Bulb vs British Gas: Which is Cheaper?
When it comes to choosing between these two large UK energy suppliers which one is a better choice, British Gas or Bulb?
You know who British Gas is but you may not be so sure about Bulb. It makes sense to be cautious about switching to a new supplier until you can be sure they are not going to overcharge you for your gas and electricity and are going to be reliable.
If a supplier is classified as a large utility then they are going to offer some important features over many small providers. The Warm Home Discount is something only energy companies provide if they meet the minimum customer base threshold of which both Bulb Energy and British Gas do.
British Gas or Bulb for the cheapest quote
At the time of this comparison the lowest priced deal from British Gas was their standard variable tariff priced at £97.13 for the average UK household. Bulb quoted £81.12 based on the same kWh usage and region which is significantly cheaper.
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| Lowest Price | £81.12/month | £97.13/month |
| 100% Green Cost | £81.12/month | £99.26/month |
| Range of tariffs | 1 Tariff | 6 Tariffs |
| Electricity | 100% Renewable | Standard |
| Gas | 100% offset (4% green gas) | Standard |
| Trustpilot rating | 4.6/5 | 3.3/5 |
| Exit fees | None | None |
Bulb only offers one tariff called Vari-Fair and as the name suggests one of their selling points is that they aim to offer long term fair pricing. Bulb energy prices have remained very consistent, they do aim to be competitive without undermining their long term sustainability.
Whilst British Gas offers a specific green energy tariff all their other tariffs are not renewable electricity or green gas. The green tariff they had on offer (Green Future Apr 2022) was quoted at £99.26 for the average home. The tarif is fixed and has an early exit fee of £30 per fuel.
The Renewable energy tariff from British Gas includes 100% renewable electricity and carbon offset gas which includes 6% renewable green gas. Bulb Energy includes 100% renewable electricity as standard with carbon offset gas which includes 4% green gas.
Bulb costs about a fifth less and has overall better reviews but does not perform as well on official complaints.
Bulb (£81.12/month) is far cheaper than British Gas (£97.13/month) with their tariff costing about £16 less per month on a like for like comparison of the cheapest deal. Bulb already offers green energy as standard so a comparison again the greenest tariff from British Gas shows that Bulb is again cheaper by about £18 a month.
So Bulb offers the best deal on price but you also get green energy included so Bulb Energy offers the best value out of the two suppliers by quite a margin.
As prices and tariffs change the best way to make sure you are getting a good price is to compare energy rates for yourself.
Who provides better customer service, Bulb or British Gas?
Whilst some people just like to get the cheapest gas and electric they can, others want a good deal but don't mind paying a bit extra to get better customer service.
Every customers' experience is going to be different but when you look at lots of customers you get a better overview. Trustpilot is one of the review sites that gives a good indication of how an energy company is performing.
| Supplier | Rating | % Bad Rating |
| Octopus | 4.8/5 | 3% |
| Green.energy | 4.8/5 | 2% |
| So Energy | 4.7/5 | 2 |
| Bulb | 4.6/5 | 4% |
| Pure Planet | 4.6/5 | 5% |
| Green Energy UK | 4.5/5 | 5% |
| SSE | 4.3/5 | 16% |
| EDF | 4.3/5 | 18% |
| E.on | 3.9/5 | 27% |
| Scottish Power | 3.7/5 | 23% |
| Tonik energy | 3.5/5 | 21% |
| British Gas | 3.3/5 | 27% |
| nPower | 1.2/5 | 93% |
Every customers' experience is going to be different but when you look at lots of customers you get a better overview. Trustpilot is one of the review sites that gives a good indication of how an energy company is performing.
British Gas has a 3.3 out of 5 score on Trustpilot with a 27% bad feedback rating. A rating of 3.3 is quite low, especially for a big brand but more worrying is the very high percentage of bad customer reviews left about the company with more than a quarter of reviews rating as bad.
As you can see from the above table of Trustpilot ratings for a handful of other suppliers British Gas doesn't compare too well. They are not the worst supplier of the Big Six as nPower rates lower, however overall the traditional Big Six suppliers don't rate well compared to most of the newer suppliers.
British Gas does have fewer complaints but reviews are poor and they are far more expensive.
Bulb had a 4.6 out of 5 rating at the time of this comparison and a 4% bad feedback rating. The ratings are significantly better than British Gas and far fewer bad reviews from customers. As you can see from the table, overall they are rated quite highly but not quite the best rated supplier.
Based on customer reviews on Trustpilot Bulb is significantly better for customer service.
Find out who comes out best in a comparison of Bulb against a smaller supplier in our Bulb vs Pure Planet comparison.
Bulb vs British Gas: Customer Complaints?
The regulator Ofgem requires suppliers to have a complaints procedure and provide quarterly complaints data on the number official complaints the energy company receives. A the time of this comparison the latest data available is for Q4 of 2020.
British Gas Complaints
According to the quarter 4 figures for 2020 British Gas received 1,039 complaints per 100,000 customers. To put this in context this is the second lowest number of official complaints out of the large UK suppliers. Only Octopus Energy has a lower number of complaints against them at 506 per 100,000.
Ofgem also measures how quickly complaints get resolved. British Gas managed to resolve 51% of complaints by the end of the next working day and 92% of complaints within 8 weeks.
British Gas performs surprisingly well out of all the large gas and electricity companies considering the very high number of bad reviews they have historically and currently have on reputable sites like Trustpilot.
I did check to make sure they were not hiding their complaints page but it was clearly visible and quite easy to find.
Bulb Complaints
Bulb Energy is also classed as a large supplier by Ofgem but is nowhere near as large a company compared to British Gas which is still the UK's largest energy supplier.
Bulb reported 2,259 complaints per 100,000 customers which is twice as many compared to BG. They also didn't manage to resolve as many complaints by the end of the next working day with 41% resolved by Bulb compared to 51% by British Gas.
Within the 8 week resolution period thy managed to resolve 94% of customer complaints which is slightly better than British Gas at 92%.
So according to the official complaints data published by Ofgem British Gas performed better than Bulb.