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 October to 31 December 2026 cap, the price difference between them is £8.93 a year for a typical dual-fuel household in my region. The referral is worth more than five 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 74p a month, and the whole of it comes from two lines 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 01/10/26". I checked all 14 regions on that sheet against Ofgem's published cap levels for the period on 8 October 2026: every unit rate and every standing charge lands on the cap, none of them more than 0.0014p 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 £8.93, £5.50 is the electricity standing charge and £3.50 is the gas one. Octopus's unit rates are a fraction of a penny higher, which hands 6p a year back to E.ON. Run the same arithmetic across all 14 regions and Octopus is cheaper in every one: £4.78 a year in Merseyside and North Wales, £9.04 in London, and every other region in between. The gas standing charge saves about £3.50 everywhere; the electricity one is what moves. Ofgem's own benchmark prices that Southern England household at £1,718.52 a year with VAT, within 8p of the E.ON column, so that column reconciles against the regulator's 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 January 2027 levels due by 25 November, so the £8.93 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 74p 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 once your first direct debit has cleared, which E.ON says is usually within four weeks of starting the switch. 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 sells the wider range:

• 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: 8.5p/kWh between midnight and 6am, on a smart meter sending half-hourly readings
• Next Drive Smart: 6.5p/kWh off-peak, with E.ON controlling the charge on a compatible EV and charger
• Next Optimise (opens in new tab): import and export rates that follow the wholesale price every half hour, with E.ON's app running a compatible battery. It needs solar panels, a battery, a smart meter recording import and export, and no payments from the old Feed-in Tariff scheme; 12-month term, no exit fee, in public beta as of October 2026

The gap is narrower than "Octopus has smart tariffs and E.ON Next doesn't". Both sell EV tariffs, and both sell a dynamic tariff, where the price moves with the wholesale market rather than sitting fixed in a window. The difference is who can join one: Agile and Tracker need only a smart meter, while Next Optimise needs solar panels and a battery. 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's latest disclosure, for April 2024 to March 2025, is a 100% zero-carbon mix of 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 2025 to 31 March 2026 reports 27.3% renewable and 53.2% natural gas at 322g CO2/kWh, against a UK average of 48% and 179g. Its 100% renewable figure belongs to one opt-in tariff, Next Pumped, for homes with a heat pump or electric boiler, 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 comes only with a heat pump tariff.

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 £8.93 a year less on the standard tariff, scores higher on Trustpilot and in the Which? survey, and its dynamic tariffs, Agile and Tracker, need only a smart meter, where E.ON Next's one dynamic tariff needs solar panels and a battery. 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 £9 price disadvantage is one takeaway a year, Next Drive covers overnight EV charging at 8.5p/kWh, and a home with solar panels and a battery can join Next Optimise, its half-hourly wholesale tariff. E.ON Next is also 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 01/10/26" sheet
• Ofgem price cap levels, 1 October to 31 December 2026 (opens in new tab): the regional cap rates E.ON's sheet was checked against, the Southern England benchmark the £1,718.52 is built from, and the typical consumption both annual figures are priced on
• Ofgem: changes to the price cap, 1 October to 31 December 2026 (opens in new tab): the date the January 2027 levels are due
• Octopus Energy public API (opens in new tab): the Flexible Octopus Direct Debit rates, read for product VAR-22-11-01 on 8 October 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
• E.ON Next Optimise (opens in new tab) and its tariff terms, on E.ON Next's terms and conditions page (opens in new tab): the half-hourly wholesale import and export rates, the solar panel, battery, meter and Feed-in Tariff conditions, the 12-month term with no exit fee, and the public beta
• E.ON Next fuel mix (opens in new tab) and E.ON Next tariffs (opens in new tab): the 2025/26 mix and UK average, and Next Pumped as the one tariff sold as 100% renewable
• 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

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