Bill Hero

Discounts often feature prominently in the marketing of energy plans, but it’s hard to understand what the real-world price impact will be since a discount can be conditional or guaranteed and can apply to your kWh consumption charges only, to your supply charges only, or to both the consumption and the supply charges. Guaranteed discounts will always be applied to your bill, whether you pay on time or not. Bill Hero automatically includes all guaranteed discounts in our comparison calculations.

Conditional discounts are common and usually depend on on-time bill payment and/or direct debit, so your behaviour as a bill payer can be a major influence on the effective price you will pay.

You can use the 'Pay on time' filter in our personalised rankings screen to see how prices will change due to the impact of payment behaviour and conditional discounts:

There are four settings for the Pay on Time filter:

Direct debit: When you say you pay by Direct Debit, we apply the full potential discount benefit for each plan, including any incremental discounts that may be tied to direct debit payment, or to payment in advance.

Yes: When you say you always pay on time, we apply the full potential discount benefit for each energy offer, excluding any incremental Direct Debit or advance payment discounts.

Sometimes: When you say you sometimes pay on time, we apply half the potential discount benefit for each plan, exclusive of any Direct Debit discount. This generates annualised results equivalent to you paying half your bills on time, and half of them late.

No: When you say you do not pay on time, we do not apply any conditional discount benefits for any plan.

- Direct debit: When you say you pay by Direct Debit, we apply the full potential discount benefit for each plan, including any incremental discounts that may be tied to direct debit payment, or to payment in advance.
- Yes: When you say you always pay on time, we apply the full potential discount benefit for each energy offer, excluding any incremental Direct Debit or advance payment discounts.
- Sometimes: When you say you sometimes pay on time, we apply half the potential discount benefit for each plan, exclusive of any Direct Debit discount. This generates annualised results equivalent to you paying half your bills on time, and half of them late.
- No: When you say you do not pay on time, we do not apply any conditional discount benefits for any plan.

By default, the comparison results presented to you will assume that you're willing to pay by direct debit or in advance, since this usually ensures the best possible prices. You can use the Pay on Time filter to see what the price implications are for different payment behaviours. Each time you reset the Pay on Time filter value, the plans and prices are re-calculated and re-ranked for you, so it's easy to see which plan is the most cost-effective under each payment scenario.

Some plans are available only to customers that agree to direct debit or advance payment only. These plans will not be visible if you change the Pay on Time filter to another value.

We do not reveal any of your payment behaviour information to any retailer. This functionality and the information it reveals is private to you and is intended to help you find the best possible priced plan for your payment behaviour.