Octopus Energy vs E.ON Next: which is cheaper, and which pays more?

Octopus Energy and E.ON Next both price their standard variable tariff off the same Ofgem price cap, and both pay £50 for a referral. On the 1 July to 30 September 2026 cap, the price difference between them is £12.38 a year for a typical dual-fuel household in my region. The referral is worth four years of it, which is why the price is not the thing to decide on.

Is Octopus Energy cheaper than E.ON Next?

Yes, by about a pound a month, and the whole of it comes from one line on the bill.

E.ON Next publishes its Next Flex rates (Next Flex is its standard variable tariff) as a regional price sheet, currently "Single rate prices 01/07/26". I checked all 14 regions on that sheet against Ofgem's published cap levels for the period on 14 August 2026: every unit rate and every standing charge lands on the cap, none of them more than 0.0013p away from it. E.ON Next Flex is the price cap, region by region, with nothing shaved off it.

Octopus prices Flexible Octopus at the cap on unit rates too, and below it on the standing charge, the fixed daily fee you pay before using a single unit of energy. Here is my own region, on Direct Debit single-rate terms, including VAT:

Of the £12.38, £12.00 is the electricity standing charge and 50p is the gas one. Octopus's unit rates are a fraction of a penny higher, which hands 11p a year back to E.ON. Run the same arithmetic across all 14 regions and the answer barely moves: £12.37 in the West Midlands, £12.53 in Merseyside and North Wales, and every other region in between. E.ON's own sheet prices that Southern England household at £1,660.71 a year, a penny off what its published rates work out to, so both columns reconcile against the supplier's own maths.

Two limits on that number. It compares standard variable tariffs only: a fixed deal from either supplier, or Octopus Tracker and Agile, can beat both columns, and Octopus is the one with the wider set of ways to do it. And cap rates reset every quarter, with the October 2026 levels due around 27 August, so the £12.38 is a snapshot of this quarter rather than a permanent gap. To price it against your own usage and region rather than Ofgem's typical household, use the Octopus Energy savings calculator, which refetches the Octopus rates daily.

What running both suppliers at once actually showed

I had Octopus electricity and E.ON Next gas side by side from 2021 to September 2025, so this comparison is four years of two real accounts rather than two websites read back to back. E.ON Next arrived by accident when Bulb collapsed in late 2021 and I stayed with it for gas. My Octopus relationship runs unbroken from September 2019; the gas is still there today, and my electricity moved to EDF in July 2026 when the Octopus fixed tariff on that fuel expired.

Two things that period settled, and neither is visible from the outside:

• The tariff mattered more than the supplier. My E.ON gas sat on Next Flex the whole four years and tracked the cap every quarter, while my Octopus electricity was on Fixed for most of them. The gap between the two suppliers is the pound a month above; the gap from locking Fixed in September 2021, weeks before wholesale prices exploded, was several hundred pounds.
• E.ON Next kept paying me as a referrer after my account closed. It paid two referrer-side rewards in July 2026, ten months after I left. It is the only scheme on this site proven to do that, and most schemes quietly stop.

Which pays more for a referral, Octopus or E.ON Next?

The headline value is the same £50 to both parties, but the schemes are not identical. Octopus pays it as bill credit, knocked straight off your energy account. E.ON Next pays a £50 retail voucher, which its own page describes as spendable with over 100 retailers, arriving about four weeks after your first direct debit. Its scheme terms reserve the right to pay account credit instead and let E.ON pick which; every reward I have been sent has been a voucher.

Octopus has no referral cap. E.ON Next has two, and they disagree: the scheme terms cap you at £1,500 of rewards in any 12 months, but the 25-a-year limit tops a year of £50 vouchers out at £1,250, which is the figure E.ON's own FAQ quotes. Take £1,250 as the real ceiling.

Customer satisfaction

This is where the gap opens up:

Octopus Energy holds one of the highest Trustpilot ratings among UK energy suppliers at 4.8 (joint with EDF), and has been a Which? Recommended Provider for nine consecutive years. E.ON Next is well above average at 4.5, but doesn't match Octopus for customer satisfaction.

Tariff innovation

Octopus Energy stands out here with several unique tariff options:

• Octopus Tracker: your rate follows the wholesale energy price daily
• Octopus Go: cheap overnight electricity for EV charging, five hours from 00:30 to 05:30
• Octopus Agile: prices change every 30 minutes based on demand
• Octopus Outgoing: pays you for excess solar energy exported to the grid

E.ON Next takes a simpler approach, but not an empty one:

• Standard variable tariff (subject to the price cap)
• Fixed-rate tariffs when available
• Next Drive: 9p/kWh between midnight and 6am, on a smart meter sending half-hourly readings
• Next Drive Smart: 8p/kWh off-peak, with E.ON controlling the charge on a compatible EV and charger

The gap is narrower than "Octopus has smart tariffs and E.ON Next doesn't". E.ON Next has EV tariffs; what it doesn't have is a dynamic one, where the price moves with the wholesale market rather than sitting fixed in a window. If you have solar panels or a home battery, Tracker, Agile and Flux have no E.ON Next equivalent. If you only want cheap overnight charging for an EV, both suppliers sell you that.

Renewable energy

Only one of these suppliers sells its whole book as green. Octopus publishes a 100% zero-carbon mix that is 86.4% renewables and 13.6% nuclear, bought through power purchase agreements with more than 700 UK generators. E.ON Next's fuel mix disclosure (opens in new tab) for 1 April 2024 to 31 March 2025 reports 31.3% renewable and 51.5% natural gas at 331g CO2/kWh, against a UK average of 42.1% and 205g. Its 100% renewable figure belongs to two opt-in tariffs, Next Gust and the heat pump tariff Next Pumped, not to the supply.

"Zero-carbon" and "100% renewable" are still not the same claim, so this is not a like-for-like win. But it is the clearest gap between the two: with Octopus, green is what you get; with E.ON Next, it is a tariff you switch onto and pay a £50 per fuel exit fee to leave.

Octopus also invests heavily in renewable energy generation through its Octopus Energy Generation arm, which owns and operates wind farms, solar farms, and other green infrastructure.

Company size and stability

Two of those cells are blank because E.ON Next publishes neither number: its about page carries no customer figure and no country count, so any figure quoted for it elsewhere is somebody's estimate. Octopus's 6.8 million is its own last published count, from the April 2024 press release announcing it had passed British Gas; its about page separately claims over 10 million homes "in Britain and abroad", which counts a different thing.

Both are large, stable companies. E.ON Next has the backing of one of Europe's biggest utilities. Octopus Energy Group has expanded rapidly and now operates the technology platform used by multiple energy suppliers worldwide.

The switching process

Both suppliers make switching easy:

1. Sign up using the referral link
2. Your new supplier contacts your old one
3. The switch completes in 2-3 weeks
4. Your energy supply is never interrupted
5. You receive your £50 reward after your first direct debit: bill credit with Octopus, a retail voucher with E.ON Next

You do not need to contact your old supplier.

Which should you switch to, Octopus or E.ON Next?

Switch to Octopus Energy unless the voucher is what you want. It costs £12.38 a year less on the standard tariff, scores higher on Trustpilot and in the Which? survey, and owns the dynamic tariffs (Tracker, Agile, Flux) that E.ON Next has no answer to, which is the difference that grows into real money if you run an EV, solar panels or a heat pump. The full scheme, with the live link and current terms, is on the Octopus Energy referral code page.

Pick E.ON Next if you would rather have £50 you can spend anywhere than £50 locked to an energy account, or if you want a large, simple supplier with the E.ON group behind it. Its £12 price disadvantage is one takeaway a year, Next Drive covers overnight EV charging at 9p/kWh, and it is the one scheme here that has been seen to keep paying a referrer whose account has closed. The full scheme is on the E.ON Next referral page.

You might also like

• Octopus Energy savings calculator: your rates vs the price cap
• Octopus Energy review: 6 years as a customer
• Is E.ON Next worth it? A review after 4 years
• EV charger installation: guide to home EV charging in the UK
• UK energy refer-a-friend league table: who actually pays what

Sources

• E.ON Next variable tariff prices (opens in new tab): the Next Flex unit rates and standing charges in the table above, from its "Single rate prices 01/07/26" sheet, and the £1,660.71 annual figure E.ON puts on a typical Southern England dual-fuel household
• Ofgem price cap levels, 1 July to 30 September 2026 (opens in new tab): the regional cap rates E.ON's sheet was checked against, and the typical consumption both annual figures are priced on
• Octopus Energy public API (opens in new tab): the Flexible Octopus Direct Debit rates, read for product VAR-22-11-01 on 14 August 2026
• Octopus refer-a-friend (opens in new tab): Octopus's reward for each side, that it arrives as bill credit once the first direct debit has been taken, and that there is no cap on referrals
• E.ON Next refer-a-friend (opens in new tab) and its scheme terms (opens in new tab): E.ON Next's voucher for each side, that clause 3.6 lets E.ON pay account credit instead, how long after the first direct debit it arrives, and the daily, annual and total limits on it
• Which? energy survey results (opens in new tab): Octopus's run as a Recommended Provider, and where E.ON Next placed among the large suppliers
• Octopus Energy on Trustpilot (opens in new tab) and E.ON Next on Trustpilot (opens in new tab): the two Trustpilot scores
• Octopus smart tariffs (opens in new tab) and Octopus Go (opens in new tab): what Tracker, Go, Agile and Outgoing each do, and the length and hours of Go's overnight window
• E.ON Next Drive (opens in new tab): the two E.ON Next EV tariffs, their overnight rates and hours, the meter each needs, and what the Smart variant controls
• Octopus: what green energy means here (opens in new tab): the fuel mix behind the zero-carbon claim, how Octopus buys the renewable half, and the generation it owns
• Octopus Energy press: largest electricity supplier by market share (opens in new tab) and Octopus about us (opens in new tab): the UK household count and the date it was published, and the countries and continents Octopus operates in
• Citizens Advice: switch energy supplier or tariff (opens in new tab): the switching timetable, and that your new supplier contacts your old one for you

Get your Octopus Energy £50 referral here (opens in new tab) | Get your E.ON Next £50 referral here (opens in new tab)