Free & Impartial Business Energy Comparison
Simply Switch is a trading name of ME Expert Ltd. Moneyexpert is one of the country’s leading price comparison websites and is regulated by the FCA.
Simply Switch is a trading name of ME Expert Ltd. Moneyexpert is one of the country’s leading price comparison websites and is regulated by the FCA.
You’ll generally get business energy tariffs from the same companies that provide domestic energy. We’ll find you deals from a selection of the best business electricity and business gas suppliers on the market, including:
Pretty much business uses electricity. Depending on the size your premises – and how energy intensive your work is – your business’ electricity bill can end up being a significant chunk of your monthly outgoings. To make sure you’re not overpaying, compare business electricity deals with Simply Switch.
If your business uses gas – if you run a kitchen for example, or have gas powered boilers or central heating – you’ll need a separate tariff in addition to your business electricity plan. Compare business gas deals with Simply Switch to make sure your bills stay as low as possible.
If you’re running a business, you’ll know that extra costs appear from all angles. Gas & electricity bills can get expensive, with businesses typically using far more than households. As such, it’s important to keep on top of your tariffs, and to make sure that you’re never paying over the odds for the gas or electricity supply at your place of work, whatever that may be.
Our business energy comparison service is suitable for all kinds of business, from SMEs to larger companies. Whether you run a shop or a restaurant, or work from an office, it’s always a good idea to compare business gas and electricity prices to make sure that you’re always benefitting from the best deals around.
These days, businesses are often on the look our for ways to reduce their negative environmental impact. If you’re concerned with your businesses carbon footprint, you’re in the right place – we can get you switched to a green energy supplier right away.
We show you tariffs from every supplier on the market offering business energy deals. You won’t be able to get dual fuel tariffs for businesses, so if you use both gas and electricity, you’ll have to compare them separately. This will let you ensure you’re getting the absolute most for your money.
Business contracts differ to ordinary domestic tariffs, largely due to the differing needs of a business compared to a home. We’ll quickly cover the unique features of commercial energy tariffs and switching so that you know what to look out for and what to expect.
Switching between energy tariffs on the domestic market is easy. You type in your details onto a comparison website, like Simply Switch, and you’ll be presented immediately with a list of reliable suppliers along with quotes. But this isn’t how it works in the business energy market. Because the needs of businesses differ dramatically from business to business, it’s not usually possible to provide them with energy quotes on the spot like it is for domestic households. Unlike households which have roughly equivalent energy needs, the needs of companies differ significantly. As a result, business customers need to approach energy suppliers individually to get bespoke energy quotes.
In the domestic energy market, many suppliers bundle gas and electric into a single contract. But as a business customer, you have to secure gas and electric contracts separately, since suppliers don’t package them up together. Business customers, therefore, aren’t shopping around for the best “energy” deal per se. Rather, they’re looking for the best deals on gas and electricity under separate contracts. Buying the two separately can be more of a hassle than getting them together, but it also means you’ll be able to get better deals overall.
Domestic customers are all a relatively similar bunch: the energy requirements of households don’t differ by a lot. But for businesses, it’s a different story. Because the needs of companies differ dramatically depending on their industry, each energy quote is bespoke. Suppliers assess their business customers individually, using energy usage data from other similar businesses to estimate their energy requirements before offering a price. What’s more, once you’ve signed up to a contract, you’ll need to stick with it – businesses can have trouble switching more than 6 months before the end of the contract’s stated term.
Eventually, business energy contracts come to an end. If you haven’t signed a new contract or renewed your old contract, most suppliers will put you on called “deemed rates.” Deemed rates are temporary rates the supplier charges for the provision of energy, but they’re usually a lot more expensive than regular, in-contract prices. Businesses, therefore, should work hard to avoid deemed rates whenever possible.
The good news is that you can opt out of deemed rates by giving your energy supplier 30 days notice. But to avoid higher tariffs the best strategy is to plan your contracts in advance, making sure that you immediately move from one to another without paying inflated prices in the interim
It’s worth noting that not all suppliers will provide you with energy quotes. The likelihood that your business will get a quote depends on two factors.
If your credit rating is low, suppliers may worry that they won’t get paid and might not offer you a contract. Additionally, if your usage is very high or very low, some suppliers may not be able to meet your requirements and may decide not to offer you a quote.
When you’re offered bespoke quotes for gas and electricity, it can be difficult to work out whether you’re getting a good deal or not. Prices might seem high (or low), but without knowing how much energy you’ll actually use, you won’t know whether the quote you receive is competitive.
Because each individual business is unique, it’s hard to put a figure on what’s a good price to pay. However, experts recommend that small and medium-sized businesses should pay between 10.5 and 12.5 pence per unit.
Your actual bill may fall outside that range because of the fact that you need to cover the fixed costs of the energy supplier, including the cost of maintaining the power network and the cost of transporting energy to your location. These costs are known as “standing charges” and vary from supplier to supplier, depending on their overhead. Your final tariff, therefore, will depend on a broad range of factors.
Remember, the cheapest tariff may seem like the most enticing, but it might not be the best for your business if the supplier cannot cater for your specific needs. The risk with cheap providers is that they will provide a substandard service. Though you may save a small amount of money in the short term, interruptions to your energy supply could mean that you lose a lot more money in the long-term. Always read the terms and conditions of business energy contracts carefully to make sure that your company isn’t at risk of unexpected downtime.
While a copy of a recent energy bill is enough to get started with comparing business energy prices it’s a good idea to have a rough track of your spending over a longer period of time if you have access to older bills.
On the face of it, business energy is often cheaper than domestic energy. The price per unit of electricity, for example, will likely be lower for a large retail outlet than a detached home in the same area. This is because the business will be contracted based on forecasts of much higher energy consumption. A contract will have been negotiated between the business and the supplier based on this forecast, as opposed to the homeowners deal which would be subject to the standard pricing for the region.
Business energy customers can incur other fees such as levies and a higher rate of VAT which mean the savings aren’t always as significant as the basic pricing suggests, but for the most part business energy is cheaper.
While potential savings are dependent on current contracts and circumstances, in general the fluctuation of energy prices means that better deals come along quite regularly for business energy customers.
If you’re looking to cut costs on your energy, a price comparison is a quick and simple way to determine if you should make a switch and what kind of savings you could expect to make if you did.
Many businesses in the UK are signed up with one of the big six energy providers.
However, when you’re looking for a business energy supplier it’s important to remember that the search doesn’t end at the big six! There are loads of energy solutions for UK businesses in 2020, including some small, independent suppliers, as well as a wide range of renewable alternative suppliers.
We’ve developed our business energy price comparison tool to make it quick and straightforward to work out which energy supplier is right for your business.
There are a growing number of small energy suppliers who are offering energy tariffs made up entirely or in part by renewable energy sources.
As public consciousness about environmental issues grows, these companies are becoming more popular within the business energy market. Some of the larger green energy suppliers in the UK are Bulb, Dong, Ecotricity and Good Energy, among others.
Buying your energy from one of these suppliers is likely to exempt your business from paying the Climate Change Levy.
There are many ways to increase energy efficiency in the workplace. Lighting and heating commonly make up a large chunk of a businesses energy usage, so keeping their use to a comfortable minimum is a good start.
Many businesses are also exploring the benefits of allowing staff to work remotely. Most businesses have a number of staff who it is essential to have on site, but if the technological infrastructure exists for staff to work out of office, the energy they would have been using is offloaded.
Energy efficiency is also a key consideration. Using efficient appliances and making sure insulation and draught-proofing are in place will reduce costs over time.
Switching gas and electricity suppliers for businesses is a slightly lengthier process than for a domestic customer. On average switching takes from 4 to 6 weeks – so long as all payments to previous suppliers are up to date, and meter readings are supplied on time.
If the process is taking place at the end of a contract, it should be fairly painless. However if you’re switching in the middle of a contract there are likely to be exit fees, so it’s worth using our price comparison tool to work out if the potential savings outweigh the cost of leaving your contract.
