Ecotricity vs Octopus

Are you considering a choice between Ecotricity or Octopus Energy as your new energy supplier? If so you'll want to know which one is best not only on price but also on the level of customer service they offer and how green their energy is.

Both are great energy companies for different reasons and you are going to have to make a decision based on what factors are most important to you. I've personally been a customer of Ecotricity and am currently an Octopus Energy customer. When reviewing energy suppliers it helps to see their service from a real customers perspective.

If you had to make a quick choice then Ecotricity does the most to generate and support renewable energy and Green gas but is more expensive. Your gas and electricity will be cheaper with Octopus and they offer a more innovative range of tariffs but their tariffs are not as green as Ecotricity.

Which is Cheaper, Octopus Energy or Ecotricity?

Neither Octopus or Ecotricity would be considered a cheap supplier. In terms of a comparison on price across all of the available tariffs Octopus comes out at about £9 a month more expensive than the overall cheapest energy across all suppliers.

Ecotricity is about £44 a month more expensive than the currently cheapest available gas and electricity deal. Although that's quite expensive if you are only considering price but we are not. You have to take into consideration other factors such as customer service, ethics and green energy.

Lowest Price	£117/month	£81.39/month
100% Green Cost	£117/month	£88.73/month
Range of tariffs	2 Tariffs	6 Tariffs
Electricity	100% Renewable	100% Renewable
Gas	100% offset (5% green gas)	100% offset
Trustpilot rating	3.6/5	4.8/5
Exit fees	None	None

You should always compare to get the best deal to make sure you are getting a fair deal on your gas and electricity.

So a direct price comparison between Ecotricity and Octopus we can see that Octopus Energy offers the lowest overall price at £81.39 a month for the average UK household. Ecotricty has their cheapest deal, which also happens to be their greenest offering at around £117 a month for the average household.

A fairer comparison between the two green suppliers is to compare the supergreen Octopus tariff which includes 100% renewable electricity and 100% carbon offset gas which costs the average home £88.73 a month.

Even with the similar tariffs Octopus Energy is still about £28 a month cheaper than Ecotricity or to put it another way, Ecotricity is about 31% more expensive.

Price isn't everything but if you are looking for the cheapest deal from the two green energy suppliers then Octopus is by far the cheapest.

Octopus Energy has the lowest price, highest level of customer feedback, the least complaints and almost as green energy offering.

Octopus vs Ecotricity for Green Energy

If green energy is the most important factor for you then here is the difference between both suppliers when it comes to renewable energy, green gas and carbon offsetting.

The terminology can be confusing as suppliers use different green phrases to describe the gas and electricity that they supply to their customers. As some of the terms are used interchangeably and have different meanings depending on which supplier you are looking at it can be difficult to compare.

Overall both suppliers have a genuine interest in greening our gas and electricity supply and both are investing in green technology.

Both suppliers offer 100% renewable electricity. Octopus supports UK small scale renewable generators and their sister company Octopus Renewables generates on a large scale. Octopus describes itself as Deep Green as does Ecotricity although Dale Vince will probably argue they are a Deeper Green than Octopus.

Ecotricity generates about 20% of all their electricity themselves and not just rely on the REGO certification system. They have been installing their own wind turbines and solar panels since 1995 and so are committed to increasing renewable capacity in the UK.

Ecotricity has been talking about their Green Gas mills since I was a customer back in 2011 and now in 2021 they have started construction of their anaerobic digestor to produce biomethane in Reading. Biomethane is usually produced from energy crops or food waste, Ecotricity is unique in that it will be using grass as the fuel as it grows year round.

Current Ecotricity supplies 5% green gas in its mix and carbon offsets all of the gas supplied to customers.

Octopus Energy with their comparable Super Green Octopus tariff also carbon offsets 100% of the gas supplied to customers.

Both suppliers are actively supporting and contributing to the development of green energy in the UK. Ecotricity is investing in their own renewable and green gas generation. Octopus invests heavily in renewable energy and offers a number of innovative tariffs such as Agile Octopus where you get cheaper energy to encourage you to use electricity in times of low demand.

The Octopus Energy Fan Club offers cheaper wind generated energy when it is windy to homes close to their wind turbines.

In terms of their overall contribution to supporting greener energy both Octopus and Ecotricity are great companies.Ecotricity has been around the longest and supported renewable energy before most people knew what it was and are adding additional ethical green gas into the gas network.

Octopus are offering cutting edge tariffs to encourage smart use of cheaper rate green energy to help balance tenergy demands on the grid. They support local green generators and their sister company invests heavily in renewables.

One supplier isn't greener than the other (Dale Vince is probably chocking on his herbal tea right now) and both offer you truly green energy options.

Ecotricity has a lower level of customer feedback, more complaints but slightly a better green energy offering.

Octopus or Ecotricity for Customer Service

Which supplier is better when it comes to customer service and ratings? Trustpilot reviews are a good way to measure customer feedback between energy suppliers and are one of the metrics used to compare utilities.

Octopus Energy has a rating of 4.8 out of 5 over 49,260 reviews and a 3% bad feedback rating. A rating of 4.8 for an energy company is very good as it places Octopus in the top 5 UK suppliers. A bad feedback rating on 3% is low, the lower the percentage of bad feedback the better. Very few large companies have percentages this low which indicates that there are fewer very unhappy customers.

Ecotricity has a lower 3.6 out of 5 rating over 2,146 reviews and a worryingly high 32% bad feedback rating. An overall 3.6 score is quite low although this has improved slightly since I did the energy reviews covering all UK suppliers.

The percentage of bad feedback stands at 32% (down from 35%) earlier in the year. It is a concerningly high level, not the highest in the industry but as high as many of the old Big Six such as British Gas, Scottish Power and E.on.

Ecotricity does seem to have been having some customer service issues which they do seem to be slowly trying to resolve. I can say the customer service was second to none back in 2011.

Based on the current Trustpilot ratings and reviews Octopus clearly has a much better level of customer support and far fewer issues.

Octopus vs Ecotricity for Ofgem Complaints

Ofgem publishes official customer complaints so you can compare the number of complaints a company receives and how quickly those complaints are resolved. It's a useful metric alongside customer reviews.

Octopus currently (Q4 2020) the lowest number of complaints per 100,000 customers out of all the large UK energy suppliers. The last quarter of 2020 shows that Octopus received 507 complaints per 100,000 customers. The other large UK suppliers saw complaint figures ranging from 1,039 to 2,550 per 100,000 customers showing that Octopus receive between half as many to 5 times fewer complaints than other similar size energy companies.

Ecotricity is classed as a small supplier and so complaints are recorded per 10,000 customers. The most recent Q4 figures for 2020 show that Ecotricity received 91 complaints per 10,000 customers, equivalent of 910 complaints per 100,000 customers.

It shows that Ecotricity receives almost twice as many complaints per 100,000 customers than Octopus. In context with other small UK gas and electricity suppliers the lowest number of complaints per 10,000 was Green Energy UK with 4 complaints and the highest was Orbit Energy with 275.

When it comes to resolving complaints Octopus recorded 59% resolution of customer complaints by the end of the next working day compared to 18% resolved by Ecotricity. By the 8 week mark Octopus had managed to resolve 92% of complaints whilst Ecotricity did slightly better with 95%.

So Octopus has fewer recorded complaints and does resolve any complaints faster than Ecotricity over the short term. At the 8 week mark the percentage of customer issues resolved is roughly similar.

Based on the number of official complaints Octopus does perform better. Overall it indicates you are less likely to encounter issues or have problems with Octopus Energy.

Which supplier is better, Ecotricity or Octopus?

Taking into account the cost of gas and electricity, how green that energy is and the level of customer service it is Octopus Energy that wins out.

It would be hard to justify paying Ecotricity's £118 a month compared to Octopus's £89 a month for a very similar product.

If you want to know how Octopus compares against one of the large suppliers take a look at our SSE vs Octopus comparison.

If you do want the greenest energy currently available in the UK then for a slightly higher £123 (£5 more than Ecotricity) a month the EKO Energy tariff from Green Energy UK offers 100% renewable electricity and 100% green bio gas. They also have a higher 4.5 Trustpilot rating and the least amount of official Ofgem complaints.