap only if you land in a narrow usage window, and cost more if you miss it.
• Free-nights and time-of-use structures, which shift the real cost into the hours you use power.
• Fixed vs. variable pricing, and the early-termination fee if you leave.

Then we recompute the whole bill at 500, 1,000, and 2,000 kWh. A plan that only looks cheap at one usage tier gets exposed the moment we price it at the other two. That's the difference between an advertised rate and what you'll actually pay. Each "best of" page states the usage level and criteria it's ranked on.

A note on stale prices: retail providers re-mint plan IDs constantly, so a link saved yesterday can point at a plan that no longer exists. We key every saved and shared plan to a stable provider-plan-term identity, not the throwaway ID, and build a fresh checkout URL at the moment you click. You never land on a dead link or a price that's already changed.

Provider reviews

First, the important part: a provider's reputation never changes where a plan lands in our rankings. Cost decides that, and cost alone. Reviews tell you what living with a company feels like — the billing, the service, the renewal — after the price is settled.

Those reviews come from one source: real Texans who filled out our own structured survey. We ask each customer to grade the parts of the experience that matter — signing up, the accuracy of their bills, whether the price matched what was promised, customer service, managing their account, the renewal-or-leaving process, and whether any satisfaction guarantee held up. We moderate submissions before they publish, and we show the review count next to every score so you can weigh it yourself.

We'll be straight with you: this is a young signal. It's our own, and it's still low-volume. Where a provider has too few reviews to mean anything, we say exactly that instead of inventing a number to fill the space. We'd rather show you a thin, honest count than a confident-looking score we can't stand behind.

How we moderate reviews

A human reads every submission before it publishes, and we apply the same rules to every review — positive or negative. We never hold back or bury a review because it's critical. A one-star review that clears our checks appears right alongside the five-star ones.

We withhold a review only when it fails a check we apply to all of them: we can't verify it's from a real customer, it looks fake, it's off-topic, it's abusive or defamatory, it exposes someone's personal information, or it's clearly false. Every rejection is logged with its reason, so our moderation is provably even-handed. If a provider asks us to pull a negative review, we don't — unless it independently fails one of those same checks.

Some reviews carry a "Verified customer" badge. That means the reviewer uploaded a bill and a person on our team confirmed they were a customer of that provider. It verifies the customer — not the opinions in the review, which are theirs.

Data freshness

• Plan rates and EFLs: refreshed daily from public sources (PUCT, provider websites, Power to Choose).
• Provider reviews: published as customers submit them, moderated before they go live.
• Guides: refreshed quarterly or when material market changes occur (regulatory action, major rate movement).
• "Last updated" timestamps on every page reflect actual modification dates.

Our team

Every guide, review, and explainer is written by a named author — Brad Gregory, Enri Zhulati, or Han Hwang — all consumer advocates. No anonymous "editorial team" stands behind the work. Author attribution appears at the top of each long-form guide, with bio and beat on the About page. We follow standard journalistic practices: separate fact from opinion, cite primary sources, and correct errors transparently.

Corrections

If you spot an error — wrong rate, outdated plan, factual mistake — contact us and we'll review and update with a correction notice on the page.

What we don't do

• We don't sell electricity. Enrollment happens at checkout — which hands off to our sister platform, ComparePower, at the published rate — or directly with the retail provider.
• We don't sell personal information. See our Privacy Policy.
• We don't auto-renew you, slam-switch you, or play telemarketing games. We're a research site.
• We don't accept payment to alter rankings or hide negative reviews.

Questions? Reach out.