How to Choose a Power Company & Broker

Texas is one of the few states where you get to pick your own power company. That should be an advantage. It often feels like a trap instead: half a dozen comparison sites competing for your ZIP code, a state marketplace listing more plans than anyone can realistically read, and headline rates that never quite match the number on your bill.

If you’ve stared at your electricity contract and felt like you needed a translator, you’re not imagining it. The Electricity Facts Label, or EFL, that every retail electric provider has to give you is accurate and almost impossible to skim in the two minutes most people give it. A rate advertised in bold on the homepage can look nothing like the number on your first bill once fees and bill credit thresholds are factored in, and a credit that looked like free money can vanish if you don’t land in the usage range it’s tied to.

This guide covers how to actually choose a power company, and how to size up a broker or comparison site if you decide to use one, including ones that look a lot like us. That means reading your own usage first, decoding an EFL instead of trusting the marketing sitting on top of it, and seeing exactly how the referral and commission side of this business works, so you know who gets paid when you click sign up.

Start with your own usage, not the marketing

Before you can judge any plan or any broker, you need your own numbers. Pull up your past bills if you have them and note your usage in kWh for each month, not just the dollar total. Usage in Texas swings hard between a mild spring and a July or August cooling load, and a plan that looks cheap at an average monthly usage figure can turn expensive the month you actually use the most power.

Write down your average monthly kWh, your peak months, and anything unusual in your home, like a pool pump or a home office server closet running around the clock. That’s the baseline every rate comparison should run against. Without it, you’re just comparing headline numbers with no way to know which one applies to you.

How to read an Electricity Facts Label

Every retail electric provider (REP) operating in the state has to attach an EFL to each plan it sells. The format is standardized specifically so plans can be compared side by side, which sounds great until you’re staring at your third one in a row and none of the numbers seem to agree with each other.

The two things worth checking first are the average price at different usage levels and the length of the contract term. A plan’s average price often looks best at one specific usage level and worse everywhere else, which is exactly the range providers expect most shoppers to skim past. Match the usage level on the label to the usage number you pulled from your own bills, not the number that makes the plan look cheapest.

Teaser rates

A “teaser rate” is a headline number built around a narrow usage band or a short promotional window. Outside that band, the real energy charge is often noticeably higher than what was advertised. If a rate looks unusually low compared to everything else you’re seeing, check the EFL’s pricing chart across usage levels before assuming you found a deal.

Bill credits and usage thresholds

Bill credits work the same way. A plan might advertise an appealing monthly credit, but that credit usually only applies once your usage crosses a specific threshold, and sometimes disappears again if you go over a second one. Read the credit terms as their own line item, not as a discount already baked into the advertised rate. If you use less electricity than the plan expects, that “extra” credit was never really available to you.

How to choose a power company

Compare rates and plan types

Retail electric providers sell a few structurally different products. A fixed-rate plan locks your rate for the length of the contract, which gives you predictability but no upside if wholesale prices drop. A variable-rate plan moves with the market, which can save money when prices fall and cost more when they spike, often with little warning. An indexed plan ties your rate to a published market benchmark, which suits shoppers who are actively watching that index rather than setting a plan and forgetting about it.

Watch for hidden fees

Read past the rate to the fees. Early termination fees, monthly service fees, and minimum usage fees can erase whatever the headline rate promised. A provider that’s upfront about every fee on the EFL, without making you dig for it, is behaving the way you should expect all of them to behave.

Read the reviews, not just the ad

Customer reviews on independent sites tend to repeat the same themes when a provider is a problem, usually billing errors, slow support, or how they handle outages. Marketing pages won’t tell you any of that. A pattern repeated across many reviewers is a stronger signal than any single five-star or one-star post.

Power to Choose and comparison sites: what they actually do

Texas runs an official marketplace, Power to Choose, where every REP is required to list its plans. It’s a legitimate starting point, but it lists plans, it doesn’t rank them by what they’ll actually cost you. You still have to open each EFL yourself and do the usage math from the section above, plan by plan, which is exactly the research fatigue that pushes people toward a broker or a comparison site instead.

That’s also where the skepticism about comparison sites comes from, and it’s earned. Plenty of sites in this space are paid a commission by the provider you sign up with, and some rank offers by what pays best rather than what costs you least. That doesn’t make every comparison site useless, but it means the first question worth asking any of them, including us, is how they get paid and whether that changes what they show you first.

The role of an energy broker

A broker or consultant can take over the comparison work for you, drawing on a set of supplier relationships to find plans that fit your usage and negotiating contract terms on your behalf. That can be worth paying for if your time is worth more than the hours the research takes, or if you’re managing accounts across several meters for a business.

It’s still worth knowing that most brokers are paid by the supplier, not by you directly, which is the same commission structure a comparison site runs on. That doesn’t make a broker dishonest. It does mean the incentive to steer you toward whichever supplier pays the most is built into the business model, so the real question is whether the broker is transparent about it.

How to choose an energy broker, if you use one

Experience and transparency

A broker worth using will explain their process without being asked twice: how they screen suppliers, how they get paid, and what happens after you sign. If a broker gets vague when you ask how their compensation works, that’s the answer.

Their supplier network

Ask which suppliers they work with and how those suppliers are vetted. A broker with a narrow network can only ever show you a narrow slice of the market, no matter how good the pitch sounds.

How they get paid

Most brokers are compensated by the supplier you end up choosing, so there’s no invoice sent to you directly. That doesn’t mean it’s free. The cost is built into your rate somewhere. A broker who can explain where is more trustworthy than one who tells you not to worry about it.

Ranked by your bill, not our commission

We’re a comparison site, so the objection above applies to us too, and we’d rather answer it directly than hope you don’t ask. ChooseMyPower is free to use. We earn a referral commission when someone we’ve helped signs up with a provider through us. That’s how most of this industry gets paid, us included.

The part we control is what determines the order you see plans in. We rank by the estimated cost against your own usage, not by which provider pays the highest commission. If a plan that pays us less comes out cheaper for your usage pattern, that’s the plan we show first. You’re welcome to check our math against the EFL yourself. That’s the whole point of teaching you to read one.

Frequently asked questions

What is an Electricity Facts Label?

It’s a standardized document every retail electric provider in Texas has to give you for each plan, showing the average price at different usage levels, the contract length, and any fees or early termination charges. It’s designed to make plans comparable, but only if you actually read the pricing chart instead of the headline rate.

Is Power to Choose the same as a comparison site?

No. Power to Choose is the state’s official listing of plans from every REP. It doesn’t rank offers by what they’ll cost you, and it doesn’t take a commission. Comparison sites and brokers add a layer of ranking and, usually, a commission paid by whichever provider you choose.

How do brokers and comparison sites make money?

Almost all of them, including us, earn a referral commission from the provider when you sign up. That’s not inherently a problem, but it means you should ask how a site ranks its results before trusting the order plans appear in.

Are teaser rates and bill credits a scam?

Not automatically, but they’re built to look better than they perform outside a narrow usage range. Read the EFL’s pricing chart against your own usage instead of the advertised rate, and treat any bill credit as conditional until you confirm the usage threshold it depends on.

Do I have to pay a broker or comparison site out of pocket?

Usually not directly. Most are paid by the provider you sign up with, which means the cost is folded into your rate somewhere rather than billed to you as a separate fee. If a broker asks you for a direct payment on top of that, ask why.

What if something about my provider or contract feels off?

Rules and complaint processes can change, but Texas’s Public Utility Commission (PUCT) is where to raise a concern about a provider misrepresenting a rate or a fee, not the provider’s own customer service line.

Put the math ahead of the marketing

None of this makes choosing a power company simple, but it does make it checkable. Know your own usage, read the EFL’s actual pricing chart, treat bill credits as conditional, and ask any broker or comparison site, including us, how they get paid before you trust their ranking.

ChooseMyPower does the broker’s matching step for you, free and commission-blind, ranked by your bill, not our commission. Compare plans against your own usage, and once you find the right match, we connect you directly to that provider, no paid consultant and no ongoing account management required.

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