BillBuddy Review
Portsmouth based BillBuddy is an energy comparison site set up in 2018 that also compares other bills for you to find you a cheaper deal. It's main benefit is that it compares many typical types of bills on one site rather than having to create multiple accounts, hence the name 'Bill Buddy'.
Whilst BillBuddy does compare energy and notifies you when a better deal comes onto the market it does not automatically switch you to the new supplier. They'll contact you and you then decide if you want to make the switch.
It's a free service and does not compare the whole of the market, the only auto switching services that do this are paid services. It does mean that you are unlikely to ever get the bottom of the market cheapest energy switching recommendations but if you are looking at using a site like BillBuddy you may just be looking for a service that will lower your bills.
Thomas and Nicholas Jackson are the brothers behind the site with backing from Just Develop It Ltd whom Nick used to work for as group marketing manager.
BillBuddy is a free service that lets you know when there's a cheaper energy deal switch you could to save money on. It doesn't compare the whole of the market like paid switching services but BillBuddy does have a higher customer feedback rating compared to their competitors.
The benefits that BillBuddy has over some of their competitors is that they have a good level of positive customer feedback with a Trustpilot rating of 4.8/5 and a low 3% bad feedback rating.
How much does BillBuddy cost? The service is free and the company makes money by switching you to an energy supplier that they have a financial relationship with.
Additionally they can also compare broadband, mobile and other household bills which may be of benefit to you as their competitors only focus on energy switching. However we are only covering the gas and electricity comparison service they provide here.
Our Review of Billbuddy
At Safe Energy Switch we compare energy comparison services and compare them against their competitors. The BillBuddy service allows you to compare your current energy provider against other deals on the market.
It's important to point out that they do not search the prices of all the UK utility companies, only those they have a financial relationship with, that's how they make their money to be able to provide a free service. You will find that this is normal for comparison sites.
You can save more by comparing the whole of the market. The cheapest paid service that does this is Switchd costing £1.99 a month.
Every time we do a comparison we compare using the figures for the average UK household. It means that all our comparisons are like for like which enables us to show you who really is giving you the best deal.
Billbuddy offered a switch to the Utility Point tariff 'Just Up 21 Wk01 v3' costing about £80 a month for a dual fuel energy user.
Compare that to a whole of the market comparison with Switchd and you get another Utility Point tariff but this time a 12 month fixed deal for £74 a month, £6 a month cheaper.
You have to take into account that Switchd is a paid service whilst BillBuddy is free so the total cost of switching to BillBuddy's deal would be just the cost of the gas and electric at £80 a month. For the Switchd deal it's £74 a month plus the monthly Switchd fee of £2ish so the total cost would be £76 a month.
So if savings is your main concern then it is worth using a paid service like Switchd where you would save an additional £4 a month.
Is BillBuddy genuine and should I use them?
The main benefit of using BillBuddy is that it's free, it has a history of reputable feedback higher than similar services. They also allow you to compare other home utilities such as mobile, broadband plus home and car insurance.
The convenience and time saving offered by their free service may outweigh the potential greater savings found elsewhere. It's always a trade off between how much time you are willing to put into finding a cheaper deal compared to how much you are going to save.
In BillBuddy's case it seems an acceptable trade off for those who are unlikely to get around to checking and comparing on several different sites. If you never seem to have time to keep on top of bills then you are going to benefit from using a service that will keep checking if you can get a cheaper deal elsewhere.
Billbuddy is a genuine company and is not a scam. In terms of customer feedback it is one of the highest rated energy price comparison services. If you did sign up with them and wanted to cancel just email them at support@billbuddy.co.uk and request that they close your account so they will no longer act on your behalf to switch your energy. If you have started a switch and want to cancel the transfer you have 14 days to do so, just email the same address and ask them to do so.
BillBuddy Reviews Online
Below is a comparison of the Trustpilot ratings for auto energy switching services in the UK. It gives you an idea of how many customers they have based on the number of reviews. The overall rating gives a good indication of how well they are doing based on customer feedback generally. The bad feedback percentage gives an indication that the company has issues that could translate into a problem for you if you become a customer. Double digit bad feedback is usually a good sign something is wrong.
In September 2020 the Trustpilot rating for BillBuddy was 4.7/5 with about 600 reviews. January 2021 their ratings had increased to 4.8/5 with over a thousand reviews.
| Auto-Switcher | No. of reviews | Rating out of 5 | Bad feedback % |
| BillBuddy | 1,031 | 4.8 | 3% |
| Homebox | 49 | 4.7 | 0% |
| Migrate | 230 | 4.7 | 2% |
| Flipper | 3,711 | 4.7 | 4% |
| Look After My Bills | 20,723 | 4.6 | 8% |
| Switchd | 302 | 4.4 | 9% |
| Labrador | 40 | 3.9 | 23% |
| MSE Autoswitch | 575 | 2.1 | 19% |
| Switchcraft | 21 | 3.0 | 43% |
| Weflip | 55 | 2.1 | 56% |
BillBuddy has a high overall rating and a low amount of negative feedback which indicates people do not generally have any problems with the service.
They are also on Facebook and the reviews rate them at 4.1/5 over 42 reviews. The majority of the reviews are positive with customers claiming to be making savings based on their switch from their current energy supplier to a cheaper one.
One of the reasons that customers appear to like the service is that it is easy to use and it takes away the need for them to do the boring comparisons themselves.
Looking at third party reviews for similar services it does seem to highlight that people are generally disinterested with comparing and switching energy suppliers but are delighted with any savings they make when they do so. Services like BillBuddy do seem to fill a gap by saving money for customers who usually otherwise couldn't be bothered or motivate themselves enough to get round to sorting out the bills.
Reviews.io another big review site that allows customers to review companies they have used rates BillBuddy at 4.89/5 from 722 reviews and says that 97% of reviewers would recommend the service.
Should I use Billbuddy?
Compared to many similar services they have a way above average level of customer service. They have been going since 2018 and appear to have a lot of happy customers and having looked at how they work and what sort of deals they offer.
If you put the same details for the average UK energy user into the market leader Look After My Bills they also come back with a Utility Point tariff but at a more expensive £84 a month (Just Up 21 Wk02). In this instance BillBuddy is cheaper than LAMB. However you should do a comparison for yourself using your own actual gas and electricity usage readings to get an accurate comparison.
Try BillBuddy and enter your actual kWh gas and electricity usage from a recent bill to get an accurate comparison.