Power to Choose in Texas: How to compare electricity plans and rates

Key Takeaways

• Power to Choose is a free state tool. Do not buy the top plan without reading its fact sheet.
• The list is sorted at one usage level. Your home may use more or less.
• A bill credit can drop your price a lot at one usage level and vanish one kWh below it.
• Check what the price becomes when the contract ends.
• Always compare the final bill at your own kWh, not the cents per kWh in the headline.

If you searched “power to choose texas”, you want one thing: a cheap plan that stays cheap. This guide shows how to use PowerToChoose.org step by step. It also shows how to read a plan’s fact sheet in about a minute, with a made up example and real math.

What Power to Choose is, and what it is not

Power to Choose is the Texas electricity shopping website at powertochoose.org. The Public Utility Commission of Texas, or PUCT, runs it. It is free. Retail electric providers, or REPs, list their plans there. A REP sells you power and sends the bill.

Companies fill in the list, and every company wants to be near the top. The site sorts plans by average price at the usage level you pick, and the default is 1,000 kWh. A kWh, or kilowatt hour, is the unit your bill uses to count electricity. (We could not load the live site from our server, so check the screen names below against what you see.)

Here is how big the list can get. One count on 29 September 2026 found 1,895 offers from 46 providers. That number counts English and Spanish listings separately, so it is about 949 plans. In that same count, 174 offers had a minimum usage fee or credit. The source is MyUtilitySearch, a rival comparison site, so treat it as one count and not an official figure.

Two more things to know. First, your wires and meter belong to a different company called the TDU, short for transmission and distribution utility. In Houston that is CenterPoint. Second, ComparePower, the partner we link to on this page, is a private comparison company. It is not the state site. More on that later.

Step 1: Set up your search

1. Enter the ZIP code of the home you will power.
2. Pick the usage level closest to your real use. Look at your last 12 bills and find the kWh number on each. Do not guess from the default.
3. Choose a plan type. A fixed rate plan keeps the energy price the same for the whole term. Variable plans can change month to month.
4. Choose a term (twelve months is common, shorter if you may move) and hide prepaid plans unless you want one.
5. Look for a filter or label about minimum usage or bill credits, and use it to hide those plans at first. You can add them back later.

Filter names may differ on the live site. The idea is to remove plans with rules you do not want, then compare what is left.

Step 2: Read an EFL in 60 seconds

The EFL, or Electricity Facts Label, is the standard fact sheet for each plan. Texas requires every plan to have one. It lists the average price at 500, 1,000 and 2,000 kWh, the contract term, the cancellation fee, other fees, and how much of the power is renewable. It is the real offer. The search page is the ad.

Below is an example label. It is made up. It is not any real company or plan. All numbers are for teaching.

Now read it in this order:

1. Term and cancellation fee. How long are you locked in, and what does leaving early cost?
2. Energy charge. This is the cents per kWh the company keeps.
3. Base charge. A flat monthly fee. It hurts most when you use little power.
4. Credits and minimums. Find any sentence with “if you use”, “at least”, “between” or “less than”.
5. Delivery charges. These are the TDU charges. Most plans pass them through, so they do not separate good plans from bad ones. They do make every bill higher than the energy rate suggests.
6. The three average prices. If the price at 500 kWh is far above the price at 1,000, a credit or minimum is hiding in there.

The math behind the example label

We used the Houston delivery charge in the example. After a price change on 1 September 2026, BKV Energy reported CenterPoint’s charge as $4.90 a month plus 6.413 cents per kWh. That is a retail provider’s summary, not CenterPoint’s own tariff, so check your own bill for the current figure.

For “Example Fixed 12”, the bill is: energy charge (12.5 cents times kWh) plus the $9.95 base charge plus delivery, minus $100 if you reach 1,000 kWh. We put it next to a plain plan with no credit and no base charge.

At 1,000 kWh, Example Fixed 12 costs 125.00 + 9.95 + 69.03 in delivery, minus the $100 credit: $103.98. The table shows the other usage levels.

The first plan has three very different average prices: 21.9 cents per kWh at 500, 10.4 cents at 1,000 and 14.7 cents at 2,000. Only the 1,000 one is the headline.

The bill credit cliff: 999 kWh versus 1,000 kWh

A bill credit is money taken off your bill if you meet a rule, usually a usage range. A cliff is when one kWh decides whether you get it.

In our example, using 999 kWh costs $203.79. Using 1,000 kWh costs $103.98. You used one more kWh and paid $99.81 less. That sounds fine until you remember it works the other way too. If a mild month brings you to 999 kWh, you pay $99.81 more than if you had hit 1,000.

The flat plan has no cliff. At 950 kWh the credit plan costs $194.52 and the flat plan costs $178.87. The “cheaper” plan is $15.65 dearer that month. You do not see that on the first screen. You see it on the bill.

This is not just theory. A Reddit user in r/texas, in a thread titled “Warning: Power to get ripped off”, wrote: “They enticed me with a bill credit if we were at 1000kwh to 1500kwh. … One month we ended up spending $216 for 950kwh.” That is one person’s story, not proof of how often it happens.

Other traps to look for

• Minimum usage fee. A charge added if you use less than a set amount. It hits vacant homes, small apartments and mild months.
• Variable rates. The price can change during the term.
• Cancellation fee. This is often charged per month left on the contract. Do the sum before you sign.

A Trustpilot reviewer wrote about a plan: “Misled by the rate. Now I am locked in to a price quite higher than I was paying.” It is one review, but it shows the cost of skipping the label. Changed your mind? Texas rules let you cancel a switch within three federal business days after you get the terms of service, without a penalty (16 TAC 25.474).

What happens when the contract ends

A fixed plan is only fixed for the term. After that, you may move to a new plan from the same company, often at a new price. Texas rules require the company to send you at least three written notices during the last third of a fixed rate contract. On contracts longer than four months, the last notice must arrive at least 30 days before the end date. You can also leave with no early termination fee starting 14 days before the contract ends (16 TAC 25.475).

Notices can still be missed. Another r/texas user in that same thread wrote: “my 12 month contract had expired. I was paying 12c ish, the rate they jumped me too was 21c. … We never received a mailed notification that our contract had ended.” Put the end date in your phone calendar, with an alert about 45 days before.

If you missed it, you are not stuck. Read our guide on what to do if you did not get a holdover notice. You can also test the cost of staying put with the Texas holdover rate calculator.

Step 3: The step most guides skip, compare at your own usage

This is the heart of it. Power to Choose ranks plans at one usage level. If that level is not yours, the plan ranked first for 1,000 kWh may not be the plan that is cheapest for 500 or 2,000 kWh. In our example, the credit plan wins at 1,000 and 2,000 kWh, and loses at 500 and 999. The ranking depends on the usage you pick.

We cannot tell you how big that gap is for your ZIP code today. It changes every day as plans change. So measure it yourself:

1. Sort the list at 1,000 kWh and note the top five plans.
2. Open each EFL and find the average prices at 500 and 2,000 kWh.
3. Test your low and high months, not just a middle one.
4. Work out the bill in dollars for each plan, as we did above. Rank them by dollars, not by cents.

That is slow if you do it by hand for many plans. This is one reason people use a second tool after Power to Choose. ComparePower is a private comparison company, not the state. Its plan tool ranks plans by the usage you enter, so it can do that sum for you. Our plan comparison page uses it. We may earn a commission if you sign up through our link, so we say so in the grey line under the button, and on our affiliate disclosure page. Power to Choose stays the best place to see the whole market and each official EFL.

Living in Houston? See our guide to cheap electricity rates in Houston.

Why the traps exist: a short history

Complaints about the site are not new. In August 2015, StateImpact Texas reported that consumers had filed comments with the PUC saying Power to Choose showed low rates while the fine print added fees or raised prices if a home’s usage differed from the sample. (StateImpact Texas, 3 August 2015)

In February 2016, the Dallas Morning News reported that the PUC chair said: “Some of the reps are working the system of Power to Choose in order to be listed as the lowest price.” (Dallas Morning News)

Those stories are old. The lesson still holds: a list that companies compete to top rewards clever pricing. Your protection is the EFL and your own kWh.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is Power to Choose free?

Yes. It is a free state website run by the PUCT. You do not pay to look at plans.

Is the plan at the top of Power to Choose the cheapest?

Not always. It is the cheapest at the usage level the list is sorted by. If your use is different, or a bill credit does not apply to you, another plan may cost less in dollars.

What is an EFL?

An Electricity Facts Label is a standard fact sheet for each plan. It shows the average price at 500, 1,000 and 2,000 kWh, the term, the cancellation fee and other fees.

What is a bill credit?

It is money taken off your bill if you meet a rule, such as using at least 1,000 kWh. If you miss the rule by a little, you lose all of it.

Is ComparePower the same as Power to Choose?

No. ComparePower is a private company. Power to Choose is the state site. Both can show real plans. They sort and display them in different ways.

This guide is general information. It is not legal advice, and we cannot promise any savings. Read your own contract before you sign.

Sources

• Power to Choose (PUCT)
• PUCT: Electricity Facts Label
• MyUtilitySearch: offer count, 29 September 2026
• BKV Energy: CenterPoint delivery charge, September 2026
• XOOM Energy: Texas renewal notices
• StateImpact Texas, August 2015
• Dallas Morning News, February 2016