rb99:

..though now that I look, the Frank phone app monitors daily usage ?

In my experience almost everyone has different use cases for power.

I review my power costs every 12-18 months and switch if needed.

For me contact with the Free power weekends worked out very well. I have 2 electric cars and can charge them both over the weekend as was as heating./washing etc etc.

Had 100KW of free power one weekend recently!

For me I am saving $1000+ a year by time shifting my usuage to the weekend, but I accept I am not the average user.

As an aside I worked out recently in the past year I have switched banks, ISP, Electricity, insurance and mobile phone companies.
All saving me money.

Switched from Frank to Flick last year when we got an EV.

When I commute to work, it takes about 60-65% (up to about 42kWh) of the battery. I do this 2-3 times a week. I charge from 9pm when half price off-peak comes in.

I think at the time I worked out that with Flick, the power was going to be about $20 a month cheaper than anyone else (I did a big spreadsheet for it).

I also like Bill Smoother with them and we pay weekly. I just have the weekly amount on smoother set to $100. Our 'normal' weekly bill is between $70 and $75. Once the smoother account hits $500 we just take a few weeks off without paying anything. We'll be saving the current smoother amount up till Christmas - always good to have a few extra bucks that time of year.

Had a quick look at Flick and pricing was between Nova and Frank. They are I guess small differences which can change anytime they feel the urge. We don't have any lectric cars or solar anything so am still tending to flat rate for now though.

Powerswitch only gives a very rough estimate, assuming an average usage pattern which likely favours flat rates. You can do better than there suggests with companies that offer different rates depending on your time of use, assuming you are willing change habits (like running washing machines/dryers overnight etc).

The most reliable option to compare power companies is get a couple of months hourly power data from your current power company and then work out an average use profile and set up a spreadsheet that uses that to calculate what the different plans would actually cost you. Then try to factor in things like moving major power uses into off peak hours (hot water, spas, pools, electric cars, cooking).

Recent Frank convert here. There doesn't seem to be a way in their self-service site to download the hourly data for more than 24 hours? With Mercury I could request up to I think it was 6 months of hourly data -- but so far I've only managed to find the option to download hourly data for a single day only.

We are currently signed up to a 2 year deal with Mercury which worked well for us, but I dont think we can get that a second time, so looking at a new provider.

Having prices fixed for 2 years was great but it does mean a huge jump in prices now.

Is Contact Weekends Plan the best way to go?  does anyone know if they do a prompt payment discount or is that not a thing anymore?

Bee:

 

We are currently signed up to a 2 year deal with Mercury which worked well for us, but I dont think we can get that a second time, so looking at a new provider.

 

Having prices fixed for 2 years was great but it does mean a huge jump in prices now.

 

Is Contact Weekends Plan the best way to go?  does anyone know if they do a prompt payment discount or is that not a thing anymore?

 

Contact Energy, second-biggest by market share, stopped offering prompt payment plans to new residential customers in May 2019.