Your Bill Hero subscription starts on the day you sign up and complete your annual subscription fee payment. Bill Hero subscriptions will auto-renew on the anniversary of your start date, unless cancelled. We hate sneaky subscription renewals too Bill Hero adopted the annual subscription model because it provides a manageable mechanism to support the continuous bill monitoring and comparison service that Bill Hero provides. However, we're aware that a year can be a long time, and an annual subscription renewal can come as a surprise. We've taken steps to mitigate this: - Your upcoming renewal date is prominently displayed in a dedicated panel in every results email we send to you. This is intended to keep the approaching renewal visible, so you're not surprised when it finally arrives - We also send a dedicated renewal notice email seven days before we initiate a charge for your renewal payment. Cancelling a new subscription under the Savings Guarantee Every Bill Hero annual subscription comes with a money-back Savings Guarantee, which applies to the first bill(s) analysed and compared for you. This means that if you're already on a competitive plan, and Bill Hero cannot find the guaranteed annualised savings for you after analysing and comparing your first bill(s), you can cancel immediately for a full refund. If you're eligible for the Savings Guarantee, your 'below guarantee' results email includes instructions on how to initiate the cancellation. To cancel your subscription and request a refund, simply reply to any Bill Hero correspondence clearly stating your intention to cancel. Bank handling of refunds When a refund occurs very soon after the original payment is made, some banks may process the refund by reversing and deleting the original debit transaction instead of creating a new and separate credit transaction to your account. This can mean that all records of your Bill Hero subscription transaction may simply disappear from your bank statement. After a refund is initiated, funds will typically be credited to your account within 1-2 business days. However, the official advice from our payments platform provider, Stripe.com, is that it can take up to 10 business days for a refund to be fully processed and appear in your account. If you believe something has gone wrong with your refund, please contact our friendly support team at [email protected]. Cancelling an Active subscription Our policy is that cancellation of an Active subscription will take effect at the end of the current subscription period. If you cancel, Bill Hero will continue to monitor, analyse, and compare your bills for the remainder of the current subscription period. However, auto-renewal will be disabled, and the subscription will end at the end of the current subscription period. To cancel your subscription, log in with your personal email address and click the subscription card for the subscription you want to cancel. You'll be invited to leave brief feedback about your experience with Bill Hero. Please take a moment to provide us with some feedback on your way out - your honest feedback is valuable, and helps us improve the service. Cancel your active subscription If you encounter any issues during the cancellation or refund process, please contact us at [email protected]. Our support team is ready to investigate and resolve any concerns you may have.

Bill Hero FAQ

All about email forwarding

Bill Hero needs to receive each of your bills to perform the analysis and rank your options for switching. Our email forwarding system makes it easy for you to have Bill Hero monitor and compare every bill automatically, without you even needing to lift a finger. How does email forwarding work? Bill Hero automatically creates a unique email forwarding address for you to use with your retailer(s). They send bills to your Bill Hero forwarding address, and we auto-forward each message to your personal address. ℹ️ Bill Hero never initiates any emails delivered through the email forwarding system. We only ever forward messages that are sent to a correct and current email forwarding address. You'll receive each forwarded message in your personal inbox, within about 10 seconds of it being sent. Routing your retailer emails via the email forwarding system means that Bill Hero can detect every bill as it passes through, and will automatically analyse each one for you. How are Bill Hero email forwarding addresses allocated? Your Bill Hero address will usually be created with the same username as your personal email address, but at the billhero.com.au email domain rather than at your personal email domain. We call this the 'friendly address'. ℹ️ If your personal email was [email protected], your auto-generated Bill Hero address would be [email protected] If your personal email address has a common username, it's possible that the corresponding billhero.com.au forwarding address might already be in use by another Bill Hero subscriber. In this situation, the Bill Hero system will fall back to using a unique 'long-form' address, with the username based on an internal unique code. ℹ️ An illustrative example of a long-form Bill Hero forwarding address is [email protected]. Every Bill Hero subscriber automatically gets their own unique long-form address, but we only display and use it if your friendly address is already in use by a different subscriber. How do I use my forwarding address? A Bill Hero email forwarding address is just another standard email address, and it can receive email in exactly the same way as any other email account. You can set up your energy retailer account(s) to send your bills and account correspondence to your Bill Hero email forwarding address instead of directly to your personal email. Either give the retailer your Bill Hero forwarding address when you set up a new account, or call their customer support team and instruct them to replace the contact address on your existing account with your Bill Hero forwarding address. All messages sent to your Bill Hero email forwarding addresses will be auto-forwarded immediately to your personal email, so you'll still receive all your bills and account correspondence within about 10 seconds of them being sent. All forwarded messages are sent verbatim, including the exact email content and any attachments that were present in the original email. The only difference is that we add an identifier to the original subject line, so the Subject: line for all forwarded emails will start with: [Forwarded by Bill Hero] - All forwarded messages are sent from the custom Bill Hero address and email domain [email protected], but the reply to: address in each forwarded message will remain the same as it was in the original email, so if you reply to a Bill Hero forwarded email, your reply will go to the originator, not to Bill Hero. How do I find my unique email forwarding address? You can find your personal forwarding address by logging in to the Bill Hero Subscriber Portal at https://portal.billhero.com.au How can I tell the difference between email messages that Bill Hero forwards from external senders and Bill Hero's own email messages? Bill Hero never initiates any emails delivered through the email forwarding system. We only ever forward messages that are sent to a correct and current email forwarding address. However, we do also send our own Bill Hero messages, such as your comparison results and email responses from our support team. Forwarded emails originating from external senders will always come from the unique email subdomain forwarder.billhero.com.au. Bill Hero's own email messages will come from the main Bill Hero email domain billhero.com.au Potential Misuse Bill Hero never initiates any emails delivered through the email forwarding system. We only ever forward them. The email forwarding system is not limited to forwarding bill emails from energy retailers. It will immediately forward any email addressed to a valid Bill Hero email forwarding address. All forwarded messages are sent verbatim to the subscriber's corresponding personal address. You can test this anytime by sending your own email to your Bill Hero forwarding address. If you or your retailer shares your Bill Hero forwarding address with other senders, this system will also forward their messages to you. It's possible that an external party could obtain your Bill Hero email forwarding address and use it to send spam or other unwanted messages. ⚠️ Spam If you're being spammed through the email forwarding system, please get in touch with our support team at [email protected], so we can investigate and block that sender.

About Bill Hero

Comparing plans vs comparing tariffs

There is a lot of confusion about energy plans versus tariffs. Sometimes these terms are used interchangeably, but they mean very different things. Your tariff type is assigned to your meter by your distributor and governs the wholesale network pricing structures used to charge your retailer for your energy consumption. Network charges account for up to 60% of your energy bill, and represent the single biggest cost element in your energy bill - even greater than the actual wholesale costs of the electricity you consume. Because network costs are so important, retailers will usually minimise their pricing risk by aligning the cost structure of their retail plans with the underlying tariff type assigned by the distributor. For example, if you're on a single-rate tariff, you'll most likely be offered single-rate plans by the retailers. If you're on a time-of-use tariff where the network costs change across defined peak, off-peak and shoulder time periods and days of the week, the retailers will most likely offer you retail plans that reflect that same time-based pricing structure - if they do not, they open up potential pricing risk where they're exposed to wholesale network costs that that may not be able to achieve their desired retail margin on. However, the retailers are not strictly obliged to match your retail plan with the tariff assigned to your meter. They can offer you any retail plan they choose to Classes of electricity tariff There are four main classes of electricity tariff: - Single rate tariffs – The price you pay for your energy consumption does not change on the basis of time of consumption. Note that under a 'single rate' tariff, it's still possible that the price per kWh may change according to the quantity of kWh consumed – so one price might apply up to a certain kWh threshold, and then another price applies beyond that threshold. These kinds of tariffs can also be called block rate or stepped tariffs. Single-rate tariffs are still the most common tariff type in Australia. Basic consumption meters can only support Single Rate tariffs since the meter records only cumulative kWh consumption, not the time at which the energy was consumed. - Time of Use tariffs – As the name suggests, a Time of Use tariff means that the price per kWh can change according to the time of consumption. Time of Use tariffs includes 'Two Rate' tariffs, which have separate pricing for Peak and Off-Peak consumption, and Flexible tariffs which feature separate pricing for Peak, Shoulder and Off-Peak time periods. Time of Use tariffs require a smart meter to be installed since they require both kWh consumption and time of consumption to be recorded. Distributors set the times for Peak, Off-Peak, and Shoulder periods; however, it's possible for a retailer to define their own times independently of the 'official' times set by the distributor. - Controlled load tariffs – A controlled load is a separately metered energy supply that is available only at off-peak times. Controlled load is typically used for appliances such as underfloor heating or electric storage hot water systems, where the appliance runs overnight. Controlled load is common in settings where there is no smart meter installed, and this tariff type can be viewed as a quasi-time-of-use tariff since the controlled load energy supply is available only at off-peak times. Some distributors offer two classes of controlled load energy supply - CL1 and CL2. CL1 is the cheapest per kWh but is available for the most restricted time periods. CL2 costs more than CL1, although it will be less than the single rate price, and is available for a less restricted set of hours. - Demand tariffs – Demand tariffs are the newest kind of tariff and are intended to deliver a price signal to encourage energy consumers to minimise peak time consumption, either through shifting their load to shoulder and off-peak times or by avoiding consumption altogether. Demand tariffs apply an additional capacity charge to your bill that scales according to the highest intensity of demand recorded during the 'demand window' time on any day in the billing period. The 'demand window' coincides with Peak hours, and the purpose of demand tariffs is to deliver a financial disincentive for high peak time energy consumption. Demand tariffs require a smart meter to be installed. Bill Hero determines the tariff type for your energy account from the consumption data presented in your bill, and we compare your bill against other plans available for that tariff type. Bill Hero does not currently compare between tariff types, so it will not make recommendations to switch between tariff types.

Results Screens

Same plan at top of the results?

Energy retailers love to keep their customers confused. There are many ways they do this, and one of the most common and the most frustrating is that they promote their plans using brand names, which have absolutely no relationship to the underlying prices. The prices and rates can change at any time, so its very common that pricing offered to new customers for a particular plan name will be different to what an existing customer for that plan is paying. This is the classic example of a loyalty tax , a familiar dynamic that plays out across many product and service categories. 💡 We think the term Loyalty Tax is such a powerful idea, we registered it as a domain name — see https://loyaltytax.com.au. Retailers rely on the loyalty tax, safe in the knowledge that most of their existing customers will not notice that there are better deals available to them. Bill Hero subscribers will definitely notice because our service analyses every bill and highlights the savings available. This can mean that Bill Hero subscribers might see a plan from the same retailer at the top of their ranked results, with the same name as the plan they already have. This can occur even if it's a plan they've only recently switched to. There are two main reasons why this might happen for you as a Bill Hero subscriber: Price changes Firstly, because prices can and do change independently of the plan name, Bill Hero does not actually consider the plan name at all when comparing your bill against all the other plans in the market. When we compare your bill against all the other plans in the market, we're actually comparing the effective rates as documented in your bill vs the rates currently offered to new customers. If the retailer now offers a plan of the same name at better rates than what you are being charged, this may result in that plan landing at the top of your comparison result. If you find that your plan is now offered at a better price, you can ask your retailer to honour that price for you. The retailer is not obliged to change your pricing to match the current offer – sometimes, they insist that the new pricing is available only to new customers, not existing ones. If that happens for you, you can always switch to a different plan from the Bill Hero ranked results. Bait-and-switch It's not unheard of that a retailer will promote a plan with competitive pricing, but will then highlight a less competitive plan in their own sign-up process. If you're not paying close attention, you might find that the seemingly great plan you thought you were signing up for is not what you get. If Bill Hero displays savings are available for a plan for you that you think you've just switched to, check the plan name and ID carefully. You'll usually find your actual plan name on your bill, and Bill Hero displays those plan names on the cards we use to display each plan. If the names don't match, then you're not actually on that plan and may have fallen for a retailer bait-and-switch.

Bill Hero FAQ

All about incentives

Many retailers offer one-time incentives in addition to discounts to market their energy plans. Incentives can take many forms, including: - fixed cash rebates or cash-back on the first bill, - variable cash-equivalent incentives such as ‘first month free’ offers, - non-cash incentives such as movie tickets, sports jerseys and frequent flyer points, or - conditional incentives, such as a sign-up bonus that applies only if you buy electricity and gas simultaneously. One-time sign-up incentives are becoming more common. Here's why: Many retailers have adopted incentives as their preferred way to attract new customers, rather than simply reducing their rates or including a discount. This is because a retailer can selectively apply an incentive to any plan, and limit the incentive to new customers only. If they were to offer the equivalent dollar value of the incentive as a price reduction or discount, they would be required to disclose the existence of that better-priced plan to all their existing customers through the 'Deemed Best Offer' requirements imposed by the regulator. The 'Deemed Best Offer' rules require retailers to display in their bills a notification if this is the best-priced plan they currently offer, or if they have a better-priced plan available. They must include this notice in their bills at least every three months. By presenting a price reduction as an incentive, retailers can make a plan more attractive to new customers, without 'cannibalising' (their term, not ours) their existing customer base. Additionally, retailers can deploy incentives without re-engineering their plan pricing, making this a much simpler way for them to achieve a tactical market advantage. It’s tricky to include incentives in a pricing analysis, because they will often only impact the first bill, sometimes reducing that first bill by a significant amount, but once the incentive has been applied, the underlying rates may not be very attractive. What kinds of incentives does Bill Hero recognise? Bill Hero includes only cash or cash-equivalent incentives in our pricing calculations. Non-cash incentives like movie tickets, sports memorabilia or frequent flyer points are always excluded. How does Bill Hero calculate plans with incentives? To avoid the potential for an otherwise poorly priced plan landing at the top of your results solely because of a one-time incentive, we calculate the price impact of cash and cash-equivalent incentives, prorated over 1 year. For example, a $100 incentive on an Electricity plan will manifest as a $25 reduction to a quarterly estimated bill price for that plan. Lower rates vs Incentives? Incentives represent genuine cash value to energy consumers, so we think it makes sense to include incentives by default in the comparison calculations. The cash value of an incentive is usually paid up-front, so you get the benefit right away, instead of having to wait for the benefit to accrue over time if the same value was instead delivered as a reduction to consumption rates. Tip You can remove incentives from the calculations by switching the Incentives toggle to 'No'. Incentives as a sign-up bonus Many retailers use sign-up bonus incentives as a tactical mechanism to ramp up customer acquisition — the incentive is generally available only to new customers, not existing ones. Bill Hero accommodates this by defaulting to calculating available incentives into all plans except for those plans offered by your current retailer. So, if your current retailer happens to offer a sign-up incentive to attract new customers, you won't be eligible for it, because you're an existing customer. Bill Hero will recognise that you're a current customer of that retailer, and will not include the incentive in that retailer's plans when it generates your results.

Bill Hero FAQ

Set your Solar system and Battery size

It's now quite common for solar plans to include stepped rates or capacity limits that impact the feed-in tariff revenue that can be achieved for that plan. For example, a retailer might offer a solar plan available only to households with solar systems rated 10kW or less. Similarly, some plans are available only for battery-equipped households, and may also feature eligibility restrictions based on battery capacity. Bill Hero will include or exclude these kinds of solar- and battery-capped plans from your results once it knows your solar system's kW rating. Solar system sizing and battery data information are generally not visible in your bills, so you need to tell Bill Hero the system directly. You can do this via the Subscriber Portal. Solar system size refers to the inverter rating There are two main components in a solar system: the panels on your roof and the inverter that converts the direct current (DC) electricity they generate into alternating current (AC) power for use in your home. It's common that the aggregate capacity of the panels on your roof will exceed the inverter rating. 🛈 Solar Panel Capacity The rated capacity of a solar panel is the power it will generate under standard test conditions, measured in watts (W). There are 1000 watts in 1 kilowatt (kW). Under ‘standard test conditions’, a new solar panel rated at 350 W will generate 350 W of power. But in practice, the actual power generated will be less than this, and depends on: - climate zone - weather conditions - time of day and the season - location - slope of the panel - the direction the panel faces - dirt, debris or shading on the panel - wiring and other system factors. A home solar system might include 19 x 350 Watt panels, so the system size would be 6,650 Watts or 6.65 kW. However, the inverter is typically smaller than the panel output. For example, a 6.6 kW solar system will often be paired with a 5 kW inverter. The panel rating is a 'best case' power output benchmark, and in real life, they will rarely, if ever, actually output power at the full rated capacity, so an 'under-specced' inverter makes sense.

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Cancelling your Bill Hero subscription

All about email forwarding

Comparing plans vs comparing tariffs

Same plan at top of the results?

All about incentives

Set your Solar system and Battery size