OVO vs Octopus: Which is Cheaper?

Which supplier should you switch to if it's a choice between OVO Energy or Octopus Energy? Both Octopus and OVO Energy are relatively new suppliers having started taking on gas and electricity customers in 2009 and 2015 respectively.

OVO has grown to be the UK's second largest energy supplier controlling just under 13% of the domestic gas market and more than 15% of the domestic electricity market. Their relatively quick growth was mostly due to the acquisition of other energy providers, most importantly their takeover of SSE in 2020.

By comparison Octopus Energy has a 5.7% share of the domestic electricity market and 5.8% of the gas market. Octopus has about 1.5 million customers compared to OVO's 3 million customers.

However the size of an energy supplier does not indicate how well they perform and how good they are to their customers. After all British Gas has more energy customers than all other suppliers yet they perform far below many of their smaller competitors.

OVO vs Octopus: Summary

Octopus Energy is better for cost (£8 less a month) and customer service.

If you are looking to make the greenest choice for the planet then OVO Energy's OVO Beyond is more expensive but includes 15% green gas.


The traditional rivalry has been between Octopus Energy and Bulb with both companies being similar in terms of size and high levels of good customer service.

Customer reviews and complaints

A good way to tell if an energy company is any good is to look at the data published about their performance. The table below shows how Octopus and OVO performs when it comes to customer feedback and complaints.

The table shows the overall Trustpilot rating (score) and the percentage of customers leaving negative feedback (bad %). You can also see the number of complaints the company has per 100,000 customers and how quick they resolve these complaints.

It is a requirement of UK energy suppliers to keep track of how many official complaints they get from customers. Ofgem collects this data from suppliers and publishes it periodically. Suppliers are also meant to publish this data on their own websites but it is notoriously hard to find and quite often not up to date.

Supplier Trustpilot Score Trustpilot Bad % Complaints per 100,000 % Complaints resolved next day % Complaints resolved 8 weeks Monthly Cost
OVO Energy 4.3/5 22.05 7% 2,293 81% 97%
Octopus Energy 4.8/5 3% 565 22.05 64% 93%

Does OVO or Octopus have the highest Trustpilot score?

When it comes to overall customer feedback score according to reviews left by customers on Trustpilot then Octopus Energy has a higher 4.5 out of 5 compared to 4.3 out of 5 for OVO Energy.

To put this in context with other suppliers in the UK Octopus is the highest rated large energy provider and OVO is the 4th highest rated. Ofgem now classifies utilities as large,medium and small rather than the Big Six vs other suppliers. There are 8 large suppliers in the UK which includes British Gas, EDF Energy Eon, nPower, Scottish Power, OVO, Bulb and Octopus Energy.

Which supplier receives the most negative feedback?

Out of all the customers that leave feedback for Octopus on review site Trustpilot about 3% leave bad feedback making it the best supplier of the two. Bad is the lowest rating a person can leave on Trustpilot and is a useful way to see if a company has a lot of unhappy customers.

OVO Energy in comparison has a 7% feedback rating which is more than double. It indicates that there are many more unhappy OVO customers compared to Octopus customers.

If we put these numbers into context of all the large UK suppliers then Octopus has the lowest bad percentage rating making it the best performer. OVO comes in third place out of the 8 large suppliers.

Comparatively OVOs' 7% bad rating is not that bad considering that EDF is the next worst at 18% and the other large suppliers (except bulb) are even worse.

How many complaints do Octopus and OVO get?

Customer complaint data is passed on to Ofgem so they can keep track of how well energy companies are performing. Every supplier in the UK has a complaints procedure that they publish on their website. If a customer uses this procedure to make a complaint it gets recorded and tracked to see whether the complaint gets resolved.

Octopus Energy is the better of the two suppliers with 565 complaints per 100,000 customers. OVO has 4x as many complaints with 2,293 per 100,000 customers. So 0.57% of Octopus customers complained compared to 2.29% of OVO Energy customers over the same period.

Whilst OVO gets far more customer complaints they do resolve many of the complaints pretty quickly. About 4/5ths of complaints to energy company OVO were resolved the next day compared to around 3/5ths of Octopus complaints.

Eight weeks after customers made their initial complaint OVO managed to resolve most (97%) of their customer issues. Octopus managed to resolve 93% of their customer issues at the 8 weeks mark.

Octopus vs OVO for customer service

Overall Octopus Energy comes out better than OVO when it comes to making their customers happy and you are less likely to have a problem switching to Octopus compared to switching to OVO.

To keep this in perspective OVO is a much better performer than the other traditional large gas and electricity companies in the UK.

Is OVO Energy or Octopus cheaper?

Cost is an important factor when comparing energy suppliers so which supplier is going to charge you the least for your gas and electric? We've taken 3 popular tariffs from their list of energy plans you can switch to and compared them on price.

Supplier Variable Rate 12 Month Fixed Greenest Tariff
OVO Energy £89 £88 £94
Octopus Energy £81 £86 £88

The table shows three gas and electricity tariffs including a variable rate deal where the price can go up or down depending on the wholesale prices and some other factors, a 1 year fix and the best green tariff the company offers.

For fairness the most similar tariffs were chosen so a good like for like comparison could be done which gives you a good indicator on cost. The quotes were gathered directly from the suppliers website and were based on an average UK household, typically a 3 bed semi detached house.

When it comes to price, Octopus costs less.

Octopus has cheaper energy prices compared to OVO with their cheapest tariff costing £8 a month less. For a 12 month fixed deal Octopus costs £2 a month less than the OVO equivalent. However it is worth noting that if you agree to have an OVO Energy smart meter installed they will reduce the cost of their 1 year fix to £85 a month which is £1 cheaper making it a better deal for anyone who doesn't yet have a smart meter.

Both suppliers offer 100% renewable electricity as standard on all their tariffs. Octopus however does not charge any exit fees compared to OVO that charges a £60 early exit fee on its fixed term deals. Exit fees are only applied if you choose to leave and switch to another provider within the fixed period of your contract. With Octopus you are free to leave at any point without incurring leaving charges.

Green Tariffs: OVO's Better Energy vs Super Green Octopus

If you are looking for the lowest price then the deal from Octopus costs £88 a month. In comparison OVO charge £94 for their greenest energy deal.

Both suppliers offer 100% renewable electricity as standard. What you pay extra for on their most planet friendly gas and electricity is to offset the carbon emissions from the gas part of the supply.

Octopus Energy does this by supporting their Brighton based carbon offset partner Renewable World. Their partner supports renewable energy projects around the world to supply clean electricity.

OVO also offsets their gas to make it carbon neutral. However the gas supply includes 15% green gas which is gas generated by turning either crops or waste into gas.

Although Octopus is far cheaper with their 'Super Green Octopus' tariff the OVO Beyond option which can be applied to any of OVO's tariffs for an additional £6 a month is slightly better.

OVO includes 15% green gas and 85% carbon offsetting as part of their deal. They also support schools and communities by planting 5 trees a year in your name.

For context you would need to plant more than 100 trees every single year to offset the carbon produced from the gas an average UK household produces.

What different between Octopus and OVO?

Whilst both companies are similar in many ways there is also a lot that makes them different. If I had to sum up OVO I'd describe them as a Big Six energy supplier only better. Octopus can be described as an energy company with a fair price and great customer support.

In terms of technology and innovation both suppliers are embracing new technology but Octopus really is at the cutting edge and is the supplier for energy geeks.

Both suppliers have an electric vehicle (EV Tariff) tariff. OVO has its EV Everywhere tariff which is bascially Economy 7 plus access to BP Pulse charge points awat from home. Octopus has Octopus Go which has 4 hours of very cheap charging, currently 5 pence per kWh which is much cheaper than E7 rates but over a shorter time period.

Octopus offers a couple of innovative tariffs including Agile Octopus for those that are able to take advantage at short notice of very cheap, free or even getting paid to use electricity. There's also Octopus Tracker that follows the wholesale energy price.