Keen price-watching Octopus Agile users might have felt some doubts after an expensive October. Now that the month has finished, I ran the numbers through the renewably.uk pricing engine, and indeed Octopus Agile cost more than the obvious alternative for every kind of home. It is in the midst of its worst relative performance for years.
October continued and worsened an already bad run for Agile
Why
The Iran conflict has pushed up the price of natural gas. Wholesale gas averaged 2.7p a kilowatt hour in February. After the closure of the Strait of Hormuz in March it hit 5.2p. On 24 October it reached 8.2p, the highest since December 2022.
Because Agile is completely exposed to the market, when prices are rising fast it compares poorly with other tariffs priced off the price cap, which changes only four times a year. Remarkably, while gas prices rose some 65 per cent between January 2025 and October, the average Agile price rose less than 10 per cent, thanks to policy changes (levies dropped and VAT removed) and because the UK’s renewable-rich electricity is less exposed to gas prices than other countries’ electricity, or than it used to be. It was also windy: April had more than 70 hours of negative prices, the most in three years.
Swings are increasing
The gap between each day’s cheap and expensive hours has widened too. I’ve modelled this swing as what moving use to the day’s cheapest four hours saves: 6.8p a kilowatt hour in the year to October 2024, then 7.7p, then 8.3p, and 13.6p in September, a three-year high. Whether that helps you depends on how well you can shift demand.
Despite recent performance, it’s been a pretty good year for Agile overall
October’s Agile prices were about two-thirds higher than last October’s. If that lasts the winter, every one of these homes would be better off elsewhere.
Should you abandon ship?
For the winter, probably yes – at least until the price cap rises in January
- With an EV: to Intelligent Octopus Go or Octopus Go, or a similar tariff from another supplier
- With a heat pump: to Cosy or equivalents, just for the winter
- Otherwise, to Flexible.
Leaving Agile for a standard tariff means waiting 30 days before rejoining any smart tariff.
What about us?
I repriced what we actually bought in the past 12 months for a few different tariffs. Agile has been great overall, but not very compelling recently.
So will we abandon the Agile ship? Yes, I think we probably ought to get off it until January, most likely just onto Flexible, because it is the cheapest of the options that work well with our lifestyle.
Any lessons for the future?
The most compelling takeaway is that it is likely to be worth getting off Agile soon after gas prices start to rise rapidly, because the other tariffs lag behind – and, conversely, worth getting back on soon after prices fall, because the other tariffs will lag behind on the way down too.