What does Martin Lewis say about Octopus Energy?

Affiliate disclosure: this post contains an Octopus Energy referral link. If you use it, both of us get £50 bill credit — the same £50 any Octopus referral earns, just attributed to me. It doesn't change the price you pay or the tariff you can pick.

Martin Lewis and MoneySavingExpert (MSE) have covered Octopus Energy across their energy switching guides, customer-service tables, and Cheap Energy Club analyses for years. Here's a summary of what MSE actually says — and where they think Octopus fits in the post-price-cap UK supplier market.

MSE's overall position on Octopus

MoneySavingExpert's cheap gas and electricity guide treats Octopus as a serious contender across both fixed and smart-tariff comparisons. Their Cheap Energy Club switching tool — MSE's free supplier comparison service — has surfaced Octopus among the cheapest available Fixed deals on multiple price-cap quarters since 2023.

The headline MSE message: the post-2022 UK energy market doesn't have a single "cheapest" supplier any more. Ofgem's price cap regulates all standard variable tariffs to the same maximum, so the differences between suppliers come down to Fixed-deal pricing, smart-tariff structures, and customer service quality. Octopus competes well on all three.

Martin Lewis himself has named Octopus on TV and radio multiple times as one of the best-performing UK suppliers on service — without ever issuing a formal "best buy" endorsement of a single supplier, which MSE deliberately avoids in regulated markets where the rankings shift quarterly.

Where MSE rates Octopus highly

Customer service. MSE runs a best and worst energy suppliers poll drawing on user-submitted satisfaction data. Octopus has consistently sat near the top of those tables since the Bulb-era survey shake-out in 2022. The dimensions MSE measures — billing accuracy, complaint resolution, ease of contact, switching experience — are the same ones Which? uses when awarding the Recommended Provider badge that Octopus has now held for nine consecutive years.

Tracker tariff. Octopus Tracker is one of the smart tariffs MSE has covered in detail through Cheap Energy Club analysis and dedicated explainer articles. Their position is broadly: Tracker beats the Ofgem price cap on average for most of the year, but cold-snap days can spike the daily rate sharply. MSE recommends households consider Tracker only if they're comfortable with bill variability and understand the daily-rate mechanic. (We have a full Octopus tariff guide covering all of Octopus's variable and smart tariffs in detail.)

Octopus Go and Intelligent Octopus Go. MSE's EV tariff coverage routinely highlights both Go variants as among the strongest UK EV deals. The April 2026 off-peak rate cuts — up to 39% across regions — have made Octopus Go competitive even against suppliers that previously undercut it on overnight unit rates.

Fixed deals. During quarters when Octopus's Fixed tariff has come in below the next forecast Ofgem price cap, MSE's Cheap Energy Club has flagged it as a switching candidate. The pattern has held across the April–June 2026 cap (£1,641 typical dual-fuel direct debit) and ahead of the forecast Q3 2026 cap, where Octopus Fixed locked in below the £1,937–1,972 industry consensus.

Where MSE caveats Octopus

MSE doesn't list major Octopus downsides, but the caveats they apply across the energy market apply to Octopus too:

• Smart tariffs aren't universally cheaper. MSE consistently warns that Tracker, Agile and Go only beat the cap if your household can either tolerate variability (Tracker) or shift load to off-peak windows (Agile, Go). For a household with no EV, no heat pump, no solar, and a flat usage curve, MSE's general advice is that Fixed or Flexible usually wins on the maths.
• No supplier is risk-free. MSE's broader supplier-failure coverage from the 2021–22 cull (Bulb, Avro, Green, Utility Point and dozens more) emphasises that scale and balance-sheet matter. Octopus — now serving 7.7 million UK households (Octopus figures, December 2025) and overtaken British Gas around the turn of 2024–2025 — passes that scale test cleanly. But MSE's general principle holds: no UK supplier can be assumed bulletproof indefinitely.
• Don't assume the cheapest deal is always best. MSE repeatedly emphasises factoring in service quality and tariff structure, not just headline pence per kWh. This is the framing that consistently pushes Octopus into MSE's "consider" pile even when a lesser-known supplier nominally undercuts it on unit rate.

How MSE compares Octopus to the rest of the market

MSE doesn't single out a winner across UK suppliers, but their coverage tends to position Octopus in roughly this competitive context:

• vs British Gas, EDF, Scottish Power, OVO — Octopus is positioned as the better-served, smarter-tariff alternative. Service polling consistently favours Octopus; the smart-tariff range is broader. Big-six pricing competes only when their own Fixed deals undercut the cap by enough to overcome the service differential.
• vs E.ON Next — MSE treats E.ON Next as a credible challenger to Octopus, particularly on simpler dual-fuel Fixed deals and on customer service (E.ON Next has scored well in the Which? 2026 energy survey). We've covered the head-to-head separately in Octopus vs E.ON Next referral.
• vs smaller suppliers (So Energy, Outfox the Market, Utility Warehouse) — MSE's Cheap Energy Club regularly surfaces these as cheaper-on-paper for specific tariffs, but the size and service caveats apply.

Has Martin Lewis personally switched to Octopus?

Lewis is rigorous about not naming his own bank or supplier on the air, for the same independence reason he doesn't take advertising on MSE's editorial content. So there's no public confirmation either way.

What's on the record: Lewis has repeatedly described Octopus as one of the best-performing UK suppliers on service in his ITV "Martin Lewis Money Show" segments and on his BBC podcast. He's also flagged Octopus Tracker as a tariff worth considering for engaged switchers, with the standard caveats about variability.

If you're looking for a personal Octopus customer perspective rather than an MSE summary, our Octopus Energy review: 6 years as a customer goes into the actual lived experience — including pricing across the 2022 crisis, customer-service interactions, and the tariffs I have and haven't used.

Should you trust the MSE view on Octopus?

MoneySavingExpert is the UK's largest consumer finance site, founded by Martin Lewis in 2003, and operates independently from the suppliers it covers. Their methodology — user polling for satisfaction, Cheap Energy Club switching analysis for pricing, dated coverage updated each price-cap quarter — is the most rigorous consumer-facing energy comparison tool in the UK.

If MSE rates Octopus highly on service and includes its tariffs in their switching analyses, that's a credible signal. Like all MSE coverage, it's framed as "consider this" rather than "do this" — your specific situation (smart meter availability, EV ownership, heat pump, fixed-vs-variable preference, household usage shape) decides the answer.

What MSE won't tell you is whether Octopus's referral bonus is worth claiming. That part's straightforward: if you're going to switch to Octopus anyway, using a referral link adds £50 bill credit at zero cost to you, payable after your first direct debit clears. MSE doesn't promote individual referral links, but they'd agree there's no reason not to use one.

You might also like

• Octopus Energy review: 6 years as a customer
• Which Octopus Energy tariff is right for you?
• Octopus Energy vs E.ON Next referral: which gives you more?

Sources

• MSE cheap gas and electricity guide: https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/utilities/cheap-gas-electricity/
• MSE best and worst energy suppliers: https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/utilities/best-and-worst-energy-suppliers/
• MSE Cheap Energy Club: https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/utilities/cheap-energy-club/
• Ofgem energy price cap (1 April – 30 June 2026): https://www.ofgem.gov.uk/information-consumers/energy-advice-households/energy-price-cap-explained
• Which? 2026 energy survey: https://www.which.co.uk/reviews/energy-companies/article/energy-companies/which-energy-survey-results-ajqM43e6ycY8
• Octopus Energy customer numbers (December 2025): https://octopus.energy/press/largest-electricity-supplier-market-share/