Bill Hero FAQ

How do I upload my bills?

PDF bills Most retailers send their bills as PDF email attachments or as a download link in the bill email. Both are handled automatically by Bill Hero. Getting started Forward your most recent bill email to [email protected]. Any PDF attachment will be included automatically. If your retailer sends a download link instead of an attachment, Bill Hero will follow that link to retrieve the bill. Note that some retailers apply a time limit on these links — we'll let you know if a link has expired and help you get started. Automated uploads (recommended) Once you're set up, the easiest ongoing approach is to route your retailer's bill emails through your Bill Hero forwarding address. This is auto-generated from your personal email — e.g. [email protected] becomes [email protected]. The simplest way to set this up is to give your new retailer your Bill Hero forwarding address when you sign up, rather than your personal email address. If you're staying with your current retailer, contact them and ask them to update your email address to your Bill Hero forwarding address. Every message sent to your forwarding address is immediately auto-forwarded to your personal inbox, so you won't miss anything. With this in place, Bill Hero will automatically analyse and compare every bill on every billing cycle — no action required from you. Manual uploads You can also upload PDF bills manually at any time: - Forward your bill email to [email protected] - Send the bill as an email attachment to [email protected] - Upload via the web form at billhero.com.au/bill-upload Tip: If you've received your bill as an email attachment, forwarding the entire email to [email protected] is the easiest and most reliable approach. Good to know: - Bill Hero uses the from: address of emails sent to [email protected] to identify your subscription. Emails from an unrecognised address won't be processed automatically — you'll receive a notification if this happens. Contact support if you need to update your personal email address. - Please upload bills one at a time. If you send multiple bills together, Bill Hero will identify and analyse the most recent one only. Avoid downloading, opening, saving, renaming, or otherwise modifying your bill PDF before uploading, as this can corrupt the file. Paper bills If you only receive paper bills in the post, you'll need to either: - Take clear, high-quality scans or photos of your most recent bill — capture every page in full, without any cropping, at an easily readable resolution, or - Download a PDF version from your retailer's website, or ask their support team to send one to you Once you have your scans, photos, or downloaded PDF, send them to [email protected] or upload via the web form at billhero.com.au/bill-upload. If uploading a multi-page bill as photos, include all images for that bill together in a single upload. Good to know: Photo and scanned bills require manual processing. Data extraction can take up to 2 days before a comparison can be performed.

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.

What is the Savings Guarantee?

On average, we find over $380 in annualised savings on the first bill for new Bill Hero subscribers. However, every household and every bill is different, and it's possible you might already be on a competitive plan, or even on the very best-priced plan available. Our money-back Savings Guarantee is designed to give you more confidence to join our service before you know how much savings will be found for you. How much savings are Guaranteed? Our Savings Guarantee exists for all annual subscriptions. The dollar amount of the Savings Guarantee can vary by subscription type or by Bill Hero partner channel. It’s designed to always exceed the up-front subscription fee. The Guaranteed savings amount is always displayed prominently at the point of purchase for your Bill Hero subscription: Screenshot 2022-12-10 1.46.39 PM What happens if the Guaranteed savings are not achieved? If you're already on a competitive plan, or if the market has moved to rates higher than the rates in the bill being compared for you, we may not be able to beat the Savings Guarantee. If that happens to you, the system will automatically notify you and offer you the option to either cancel immediately for a full refund or keep the subscription active and receive a bonus free extension of your subscription period. What about lifetime subscriptions? We've recently introduced our new Lifetime Subscription, featuring a single one-time payment that covers your Bill Hero subscription fees forever. We don't currently offer the Savings Guarantee on a Lifetime subscription.

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.

Does Bill Hero handle solar?

If solar is present in your bill, Bill Hero will include it in your comparison. Solar appears as a separate line item in each bill, displaying kWh exported, the feed-in tariff (FiT) rate earned per kWh exported, and the total dollar value of those exports. All the other elements of your electricity bill are subject to GST, and the individual line items may be displayed with or without GST. Solar feed-in revenue is GST-free, so the dollar amount displayed on the bill for solar FiT is the amount that will be applied. Bill Hero handles solar by taking the total solar kWh exported amount from your bill, and using that in the calculation of what you would have been charged under every other plan available to you—so if there's a competing plan that offers a higher feed-in tariff, then the dollar value of your solar kWh export will be higher for that plan, and this will be included in the comparison. Solar is only one element of your bill, and Bill Hero compares on the overall bill amount, not only on the solar component. So it's possible that a competing plan might offer a great solar feed-in tariff, but the consumption charges may not be so great, and that plan may not rank very well overall. Bill Hero finds the plan that would have delivered the best overall outcome for you, including feed-in tariff, consumption and connection charges, and other elements in your bill like discounts and incentives. QLD solar meter charges If you live in Queensland, you'll see a separate solar meter fee line item in your bills. This fee can vary between retailers, and it's not always documented in the fact sheets for each retailer, so it's not possible for Bill Hero to reliably include this fee in our comparison. Bill Hero treats the solar meter fee as a once-off fee and excludes it from the comparison. If this affects you, you will see in your results email summary that the bill amount, which includes the solar meter charge, will be different to the comparison amount, which is the dollar amount Bill Hero will base the comparison on. Capped solar system size plans Some retailers make their plans and feed-in tariffs available only for households with solar systems below a certain kW rating. Bill Hero handles this by filtering out these plans if we know your solar system is above the cap. For new Bill Hero subscribers, we ask a question about solar size as part of the sign-up process. You can also inform us of your solar via Bill Hero support at [email protected], so that your comparison results will automatically be filtered to exclude any plans you're not eligible for due to your solar system size. Block rate feed-in tariffs It's becoming more common that retailers offer feed-in tariffs, where the feed-in rate changes after a kWh exported threshold is exceeded. There may be two or more steps in the solar FiT rate. Some retailers have started using a $0 stepped rate to deliver the same outcome as a capped solar plan. For example they might offer a higher FiT rate for the first step, a lower FiT step for the second step, then $0 FiT beyond that. Bill Hero handles stepped FiT rates, including $0 rated steps automatically, and will price the value of your kWh exports accordingly. VIC minimum FiT In Victoria, the Essential Services Commission previously set a mandated minimum FiT that retailers had to offer. Retailers were free to offer FiT rates higher than the minimum if they chose to. Feed-in tariff rates have been declining over time due to falling daytime wholesale electricity prices, resulting in the ESC’s final FIT determination for 2025-2026 setting a near-zero feed-in tariff flat rate. The Victorian Government deregulated the solar feed-in tariff, recognising that the minimum rate was effectively set at zero. Bill Hero uses whatever is the FiT offered by each retailer to calculate the value for your solar kWh exported under each plan in your comparison. Premium feed-in tariff schemes There are a variety of legacy state-based schemes set up a decade or more ago that offered premium feed-in tariffs for early adopters of solar. None of these legacy schemes is available for new solar installations. The Victorian Premium Feed-in tariff scheme ended in November 2024. In general, your eligibility for these schemes does not change when you switch between retailers. The still operating schemes include: - QLD: Solar bonus scheme - SA: Distributor feed-in tariff - ACT: Premium Feed-in Tariff It used to be common that retailers would apply the premium FiT entitlement separately, and in addition to their own standard retailer FiT, and if you're eligible for a premium FiT, your bill could include both a premium FiT component and a retailer FiT component, with these elements sometimes broken out into individual line items in your bill. More recently, it has become less common for retailers to pay their own retailer FiT for households that are already eligible for Premium FiT. Since late 2024, Bill Hero no longer assumes that retailer FiT will be paid on top of Premium FiT. Where Premium FiT is detected in a bill, the pricing for the other plans in the comparison will assume that only the Premium FiT will apply, and any available Retailer FiT will not be calculated into the alternative plans. This has the potential effect that Bill Hero may understate the potential solar credit available under those plans. We think the risk of this occurring is a lesser evil than the risk of overstating the potential solar credit, which could lead to switching to a plan that proves to be less attractive. Bill Hero can detect when your bill includes a premium feed-in tariff and handles this by separating any retailer FiT revenue from the Premium FiT revenue. The Premium FiT component is transferable when you switch between retailers. Its dollar value does not change, so it is automatically added to the comparisons for each competing plan.

What are default offers?

From 1 July 2019, new regulation replaced the old Standing Offers with Default Offers across most of the National Energy Network. There are two kinds of Default Offer: - The AER sets the Default Market Offer (DMO) for Residential and SME single and single + controlled load tariffs in NSW, SA and South East QLD. - In Victoria, the Essential Services Commission sets the Victorian Default Offer (VDO) for single rate and controlled load tariffs in Victoria only. DMO rates are expressed as a single dollar value for a set annual consumption level, rather than as a price per day plus a price per unit of usage. ​ In Victoria, VDO rates are expressed as a price per day plus a price per unit of usage. Retailers are free to market and sell Market Offers, but they must make the VDO price available for those who want it. ​ Both DMO and VDO set a cap on the price a customer will pay when they have not entered into a Market Offer with their retailer. They also set the benchmark against which any discounts offered in Market Offers must be expressed. Bill Hero results include calculating how each plan compares to the relevant DMO for your state. Victorian DMO comparison calculations In Victoria, the DMO is specified as a price per kWH and a daily supply rate, which is analogous to how single-rate plans are priced. For single rate and single rate + controlled load tariffs, Bill Hero includes a calculation of how each plan compares, in terms of % higher or % lower, to the DMO price calculated for the same usage a time period for your bill. NEM DMO comparison calculations Outside Victoria, the DMO is specified as a single price for a reference annual kWh consumption level, which varies by distribution zone and by tariff type: Bill Hero calculates the % above or % below DMO by separately calculating what each plan would have cost at the reference kWh consumption level for 1-year duration. More info on Default Offers See https://www.aer.gov.au/industry/retail/retail-pricing-and-default-market-offer for more information on the DMO. ​ See https://www.energy.vic.gov.au/victoriandefaultoffer for more information on the VDO.

How we calculate your savings

There are three main savings calculations used in the Bill Hero service: - Bill Savings - Annualised Savings - Lifetime Savings Bill Savings We use the detailed data from your bill to calculate what you would have paid for that same usage with the same tariff type over the equivalent time period under all the relevant publicly available plans on the market. We include tariff type, solar feed-in, guaranteed & conditional discounts, and incentives. The difference between what you were actually charged in your bill vs the best available price you would have been charged under an alternative plan is the Bill Savings. Bill Savings calculation uses the historical consumption and bill period data as documented in your bill to calculate what you would have been charged under each of the currently available plans. It's possible that the current pricing may not have been available during the billing period under consideration. That's why we refer to this as 'equivalent' time period. Annualised Savings In your results for each bill analysed, Bill Hero expresses your savings as an annualised amount by applying the Bill Savings pro-rata over a full year. Annualising the savings result aligns the savings with the annual subscription period, which makes it possible for us to provide the Savings Guarantee. At its most simplistic level, an annualised savings example would be if $10 savings are found in a single monthly bill, then this could be expressed as $120 of annualised savings. We actually calculate Annualised Savings on the number of days in the billing cycle rather than months, but you get the idea. Bill Hero applies a seasonal indexing factor to the annualised savings calculations for electricity and gas to adjust for seasonal variations in consumption. Legend| Zone| Description ---|---|--- | Climate Zone 1| Hot humid summer, warm winter | Climate Zone 2| Warm humid summer, mild winter | Climate Zone 3| Hot dry summer, warm winter | Climate Zone 4| Hot dry summer, cool winter | Climate Zone 5| Warm temperate | Climate Zone 6| Mild temperate | Climate Zone 7| Cool temperate | Climate Zone 8| Alpine Electricity Annualised Savings For electricity annualised savings, the calculation takes seasonal variation in electricity consumption into account, based on an index of average seasonal electricity consumption by state and climate zone. The indexed values are based on seasonal electricity usage data published by the AER for each state, broken down by Climate Zone and geographic region. QLD Climate Zone| Autumn| Summer| Winter| Spring ---|---|---|---|--- CZ 1| 1.01| 1.17| 0.86| 0.96 CZ 2| 1.00| 1.11| 0.96| 0.92 CZ 3| 0.97| 1.24| 0.85| 0.94 CZ 5| 0.96| 1.01| 1.10| 0.93 NSW Climate Zone| Autumn| Summer| Winter| Spring ---|---|---|---|--- CZ 2| 0.99| 1.00| 1.06| 0.96 CZ 4| 0.93| 0.88| 1.18| 1.01 CZ 5| 0.95| 0.99| 1.15| 0.91 CZ 6| 0.93| 1.04| 1.11| 0.92 CZ 7 & 8| 0.93| 0.67| 1.40| 1.00 ACT Autumn| Summer| Winter| Spring ---|---|---|--- 0.91| 0.65| 1.42| 1.02 TAS Autumn| Summer| Winter| Spring ---|---|---|--- 0.91| 0.65| 1.41| 1.03 VIC Climate Zone| Autumn| Summer| Winter| Spring ---|---|---|---|--- CZ 4| 0.87| 0.92| 1.29| 0.93 CZ 6| 0.96| 0.98| 1.15| 0.91 CZ 7 & 8| 0.90| 0.71| 1.39| 0.99 SA Region| Autumn| Summer| Winter| Spring ---|---|---|---|--- Adelaide & Environs| 0.96| 0.98| 1.13| 0.94 Mt Lofty Ranges| 0.96| 0.94| 1.15| 0.94 Yorke Peninsula & Kangaroo Island| 0.96| 0.97| 1.13| 0.94 Marylands & Riverland| 0.95| 0.97| 1.13| 0.94 South East| 0.96| 0.94| 1.15| 0.94 Mid north| 0.96| 0.93| 1.10| 1.00 Central north| 0.95| 0.96| 1.14| 0.95 Pt Augusta & Pastoral| 0.93| 0.96| 1.15| 0.96 Eastern| 0.92| 0.95| 1.16| 0.96 West coast| 0.95| 0.98| 1.13| 0.94 Bill Hero will apply the appropriate index value when calculating your annualised savings. Electricity Annualised Savings formula Electricity Annualised Savings = Electricity Bill Season Savings x 365.25 / Electricity Bill Season Days / Electricity Seasonal Index value Where the electricity billing period spans two or more seasons, Bill Hero will split the total bill duration days into season-days to find the proportion of the billing period in each season. Then, using the same proportion, Bill Hero will split the total Electricity Bill Savings into Electricity Bill Season Savings, apply the relevant Seasonal Index value for each Electricity Bill Season Savings value, and aggregate the result. Gas Annualised Savings For gas savings, the annualisation calculation takes seasonal variation in gas consumption into account, based on an index of average seasonal gas consumption by state. The indexed values are based on seasonal gas usage data published by the AER State| Autumn| Summer| Winter| Spring ---|---|---|---|--- Queensland| 0.94| 0.69| 1.36| 1.01 New South Wales| 0.88| 0.55| 1.57| 1.00 ACT| 0.85| 0.27| 1.86| 1.02 Victoria| 0.79| 0.36| 1.83| 1.02 Tasmania| 0.79| 0.29| 1.88| 1.04 South Australia| 0.79| 0.50| 1.62| 1.08 Official Aust Season periods| March, April and May| December, January and February| June, July and August| September, October and November Gas Annualised Savings formula Gas Annualised Savings = Gas Bill Season Savings x 365.25 / Gas Bill Season Days / Gas Seasonal Index value Where the gas bill period spans across two or more seasons, Bill Hero will split the total bill duration days into season-days to find the proportion of the billing period in each season, then use the same proportion to split the total Gas Bill Savings into Gas Bill Season Savings, and apply the relevant Seasonal Index value for each Gas Bill Season Savings value, then aggregate the result. Lifetime Savings Bill Hero also keeps a running tally of your cumulative lifetime savings over the lifetime of your subscription. For each bill processed by Bill Hero, where Annualised Savings are greater than your Savings Guarantee (on your first bill) or greater than your Bothered Threshold (on your second and subsequent bills), we add the Annualised Savings amount to your Lifetime saving tally - this is because we assume you will complete the switch to access those savings. Where annualised savings are lower than your Bothered Threshold, we will add the individual Bill Savings amount to your Lifetime Savings tally. You can see your Lifetime Savings tally in a panel in the email results you receive for each bill processed by Bill Hero.

What is the 'Link' Payment option?

Bill Hero uses Stripe.com to process all payments. Stripe is the world’s largest online payment processing platform. Stripe offers a simplified one-click payment option called ‘Link’. When you purchase anything from an online service that uses Stripe checkout - Bill Hero is one of many such services - you may be offered a checkbox to ‘Save my info for secure one-click checkout’. You can then complete a purchase using that saved information in the future after verifying your identity via a one-time code that Stripe sends via email or SMS. You can find our more about Link here: https://link.com/au

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 feeds-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. Bill Hero will include or exclude these kinds of solar-capped plans from your results when it knows the kW rating for your solar system. This information is not visible in your bills, so you need to tell Bill Hero system directly. You can do this via the Subscriber Portal. 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 transforms the direct current (DC) electricity they generate into alternating current (AC) power that can be used 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 typical 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 is often 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.

How does Bill Hero handle email bounces?

Energy bills are not the most exciting kinds of messages that we’re all desperate to receive, but they're undeniably important. Here’s how Bill Hero ensures that our email forwarding system will get these messages delivered to you, even in adverse situations. Email deliverability Successful email delivery cannot be guaranteed The baseline reality for email is that no sender can 100% guarantee that a message will be successfully delivered. This is because the last mile of delivery to a recipient's inbox is entirely under the control of the receiving email system. The sender cannot control or influence how the receiving system handles the message. Even if the recipient account and inbox are functioning correctly, email systems apply increasingly stringent spam protection measures that invariably will result in some legitimate messages being misclassified as spam. Email senders have a variety of tools and best practices at their disposal to help minimise deliverability problems, including: - DKIM (Domain Keys Identified Mail) supports the cryptographic signing of each message, - SPF (Sender Policy Framework) supports securely publishing the list of email servers from which a domain's legitimate email can originate, and allows recipient email servers to check that an email originated from a legitimate server, - DMARC (Domain-based Message Authentication Reporting and Conformance) supports secure publishing of policies on how recipient email servers should handle discrepancies, and report them to the legitimate domain owner. Bill Hero uses all of these tools and best practices to help ensure the highest possible delivery rates for your emails. However, it's impossible to 100% prevent email bounces. Emails can 'bounce' An email 'bounces' when it can not be delivered to the intended recipient. There are two main kinds of email bounce - a 'soft bounce' and a 'hard bounce'. Soft bounce A 'soft bounce' occurs when an email cannot be delivered due a transient or temporary issue, or due to a policy or filter imposed by the receiving email server. For example, if the recipient's inbox is over-full, the receiving email server might apply a policy not to deliver any new email messages until the user has archived some old emails. The most common cause of soft bounce is if the receiving service thinks a message is spam. In this situation, there's no technical reason why the message can not be delivered, but the receiving email server has chosen not to deliver it. Hard bounce A hard bounce occurs when the recipient’s email address doesn’t exist because the email account was closed, or never existed, or was deliberately created as a 'honey pot' for fraud visibility. Bounce reporting Whatever the cause of a delivery failure, whether it is classified as a 'hard' or 'soft' bounce, email senders can receive a delivery report with some details about what happened and why a message was not successfully delivered to the addressee. Bill Hero uses any bounce reports to trigger resend and other remedial actions to ensure we maintain the highest possible delivery rates for all subscribers. Email server reputation Modern email systems maintain a history of interactions with other email systems, and build 'reputation scores' for those remote systems which flow through into the delivery policies for each receiving email server. A sending domain or IP address with a poor reputation is much more likely to experience soft bounces for its emails due to spam classification, because the receiving systems have low trust for sending domains with poor reputation. The best email delivery systems are very protective of their sender reputation and will take immediate action to mitigate any risk of reputation damage. How Bill Hero maximises deliverability Bill Hero goes to great lengths to use all the available tools and best-practice approaches to minimise any potential issues with delivering forwarded emails to subscribers, as well as Bill Hero's own emails. Separate domains Bill Hero has a dedicated email subdomain forwarder.billhero.com.au that we use only to forward messages originating from energy retailers. We never send any of our own original messages from this domain. Bill Hero's own messages will always originate from the billhero.com.au domain. High-quality mail platforms A huge amount of specialised expertise is required to manage and run an email platform reliably. We leave this work to the experts, and we currently use two main bulk email delivery platforms for our two main types of transactional email: - We use Amazon Web Service's 'Simple Email Service' (AWS SES) for our email forwarding platform. AWS SES is a high-quality bulk email delivery platform that offers state-of-the-art tools and safeguards to mitigate deliverability risks and maximise reliable mail delivery. We use AWS SES for email forwarding via our forwarder.billhero.com.au subdomain. - We use MailChimp's 'transactional email' platform, Mandrill, for sending BillHero's automated and transactional emails, such as the results email we send for each bill analysed, along with reminders and other kinds of automated email interactions with Bill Hero subscribers. Mandrill is used for all our automated billhero.com.au emails. Re-sending email Depending on the kind of delivery problem, simply resending a bounced message can often achieve successful delivery. Bill Hero will attempt to resend an email if it bounces. Resend via different domains and channels If a forwarded email bounces that was sent to a subscriber via forwarder.billhero.com.au, our system will send a bounce report message, including the original email content, as an automated bounce report email, originating from the billhero.com.au domain. The bounce report email is a simple, automated and templated email that contains: - A download link to the original .eml file for the bounced email message. The .eml file is the same plaintext file that is actually transferred between email servers for normal email delivery. Making the original .eml file available for download means that the recipient can access the original email message exactly as they would have had the email delivery succeeded. An .eml file can be opened in any standard email client app. - A PDF render of the original email as an attachment. This allows subscribers to easily see the original email content without having to download and open the .eml file. - Any additional file attachments that were present in the original email - these may include energy bills or other kinds of email attachments originally included by the sender.

Changing address

Bill Hero will automatically recognise a new street address in your bills when it receives a bill from a known subscriber email address. So when you move to a new home, it's not necessary to specifically update the Bill Hero system with the street address for your new home. Bill Hero will make the update automatically when your first bill comes through.

How do I use my Promo Code?

The Bill Hero subscription signup process will look a bit different depending on if you're using mobile or big-screen internet to signup. Here's how to apply a promo code both for mobile and for big-screen. ☝️ Tip Bill Hero promotion codes are case-sensitive, and are always in UPPERCASE. Mobile signup with promo code Look for the 'Add code' button in the mobile checkout. When you click the 'Add code' button, a new field will open where you can type in your code, and the amount payable will automatically update. Big-screen signup with promo code Look for the Promotion Code field on the left side of the Bill Hero checkout. If you have a code, type it in here, press 'Apply' and the offer will automatically be applied.

What if I'm moving?

There are always a lot of things to organise when you're moving home. Bill Hero can help keep the energy elements of your move as simple as possible. For your new home, you most likely will not have access to a bill, so Bill Hero will not be able to analyse it and make a precise recommendation. If you choose to, you can use our 'No Bill' process to find a competitive retailer & plan to start off with, based on the estimated kWh consumption for the new location. Alternatively, it's often more convenient to use the moving home service that your current retailer will provide, and stick with them through your move. Assuming that you're currently on a competitively priced plan that Bill Hero helped you find, there's every chance the same retailer will also be able to set you up on a competitively priced plan at your new location. This approach can help you quickly tick off at least one task on your moving home to-do list, and it means you will not have to set up an entirely new account. It also means that the same email forwarding process will continue to work after you move, so your new bills will continue to be monitored by Bill Hero. This approach can also simplify things if you need to keep the power connected at both locations for an overlap period while you complete your move. ⚠️Important When you're moving, remember that you must notify your current retailer of your move-out date so that they can finalise your bills at that address. This ensures that you won't be charged for any consumption that may happen after you've moved out. You're also responsible for setting up the new energy supply arrangements for your new location, even if there is power already available there. No matter whether you choose a new retailer, or stay with your current retailer for your move, when your first bill comes through at the new location, it will be subjected to the same Bill Hero comparison process. If there's a better deal available to you in your new home that will deliver savings greater than your Bothered Threshold, then Bill Hero will initiate a new switch for you.

How long is the wait to get my comparison results?

Bill Hero's bill analysis and recommendations are fully automated, and our system processes incoming bills in batches. In general, for a standard PDF bill, it will take about 20 minutes for your bill to be ingested, parsed, analysed and compared, and for us to send you your personalised comparison results via email and SMS. However, there are a few reasons why it might take longer than this: - You uploaded images or scans of your bill - photos and scans sometimes require manual processing to extract the data. We prefer the PDF files that retailers send via email, and our system can extract all the required information from these bill files automatically - Your bill was batched and processed in the evening – we deliberately do not send results late in the evening or at night to avoid annoying our subscribers with an SMS ping at an unreasonable hour - Your bill required manual review – our system includes a variety of automated tests and checks to validate the data extracted from bills and other parts of the process. If we detect any potential errors or discrepancies, the bill is queued for manual review If your bill requires manual review, the standard turn-around time is 48 hours.

Why did I receive a reminder when I already use automated email forwarding?

Bill Hero's bill upload reminder emails are automatically generated and sent when the system thinks an expected bill has not yet arrived. Bill Hero calculates the anticipated next bill date for each subscription account based on the issue date and billing period in the current bill. If the anticipated bill has not been received and processed by Bill Hero system within a week of the calculated due date, then an email reminder will be sent. The most common reason for an expected bill not arriving in the Bill Hero system is if you have not yet set up automated email forwarding with your retailer. However, there are some scenarios where a reminder might be sent even if you've already set up automated email forwarding: - Your previous bill had an artificially short billing cycle, so the reminder was triggered early - Your retailer issued your bill later than usual, so the reminder was triggered before the bill arrived - There has been a delay in processing your bill in Bill Hero system - Bill Hero does not reset the trigger date until bill processing is complete - You've recently set up a new retailer account, and have not yet received the first bill, so the new billing cycle is not yet visible to the system In most cases, if you've received a reminder even though you already have email forwarding set up, you just need to wait for the next bill to arrive, which will recalibrate the next expected bill cycle. After having sent a reminder, Bill Hero will wait for one month before sending another reminder. If the new bill arrives during this waiting period, then the trigger date for the reminder will be reset based on the calculated next-bill date. ​

Does Bill Hero accept both monthly and quarterly bills?

Historically, electricity bills were usually issued on a quarterly cycle, and gas bills on a bi-monthly cycle. This relatively low frequency was because meter reading was a labour-intensive process, requiring a human meter reader to physically visit and manually read the meter for every household or business. Today we have smart meters, which can be read remotely over a network, which opens the ability to collect data and issue bills far more frequently. Today, it's becoming more common for electricity bills to be issued monthly. We find that, particularly for the most competitively priced retailers, monthly billing is increasingly becoming the norm. It's not hard to imagine why: The most competitive retailers are operating on thinner margins, and will apply every mechanism they can to minimise cost and maximise profitability. Adopting a monthly billing cycle improves their cashflow, which is one of the ingredients that allow them to offer the most competitive pricing. We think that monthly billing is also advantageous for energy consumers – it gives you more granular and detailed insights into your energy spending and consumption, plus it gives you twelve opportunities to compare and switch per year rather than only four.

What about concessions?

Retailers do not include concession rates in the fact sheets they publish for their plans, because those concessions rates are defined and financed by the relevant authority, The retailer acts only as a conduit for the concession benefit to wind up in your bill. Concession schemes vary by state, and are dynamically calculated on the base bill price rather than a fixed concession amount. This means that Bill Hero cannot assume the dollar value of a concession present in your bill will also apply for any of the alternative plans we calculate pricing for. Bill Hero handles this by adding back any concession present in your bill to find the base price for your bill, then we compare on that base price. This allows us to find the best-priced plan for you, excluding concessions. See Bill price vs comparison price for more information on this. Your eligibility for your concession will not change no matter which retailer and plan you switch to, but the dollar value for your concession credit under that new plan will be different. The best-priced plan excluding concession will still be the best-priced plan after the concession has been recalculated under the new plans and reapplied. Bill Hero treats the Queensland Electricity asset ownership dividend as a concession. Your eligibility for a concession does not change when you switch retailers, although you will need to provide relevant information to any new retailer, such as concession type, concession card number, and concession card end date so they can validate your concession entitlement with the relevant authority.

What is the 'Bothered Threshold'?

After your first switch, Bill Hero monitors every new bill that arrives and calculates what additional savings are available for you on each one. You set your own 'Bothered Threshold' for the savings you'd need before bothering to switch again. Bill Hero will report to you on every bill, but we'll only initiate a new switch when we find annualised savings greater than your Bothered Threshold. For new subscribers, the default Bothered Threshold is set to $50. Tip You can change your Bothered Threshold at any time in the Subscriber Portal

What if I don't have a bill yet?

To get started, please complete your signup at https://billhero.com.au/subscribe. You can skip the bill upload part. Please note that when setting up a new subscription like this with no initial bill to work with, we cannot calculate savings vs the current plan, so our Savings Guarantee will not apply and your subscription will become active immediately. The end date for your subscription will be reset on the day the connection is established at your new home, so you'll effectively have 12 months of service from that date. We'll then send you a personalised link to our 'no bill' process, which steps you through the following questions: - Location of your new home - Number of people living in the new home - Does it have mains gas connected - Does it have electric hot water or electric primary heating - Does it have solar, and if so what kW rating - Does it have a pool This is enough for us to establish your new home's 'energy profile' and lets us estimate your kWh consumption based on average and benchmark industry data. We'll run a comparison for you based on this estimated consumption. The plan and retailer we recommend will be competitively priced, but because the recommendation will be based on estimated rather than actual consumption, it may not be the absolute best possible price for you. Also, the recommendation will assume that the new location is on either a single rate tariff, which is the most common tariff type, or single rate + controlled load tariff. When your first bill comes through, we'll re-run the analysis based on the actual data present in your bill, and may recommend another switch at that time if we find annualised savings for you greater than your Bothered Threshold.

What if my old retailer makes a retention offer?

It's not uncommon that when you start a switch, your current retailer might make a special discount offer to try and retain you as a customer. You've got to wonder why they wait till you're leaving before they offer you a better deal! If you receive a retention offer, make sure they send the details to you by email – it's common that you'll be contacted by phone and the retailer will attempt to complete the process on the spot. When you receive the details for their retention offer in your email, just forward it to [email protected] , and we'll compare it to the rest of the market and let you know if it's worth accepting. We do this by taking the detailed consumption data from your most recent bill, and we'll re-calculate your personalised comparison using the new prices from your retention offer. This is the best way to see what the real-world impact of the proposed new pricing would be. If the results for the retention offer come in with savings lower than your Bothered Threshold, we'll recommend that you accept it, just as would have reported that all is well and that there is no need to switch had you received a bill with that price in the first place. If the results come in that there are potential savings available for you greater than your Bothered Threshold, we'll recommend that you do not accept the offer and proceed with your switch.

What about smart meters?

Most households in Victoria already have a smart meter, and they are being progressively rolled out across other parts of Australia. In general, whenever an old meter needs to be replaced, it will be replaced with a smart meter. In this article - What can a smart meter actually do? - What are the benefits of getting a smart meter - How do I get a smart meter? - Are smart meters safe? - Will I have to pay for a smart meter? What can a smart meter actually do? Smart meters record your consumption data by time and send this information back to your energy distributor and retailer wirelessly in the form of kWh consumption per 30-minute time block. It's also possible to use a device with your smart meter to provide yourself with more detailed time-based consumption information using data collected directly from your local meter device. Smart meters can also do other things remotely, like allow the electricity supply to be remotely switched on and off without needing a field technician, measure the power quality at your premises and automatically notify your electricity distributor when there's a power outage at your location. What are the benefits of getting a smart meter? The key benefits to having a smart meter are: - Smart meters are required for key new energy products and services, including solar and battery storage systems - A smart meter can be read remotely via a wireless network, so you can move to monthly billing rather than quarterly. Many of the most competitively priced plans require monthly billing, which is understandable since monthly billing improves cash flow for the retailer. Better cash flow is one of the things that makes it possible for them to offer the very best available prices. - A smart meter allows you to switch to a better-priced plan whenever you like. A meter reading must be performed every time you switch so your old retailer can close off your account, and your new retailer can start. With a smart meter, this can occur right away. With a manual meter, you need to wait for the next meter read before your switch can be activated, which could be as long as three months. - A smart meter supports time-of-use tariffs, so there's potential to take advantage of plans that offer cheaper pricing during off-peak times, and there's also the opportunity to explore 'demand shifting' where it's possible to gain benefit by moving your consumption into off-peak hours where possible - eg by running washing machine at night etc. - A smart meter is a source of detailed information about your energy use. This information can help you understand and adjust your usage or find the best deal. - A smart meter allows electricity distributors to detect outages more quickly and monitor the quality of your electricity supply. This will help to minimise the number and length of electricity supply outages. How do I get a smart meter? Some retailers offer energy plans that require a smart meter to be installed. Some of these retailers include a free smart meter upgrade when you take up their plans. If your current meter is faulty or at the end of its life and needs replacing, then the replacement meter will be a smart meter, even if the original meter was manual . Are smart meters safe? Yes. Smart meters are manufactured and installed according to Australian Standards. All smart meters must comply with the electromagnetic exposure limits developed by the Australian Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety Agency (ARPANSA). The same limits apply to things like mobile and cordless phones, Wi-Fi routers and baby monitors. Smart meters use a low-power networking system called Zigbee - they are considerable lower power than a mobile phone. For more information, see ARPANSA's webpage on smart meters and health. Will I have to pay for a smart meter? Different retailers may take different approaches to charging you for a new meter. They may charge you a lump sum which could appear in your next bill, or they may choose to charge you a monthly fee. This fee should appear on your bill as well. Retailers may also decide to absorb the cost of providing new meters to customers as part of the electricity usage charges. In general, where the retailer is paying for the installation costs, this usually applies only to standard install costs - if you require additional works such as rewiring, or asbestos removal from your meter enclosure, those additional works would be charged for. The retailer must disclose any upfront costs to you before they install the new meter.

What if I have a credit balance?

When you switch away from your current retailer, your energy account balance needs to be brought to zero so the old account can be closed. If you have a debit balance for energy you've used up to the switch date, you will need to pay this amount to your old retailer, using whatever is your usual payment method. If you have a credit balance, your old retailer must refund you the credit amount. The details of how and when this payment is made would be subject to the detailed terms of your agreement with the old retailer. In general, these refunds are usually made to the account you used for bill payment, so if you had a direct debit or a credit card payment set up, the retailer will deposit the credit balance funds to your bank account to bring the energy account balance to zero, and it will then be closed. If you manually paid your bills, your retailer should contact you to arrange payment of the credit balance.

What about exit fees?

In the bad old days, energy plans often had fixed duration, and there would often be fees for early contract exit. Today there is regulation in pace that limits retailers ability to charge exit fees, so much so that none of them even try to charge exit fees any more. Retailers do list 'disconnection' and 'reconnection' fees in their standard schedule of fees that you'll find in their contracts. These fees apply only to physical disconnection or reconnection of power from the property, which will only be required if you're setting up a brand-new energy supply at newly built premises, or if the existing premises are scheduled for demolition or are being left empty for a long period of time. Retailers do not actually supply your energy—they only supply your bills—so when you're switching retailers at the same address, your power will not be disconnected at all. There is no disconnect or reconnect required, and there will be no disconnection or reconnection fee whatsoever. So you can use Bill Hero with confidence that your savings will not be eroded through exit fees.

Referral scheme

The Bill Hero referral scheme is designed to reward subscribers for introducing their friends to Bill Hero. We think that word-of-mouth recommendations from happy subscribers is the very best form of marketing we could ever hope for, and we're very happy to offer a bonus to both our subscribers and to the friends they refer. Here's how it works: We generate a unique referral code for every Bill Hero subscriber. Your unique code is included in each of the results emails we generate and send after analysing each bill for you, and we encourage you to share your code with your friends. When a new subscriber joins and uses your code as part of their signup, our system automatically recognises that you referred them. It will then add two additional free months of service to your own Bill Hero subscription and theirs, so you'll each get 14 months of service rather than 12. pic.twitter.com/GCtbT4FMy8 Even better, this referral mechanism is uncapped, so you can refer as many friends as you like, and you'll receive an additional two free months every time. Share the love and share the rewards with the Bill Hero referral scheme.

What about membership fees?

Some energy plans include a mandatory fixed one-time, monthly or annual membership fee or an account establishment fee. Bill Hero includes any such fees in its calculations by applying the fee pro-rata over 1 year. For example, a plan with a $120 one-time membership fee would be calculated with an additional $10 charge in the Bill Hero calculation for what this plan would cost for a monthly bill. The system actually calculates this additional charge by bill-days, not months, but you get the idea. Where Membership charges exist in a plan being compared, Bill Hero currently will add the Membership fee component to the Daily Connection Charge. So even though you will not see Membership Charge as a line item in the price breakdown for each plan, rest assured that the price of the Membership Charge is completely and accurately included in the comparison.

What if the energy bill is not in my name?

We know it's common that the person responsible for household bills and budgeting may not always be named on the bill. We can provide the Bill Hero service no matter whose name is on the bill, provided that you can supply those bills for analysis. Our default approach is to set up your new energy account after your first switch using your Bill Hero email forwarding address, so that even if the new account with a new retailer is still not under your own name, the email address for that account will be the Bill Hero forwarding address, so the bills and account correspondence will be sent to the Bill Hero forwarding address. Every message sent to your Bill Hero email forwarding address will be auto-forwarded to your personal email address. Alternatively, you can manually forward each bill to Bill Hero for analysis as you receive each one.

What about the government comparison sites?

The government comparison sites cover all the publicly available plans, just like Bill Hero does. But they are complicated to use, you've got to do all the work yourself and then make the switch on your own. And you need to keep going back again and again if you want to make sure you stay on a competitive plan. Bill Hero is not a comparison site. It's a Savings Service that does all the comparison and ranking work for you, helps you switch, and then automatically monitors and compares every bill for you to help make sure you always stay on the best-priced plan. Bill Hero also offers many additional features that none of the commercial or government comparison sites does: | Commercial sites| Government sites| Bill Hero ---|---|---|--- Compare all plans from all retailers| ❌| ✅| ✅ No commissions| ❌| ✅| ✅ Automated comparison for every bill| ❌| ❌| ✅ Bothered Threshold| ❌| ❌| ✅ Assisted switching| ✅| ❌| ✅ GreenPower price comparison| ❌| ❌| ✅ Green Ratings| ❌| ❌| ✅ Australia Ownership| ❌| ❌| ✅ (Coming soon) Australian call centres| ❌| ❌| ✅ (Coming soon) The Victorian government is currently offering a $250 Power Saving Bonus for every Victorian household that visits Victoria Energy Compare and completes a comparison. If you live in Victoria, we say go for it! You can use part of your bonus payment to pay for your Bill Hero subscription, which will do much more than help you find a competitive plan. We'll monitor every bill for you to help make sure that you always stay on the most competitive plans available. Find out more Find out more about the Power Saving Bonus here: https://compare.energy.vic.gov.au/psb-faq

How can I join the Bill Hero Beta Program

Bill Hero has an exciting roadmap of updates and feature extensions and has set up a Beta Program to engage Bill Hero subscribers to help us prioritise, refine, test and review new features and elements for the service. To request to join the Beta Program, please contact us at [email protected].

How we rank your bill

We take all the details from your bill including tariff type, kWh consumption, start and end date, solar exports, solar feed-in tariff, plus any discounts, concessions and incentives that might also be present. Then we calculate what you would have been charged for that same usage and time under every relevant publicly available plan, and we rank them all by price, including your own bill. It's very illuminating to see where your bill lands in the lineup.

How is Bill Hero different to comparison sites?

Comparison sites make money by taking commissions from their real customers, the energy retailers on their 'panel' of providers. The comparison sites are working for them, not for you. They don't actually 'compare the market', and you or I can never really 'select' the best deal, because they'll only ever show you plans from the retailers they work for, and their incentive is to sell you into any plan that will generate a commission, not to find the plan that is best for you. Also, comparison sites are one-time only, so you need to keep going back, over and over again, to review your plan. Retailers know that many people find this too hard, so they ratchet up their prices over time. Bill Hero is different. We automatically monitor and analyse every bill for you, and compare that bill against the entire market of relevant plans from every retailer. We calculate what your bill would have cost under every one of those alternative plans, then rank them all by price to see exactly where your bill stands and how much you could save. We'll let you know whenever we find savings for you greater than your personal Bothered Threshold. We never seek or accept any commissions, kickbacks, payments or inducements of any kind from retailers. We're funded solely by subscribers like you, which means we are 100% independent, and our only incentive is to keep you happy by ensuring you're always on the best deal. We know exactly who we're working for. Bill Hero is at your service.

How does Bill Hero handle discounts?

Discounts often feature prominently in the marketing of energy plans, but it’s hard to understand what the real-world price impact will be since a discount can be conditional or guaranteed and can apply to your kWh consumption charges only, to your supply charges only, or to both the consumption and the supply charges. Guaranteed discounts will always be applied to your bill, whether you pay on time or not. Bill Hero automatically includes all guaranteed discounts in our comparison calculations. Conditional discounts are common and usually depend on on-time bill payment and/or direct debit, so your behaviour as a bill payer can be a major influence on the effective price you will pay. You can use the 'Pay on time' filter in our personalised rankings screen to see how prices will change due to the impact of payment behaviour and conditional discounts: There are four settings for the Pay on Time filter: - Direct debit : When you say you pay by Direct Debit, we apply the full potential discount benefit for each plan, including any incremental discounts that may be tied to direct debit payment, or to payment in advance. - Yes : When you say you always pay on time, we apply the full potential discount benefit for each energy offer, excluding any incremental Direct Debit or advance payment discounts. - Sometimes : When you say you sometimes pay on time, we apply half the potential discount benefit for each plan, exclusive of any Direct Debit discount. This generates annualised results equivalent to you paying half your bills on time, and half of them late. - No : When you say you do not pay on time, we do not apply any conditional discount benefits for any plan. By default, the comparison results presented to you will assume that you're willing to pay by direct debit or in advance, since this usually ensures the best possible prices. You can use the Pay on Time filter to see what the price implications are for different payment behaviours. Each time you reset the Pay on Time filter value, the plans and prices are re-calculated and re-ranked for you, so it's easy to see which plan is the most cost-effective under each payment scenario. Some plans are available only to customers that agree to direct debit or advance payment only. These plans will not be visible if you change the Pay on Time filter to another value. Note We do not reveal any of your payment behaviour information to any retailer. This functionality and the information it reveals is private to you and is intended to help you find the best possible priced plan for your payment behaviour.

How we handle gas bills

We've found that it's nearly always more cost-effective to find the best priced electricity and gas plans separately, rather than looking only at the 'dual fuel' plans that some retailers offer. In practice, a 'dual fuel' electricity + gas plan usually means only that an additional incremental conditional discount will be applied to the electricity bill. You'll usually still receive separate bills on different billing cycles – monthly or quarterly for electricity, and bi-monthly for gas. ‍ For these reasons, Bill Hero treats gas as a completely separate subscription.

How will I pay my energy bills?

You'll need to pay your bill directly to your new retailer. Bill Hero does not handle payment collection.