The state site lists plans. We do the math.
Power to Choose Texas: compare plans on the bill, not the rate.
90 live plans from 18+ Texas providers, each with an estimated bill instead of a headline rate. The state's own site quotes three fixed levels — 500, 1,000 and 2,000 kWh — and your home probably isn't one of them.
Compare plans for my homeIndependent — not affiliated with the PUCT or powertochoose.org. We think that's the point.
Live rates · updated September 13, 2026
Today's cheapest plans, shown at 1,000 kWh.
Total cost — TDU delivery charges and base fees included. Shown at 1,000 kWh because that's the point everyone quotes; enter your ZIP and we'll price them at your usage instead. Each price is the plan's lowest-cost utility area.
APGE SimpleSaver 12
APGE SimpleSaver 9
Frontier Utilities Saver Plus 12
Gexa Energy Eco Saver Plus 12
Gexa Energy Saver Plus 12
4Change Energy Maxx Saver Value 12
Rhythm Energy Rhythm Max Saver 12
Energy Texas The Lone Saver Plus 12
4Change Energy Maxx Saver Value 8
Rhythm Energy Rhythm Max Saver 24
Rates as of September 13, 2026 — always verify on the EFL before you enroll. See all 90 plans →
What "Power to Choose" is — and isn't
Texas Senate Bill 7, passed in 1999 and phased in through 2002, broke up the old utility monopoly. It split the industry into three parts: companies that generate electricity, the utility that owns the wires (your TDU — Oncor, CenterPoint, AEP, TNMP, or LP&L), and the retail electric providers who sell you power and send you a bill. That last part — picking who sends you the bill — is the consumer right the law created. People started calling it "Power to Choose."
The Commission states the test plainly: if you live in the ERCOT region and aren't served by an electric cooperative or a municipally owned utility, you have this right. Most Texas homes qualify. Municipal utilities (Austin Energy, CPS Energy) and the utilities outside ERCOT (El Paso Electric, Entergy Texas, SWEPCO) still operate as regulated monopolies. If you're in one of those areas, you can't shop — there's nothing to compare.
To help Texans use the right, the PUC runs a public website — powertochoose.org. It calls itself the official and unbiased electric choice website of the Commission, and it is: there's no fee to be listed, no paid placement, and the columns sort by whatever you click. Every certified retailer is eligible to post plans there — but none is required to, and none has to post its whole catalogue. So it's an accurate record of what was submitted, shown at the three usage points state rules require every plan to disclose. The gap it leaves isn't honesty. It's that your home is rarely at one of those three points.
Reading the state site
What the numbers do and don't tell you.
Four things that decide which plan wins for your home.
It shows the plans providers chose to post
Every certified Texas retailer is eligible to list on powertochoose.org. None is required to, and none is required to post its whole catalogue. So the site is an accurate record of what was submitted — not a complete map of the market. A plan you were quoted over the phone may not appear there at all.
Three price points are not a price
By rule, every plan discloses its average price at 500, 1,000 and 2,000 kWh — and the site shows all three. What it cannot show is the price at 780 kWh, or 1,340, or wherever your home lands. That number exists, but you have to compute it from the plan's own formula.
A price per kWh is a quotient, not a price
Every ¢/kWh figure is a bill divided by the kilowatt-hours that produced it, so the number moves when your usage moves even though the contract hasn't changed. Two things move it, and they are not the same size. Fixed monthly charges — mostly your utility's delivery base charge — dilute as usage rises: across the 71 plans we list that carry no usage credit, the 500 kWh figure sits a median of 0.4¢ above the 1,000 kWh figure. A credit switching off is the loud one: on the 19 plans that have one, that same gap runs a median of 12.9¢.
A bill credit isn't a bad deal — it's a conditional one
The sidebar loads with minimum-usage-fee, bill-credit and tiered plans filtered out, and that default was a real fix for real gaming. But conditional is not the same as bad. Today the cheapest plan on the Oncor grid at exactly 1,000 kWh — the usage the state site itself defaults to — is APGE SimpleSaver 12, a credit plan of precisely the shape that filter removes. Three different plans are cheapest at 500, 1,000 and 2,000 kWh. Whether a credit wins for your home depends on how many months clear its threshold and how far the rest fall short — which no single month, and no single number, can settle.
The way to settle any of it is to stop comparing single numbers. Price every plan across twelve months of your own usage and compare the annual totals — the months that clear a credit threshold and the months that miss it both get counted, which is the only way a conditional plan can be judged fairly. That's what happens when you give us your usage. A few plans really are engineered to win one sorted column, and those we take apart: the 7.2¢ plan built for one sort button. More like it in Gimmick Watch.
Side by side
powertochoose.org vs. ChooseMyPower.
| powertochoose.org | ChooseMyPower | |
|---|---|---|
| Which plans appear | Whatever certified retailers chose to post | 90 live plans from 18+ providers — also a subset, and we say so |
| Prices shown per plan | 500, 1,000 and 2,000 kWh — the three the EFL discloses | The cost at the usage you enter, anywhere on the curve |
| Default sort | Price per kWh at 1,000 kWh, ascending | Estimated cost for your home over a year |
| Gimmick-shaped plans | Filtered out by default; returns on "Show All Plans" | Shown, ranked honestly, and flagged with the 500 kWh bill |
| TDU delivery charges | Included in the disclosed prices | Included, and named per utility area |
| What it costs you | Free to use | Free to use — and the plan costs the same as enrolling direct |
| How it's funded | A state agency. No listing fee, no paid placement | A flat referral fee from the provider, identical from every one we list |
| Who runs it | Public Utility Commission of Texas — official and unbiased | Independent — not affiliated with the PUCT or powertochoose.org |
Both are free to use. The state site is the official record of what providers submitted; we do the per-usage math on the plans we list. Looking for other options? See how the Power to Choose alternatives compare →
How to use your power to choose without getting tricked
Three habits. They cover most of the "wait, my bill was how much?" moments.
- Know your own number first. Pull three or four recent bills and find your average kWh — and your highest month, which is usually August. The state site lets you set estimated use to 500, 1,000 or 2,000. If your number is 780, none of those is you, and the plan that wins at 1,000 may not be the plan that wins at 780.
- Read the Electricity Facts Label, not the headline rate. Every plan has one, and it discloses the average price at all three usage points. If those three numbers sit close together, the plan is close to flat. If they swing hard, something in the plan switches on or off at a threshold — find out what, and at what usage.
- Leave the default filter alone unless you know why you're turning it off. The state site loads with minimum-usage-fee, bill-credit and tiered plans filtered out. That default is protecting you from the exact shapes providers engineered to win a sorted-by-price column. "Show All Plans" is not a more complete view so much as a less defended one.
The job is to find the plan whose cost is lowest at your usage across a real year — not the plan with the best-looking number in a column sorted at somebody else's.
“An electricity plan isn't a rate — it's a formula, and every one of them is built to look cheapest at a usage number that isn't yours. We price them all against your real twelve months, because that's the only comparison that survives contact with your bill.”
— Enri Zhulati, Consumer Advocate, ChooseMyPower (August 2026)
By city
Power to Choose, city by city.
Prices are per-utility in Texas, so the cheapest plan in Houston isn't the cheapest plan in Dallas. Pick your city for local rankings.
FAQ
Common questions about Power to Choose.
What is "Power to Choose"?
It's the Texas consumer right to pick your retail electricity provider, created when Senate Bill 7 passed in 1999. "Power to Choose" is the right itself. The Public Utility Commission of Texas also runs a website at powertochoose.org that lists plans — that's a tool for using the right, not the right itself.
Does powertochoose.org list every electricity plan in Texas?
No. Every certified retailer is eligible to post plans there, but none is required to, and none is required to post its entire catalogue. The site is an accurate record of what providers submitted — which is not the same as a complete map of the market. If someone quoted you a plan you can't find on the site, that doesn't make the quote fake.
What do the three prices on each plan mean?
Texas rules require every plan to disclose its average price per kWh at 500, 1,000 and 2,000 kWh on the Electricity Facts Label, and powertochoose.org shows all three. They are three points on a curve, not a range. Your home probably sits between them, and the price there has to be computed from the plan's own formula — energy rate, delivery charges, fixed monthly fees, and any credits or tiers.
Why is the same plan a different price at 500, 1,000 and 2,000 kWh?
Mostly arithmetic, not trickery. Delivery charges and base fees are fixed each month, so spreading them across fewer kWh raises the average price of the identical plan. A plan with about $5 a month in fixed charges reads roughly a cent per kWh higher at 500 than at 1,000. That's why the cheapest-looking number in a column sorted at 1,000 kWh isn't automatically the cheapest plan for a smaller home.
Does powertochoose.org hide bill credits and minimum usage fees?
The opposite, by default. The sidebar loads with "plans without a minimum usage fee/credit and plans without tiered pricing" already selected, so those plans are filtered out before you see the list. That filter was added after providers learned to engineer plans that look cheap at exactly 1,000 kWh. Two catches. It's one radio button, so "Show All Plans" brings them back with nothing doing the per-usage math for you. And a credit plan is not automatically a bad plan — for a home whose months usually clear the threshold it can be the cheapest option on the board, and the default view doesn't show it at all.
What is a minimum usage fee?
A charge some plans apply in any month you use less than a set amount — commonly under 500 or 1,000 kWh. Not every plan has one. When a plan does, it's disclosed on that plan's Electricity Facts Label, and it may not appear as its own line on your bill, so the label is where to check.
Is powertochoose.org accurate?
Yes. It's run by the Public Utility Commission of Texas, describes itself as official and unbiased, and there is no fee to be listed and no paid placement — sorting is by whichever column you pick, defaulting to price per kWh. The limitation isn't honesty, it's scope: it reports each plan at three disclosed usage points, and it can't tell you what any of them costs across your own twelve months.
Does enrolling through ChooseMyPower cost more than going direct?
No. The same plan is the same price whether you enroll here or on the provider's own site — that is fixed in our agreement with them, not a courtesy we could quietly drop. The referral fee is paid by the provider out of their side, not added to your rate. And because every provider pays the identical flat amount, none of them can buy a better position, which leaves us competing on one thing: being right about which plan suits your home.
Is ChooseMyPower affiliated with the state or powertochoose.org?
No. ChooseMyPower is independent — not affiliated with the Public Utility Commission of Texas or powertochoose.org. We compare live plans from 18+ deregulated-market providers, and we are paid the same flat referral fee no matter which one you choose.
How does ChooseMyPower rank plans differently?
We take your usage and run it through each plan's full formula — energy charge, delivery charges, fixed monthly fees, and any bill credits or tiered rates. Give us a full year and we rank by estimated annual cost across all twelve months rather than any single usage point, so a month that clears a credit threshold and a month that misses it both count. Plans that only look cheap at one usage level stop looking cheap — and a plan that looks expensive at 500 kWh can still win the year.
Why is my bill higher than the advertised rate?
Usually one of three things: your usage sat somewhere other than the disclosure point the advertised rate came from; a bill credit needed a threshold you missed that month; or fixed monthly charges made up a bigger share of a small bill. All three are visible in the plan's Electricity Facts Label — none of them is visible in a single headline number.
See what each plan would cost you
Enter your ZIP. Plans on your meter from 18+ providers, each with an estimated bill — delivery charges and fees included, bill credits flagged.
How enrollment works
You pick the plan here. Enrollment finishes on our secure checkout — same rate, no markup. If you'd rather skip the ZIP entry, Live Link pulls your real usage from Smart Meter Texas in about 30 seconds. Same plans, same checkout, less typing.