British Gas Home Energy (November 2026)
Overview
Neither wins outright: Home Energy's priced deal is £20 a year cheaper with no exit fee, while British Gas has far more reviews and higher app ratings but weaker contact scores.
Neither supplier comes out clearly ahead. The evidence points in different directions, and Home Energy has no current independent service scores to compare with British Gas. Home Energy's Fair Variable Dual costs £1,602 a year with no exit fee. That is £20 a year, or about £2 a month, less than British Gas's lowest priced deal shown, the Cap Tracker Mar2028 v1, which costs £1,622 and has a £50 exit fee. British Gas has a higher Trustpilot rating, 4.4 against 3.9, from far more reviews, and much higher app ratings. However, its Citizens Advice score of 2.61 and low Which? customer ratings for service and contact point to weaker support.
The better choice depends on what matters most to your household. Home Energy may suit people who want the lower price shown here and the freedom to leave without a fee. British Gas may suit people who value a well-rated app and a large body of customer feedback, provided they can accept its weaker contact scores.
About British Gas and Home Energy
Who are British Gas?
British Gas says it has been looking after Britain's homes for over 200 years. Today it is part of Centrica PLC and shares the group's values and plans for the future. Its about page says it powers over 8 million homes and businesses in Britain, which it describes as more than any other supplier.
The company says it is on a mission to make homes more sustainable. It aims to make life at home easier, greener and more affordable, from keeping things working to helping people move to newer low-carbon technology. It also backs sport through partnerships with Team GB, Paralympics GB, Scottish Rugby, Scottish Football and Women's Super League Football. It says it uses these to encourage greener living at home and to support the communities behind the athletes.
Products & services
Awards & recognition
Who are Home Energy?
Home Energy says its aim is to offer energy you can trust and customer service you deserve, and customer service is the theme it leans on most. Its homepage puts customer feedback up front, showing a Trustpilot rating of 3.9 next to recent comments from customers.
Many of those comments name staff who sorted out problems by live chat, instant message or phone. The problems included meter readings that could not be sent through the app, a credit refund that had not been paid automatically and a smart meter issue that was fixed quickly. One customer who is not confident with technology says a member of staff talked them through each step by phone. Not every comment is glowing. One customer describes a slow start after switching, because a delay in information from the electricity meter meant no bills were produced at first.
Products & services
Use our referral link, and we'll both get £50 credit once your switch is complete.
Existing customer? Find out how you can benefit too. T&Cs apply (only one switching offer per household)
Tariffs and pricing
Of the two suppliers' lowest priced deals, Home Energy's Fair Variable Dual is cheaper at £1,602 a year. It is a variable tariff, so its rates can change, and it has no exit fee. The lowest annual estimate shown for British Gas is the Cap Tracker Mar2028 v1 at £1,622 a year. This is a tracker tariff, so its rates can also change. It costs £20 a year, or about £2 a month, more than Home Energy's deal and carries a £50 exit fee if you leave early.
If you want a British Gas deal with no exit fee, its Standard Variable tariff is priced at £1,672 a year. That is £50 a year more than the Cap Tracker and £70 a year more than Home Energy's Fair Variable Dual, so you pay a little more in return for being able to leave without a charge.
If you would rather fix your prices, British Gas's Fix and Fall Nov28 v1 is a 24-month fixed deal at £2,066 a year. That is £444 a year more than the Cap Tracker, and it has a £250 exit fee. It may suit households who want to know their prices for two years and do not expect to move or switch in that time. There is no fixed tariff among the Home Energy deals priced here. All the priced deals from both suppliers are paid by monthly Direct Debit.
| Metric | British Gas | Home Energy |
|---|---|---|
| Cheapest tariff exit fee | £50 | £0 |
British Gas and Home Energy: tariff options
British Gas
Households who simply want gas and electricity can choose a price that moves, one that follows the price cap or a fixed price. The Standard Variable tariff can go up or down with the energy market, within Ofgem's price cap, and has no exit fee. The Cap Tracker follows the price cap, while Fix and Fall fixes prices for two years, with a price review after 12 months based on Ofgem's price cap. Both of these charge an exit fee if you leave early, so the Standard Variable tariff is the one to pick if you want to be free to leave.[1]
The smart tariffs need a smart electricity meter and give cheaper off-peak electricity, so they suit homes that can move heavy use into those hours. The choice depends on your equipment: EV Power for overnight car charging, Heat Power for heat pumps or electric heating, and Charge Power for home batteries.
If you generate your own electricity, the SEG tariff pays for what you export. EV drivers can also add Hive Power+ to a British Gas electricity tariff, but it needs a compatible EV charger and a smart meter in credit mode.
Home Energy
Fair Variable Dual is a variable tariff for homes that get both gas and electricity from Home Energy. Its rates are not locked for a set period, so they can go up or down over time. That suits households who value flexibility more than knowing exactly what they will pay months ahead.
To see which plans apply to your home, Home Energy asks for your postcode and energy use and gives you a tailored quote, so you can compare its tariffs and choose one. After signing up, you have a 14-day window to change your mind if the plan turns out not to suit you. Once your supply has moved over, you can manage your tariff through the Home Energy app, where you can also check statements and submit meter readings.
Customer reviews
British Gas has a Trustpilot rating of 4.4 from 360,671 reviews, a very large base of feedback, while Home Energy scores 3.9 from 950 reviews. Beneath those ratings the overall mood is similar. Both have 74% positive reviews, and Home Energy has a slightly higher share of five-star reviews at 70%, against 66% for British Gas. Yet about one in five reviews for each supplier is one-star, 20% for British Gas and 21% for Home Energy, so both have a sizeable group of unhappy customers.
British Gas reviewers often praise its engineers for turning up on time, working quickly and leaving homes tidy, and they like the clear explanations of how boilers and other equipment work. Criticism centres on customer service and communication. Reviewers mention long phone waits, trouble reaching a helpful adviser, mixed messages from different staff and appointments moved without enough notice. British Gas replies to 99% of negative reviews, usually within 24 hours.
Home Energy reviewers often describe staff as friendly, professional and quick to sort out questions, and many mention good value and affordable prices. Complaints focus on price rises soon after switching to its variable rates, missing statements, slow refunds and problems updating or closing accounts. Home Energy replies to 95% of negative reviews, typically within a week.
British Gas has a Which? total score of 59%. In the Which? customer survey, its customers gave it 2 out of 5 for overall customer service, value for money and ease of contacting. The separate Which? supplier assessment gives it 8 out of 10 for help for those who need it, but 3 out of 10 for smart meters and 0 out of 5 for switching. Home Energy does not have a current Which? figure.
Mobile apps
The British Gas app is rated 4.5 on the App Store from 16,000 ratings and 4.1 on Google Play from 14,084 ratings, with over 1,000,000 installs on Android. It has been updated on both platforms in the past week. The latest update brings a redesigned Pay As You Go section with simpler top-ups from the home screen, clearer explanations when your Direct Debit is reviewed and a new look for account settings.
Recent iPhone reviews are less positive than the overall rating suggests. Some users say statements and bills are hard to read, and that usage information is missing or hard to find. One said electricity usage stopped showing after a new smart meter was fitted, while another found the separate log-ins for gas and electricity awkward.
Home Energy says its app lets you check your statements, submit meter readings and manage your tariff. It is rated 2.3 on the App Store from 7 ratings and 2.0 on Google Play from 20 ratings, which is too few to compare fairly with British Gas's tens of thousands of ratings. One iPhone user reported still being unable to change their Direct Debit after an update, and another said the app would not keep them logged in.
Service and support
Hours: Available
British Gas has a Citizens Advice score of 2.61 out of 5 and is ranked 14th in its customer service table for April to June 2026. Home Energy has no current Citizens Advice score, so there is no independent service score to set against the British Gas figure, and Trustpilot reviews are the main guide to its service.
There are no current figures for call centre waits, email replies or social media responses for either supplier, so it is not possible to say which one answers faster. Citizens Advice lists webchat as one way to contact British Gas. The Which? figures for British Gas point in two directions: its supplier assessment gives 9 out of 12 for contacting your supplier, yet customers rated ease of contacting just 2 out of 5, which matches reviewers' comments about long phone waits.
For households that need extra support, the Which? supplier assessment gives British Gas 8 out of 10 for help for those who need it. Citizens Advice lists Direct Debit, cash or cheque and prepayment as ways to pay British Gas, although the British Gas and Home Energy deals priced on this page are all paid by monthly Direct Debit.
Complaints and how they are handled
British Gas reported 944 complaints per 100,000 customer accounts in Q2 2026. This figure counts complaint events, so it is not the number or share of individual customers who complained. In the same quarter, British Gas resolved 42.5% of complaints by the same or next working day and 85.5% within 8 weeks. These percentages show how quickly complaints were closed, not whether customers were happy with the outcome.
Citizens Advice figures measure something different. For April to June 2026, British Gas had 68.8 complaints per 10,000 customers made to advice bodies and the Energy Ombudsman, rather than to British Gas itself. Because this uses a different count and a different denominator, it should not be set against the 944 figure above. It gives a sense of how often problems were taken outside the company.
No complaints data was available for Home Energy. That means this page cannot show whether Home Energy gets more or fewer complaints than British Gas, how quickly it resolves them, or what its customers most often complain about. If complaint handling matters to your choice, the evidence here describes British Gas only.
British Gas also published its main complaint themes, shown below with the share of complaints each made up. The source does not give a period for these themes, so they may not cover the same quarter as the headline figures. Billing was the largest theme by a wide margin, at 51% of complaints.
British Gas and Home Energy: green energy
British Gas
British Gas publishes a fuel mix page that sets out where its electricity comes from, what effect it has on the environment and what the company is doing to be more sustainable. That page describes the power British Gas supplies overall, which is separate from anything promised about a particular tariff.
Much of its green message is about when you use electricity. British Gas says its smart time-of-use tariffs make clever use of cleaner energy and that using off-peak electricity is better for the environment, as well as cheaper. These tariffs need a smart electricity meter, which records when you use power so off-peak hours can be charged at the lower rate. A household gets the benefit by moving use into those hours, such as charging an EV overnight or running the dishwasher late.[1]
Homes that make their own power can join the Smart Export Guarantee tariff, which pays for spare electricity sent back to the grid. British Gas says all renewable systems are welcome, not just solar panels, and that its own electricity customers get its best export price.
British Gas says homes produce around 40% of the UK's carbon emissions. It offers heat pumps, insulation, solar panels, batteries and EV chargers as ways to cut a home's carbon footprint. These are separate purchases rather than part of an energy tariff.[2]
Outside household supply, its Energy for Tomorrow programme has used matched funding to help five local sports clubs install solar panels and upgrade their facilities. The company also says it is helping the UK reach zero carbon emissions by 2050. That is a wider company aim rather than a description of the electricity supplied on any tariff.
Home Energy
Home Energy's electricity fuel mix shows that the electricity it supplies to customers comes from a blend of sources, not renewables alone. The mix lists renewable energy, natural gas, nuclear power, coal and a small amount from other sources. Renewables and natural gas make up most of it.[3]
These sources affect the climate in different ways. Nuclear power produces little carbon when it generates electricity, but it is not renewable, while natural gas and coal are fossil fuels. Home Energy says coal is only a small part of its mix and that it is working to reduce it further.
This mix describes Home Energy's electricity supply as a whole. It shows the overall balance of sources behind the power the company supplies, not a separate promise attached to any particular tariff. The electricity reaching your home still comes through the shared national grid, whichever supplier you choose.
Our verdict
| If you care most about | Choose |
|---|---|
| The lowest priced dual-fuel variable tariff | Home Energy |
Neither wins outright: Home Energy's priced deal is £20 a year cheaper with no exit fee, while British Gas has far more reviews and higher app ratings but weaker contact scores.
British Gas and Home Energy suit different households. British Gas has much more customer feedback behind it, with a Trustpilot rating of 4.4 from 360,671 reviews. Reviewers often praise its engineers, and its app ratings of 4.5 on iPhone and 4.1 on Android come from thousands of users. Its weak spot is getting in touch: it has a Citizens Advice score of 2.61, customers give it 2 out of 5 for service and ease of contacting in the Which? survey, and reviewers mention long phone waits.
Home Energy's Fair Variable Dual costs £20 a year less than British Gas's lowest priced deal shown and has no exit fee, and its customers often praise helpful staff. However, Home Energy has no current Citizens Advice score or Which? score, its 3.9 Trustpilot rating rests on 950 reviews and its app has too few ratings to judge, so there is much less evidence about its service than for British Gas.
If a lower price and being free to leave matter most, Home Energy is the better fit. If you value a well-rated app, a large body of customer reviews and British Gas home services such as boiler cover, British Gas may suit you better, provided you can accept its weaker contact scores and the £50 exit fee on the Cap Tracker.
- Trustpilot rating of 4.4 from 360,671 reviews, with frequent praise for punctual, tidy engineers
- App ratings of 4.5 on the App Store and 4.1 on Google Play from thousands of users
- 8 out of 10 for help for those who need it in the Which? supplier assessment
- Standard Variable tariff priced at £1,672 a year with no exit fee
- Citizens Advice score of 2.61, ranked 14th
- Customers give 2 out of 5 for service and ease of contacting in the Which? survey, and reviewers mention long phone waits
- Cap Tracker Mar2028 v1 costs £20 a year more than Home Energy's deal and has a £50 exit fee
- Fix and Fall Nov28 v1 costs £2,066 a year with a £250 exit fee over 24 months
- Fair Variable Dual costs £1,602 a year, £20 less than British Gas's lowest priced deal shown
- No exit fee on the Fair Variable Dual
- 70% of Trustpilot reviews are five-star, with staff often described as friendly and helpful
- App lets you check statements, submit meter readings and manage your tariff
- No current Citizens Advice score or Which? score
- Trustpilot rating of 3.9 from 950 reviews, with 21% one-star
- Reviewers mention price rises after switching, missing statements and slow refunds
- App ratings come from very few users: 2.3 from 7 on the App Store and 2.0 from 20 on Google Play
Use our referral link, and we'll both get £50 credit once your switch is complete.
Existing customer? Find out how you can benefit too. T&Cs apply (only one switching offer per household)
Frequently asked questions
Is there an exit fee on British Gas's cheapest tariff shown?
Yes. The Cap Tracker Mar2028 v1, the lowest priced British Gas deal here at £1,622 a year, has a £50 exit fee. British Gas's Standard Variable tariff has no exit fee and is priced at £1,672 a year.
Can I leave Home Energy's Fair Variable Dual without paying a fee?
Yes. The Fair Variable Dual has a £0 exit fee. It is a variable tariff, so its rates can change, and it is priced at £1,602 a year.
How long is the British Gas fixed deal and what does it cost to leave?
The Fix and Fall Nov28 v1 is a 24-month fixed deal priced at £2,066 a year, with a £250 exit fee if you leave early. There is no fixed tariff among the Home Energy deals priced here.
Do I have to pay by Direct Debit?
All the British Gas and Home Energy deals priced on this page are paid by monthly Direct Debit. Citizens Advice also lists cash or cheque and prepayment as ways to pay British Gas, but those options may not apply to every tariff.
What can I do in the Home Energy app?
Home Energy says its app lets you check your statements, submit meter readings and manage your tariff. Its store ratings come from only 7 App Store and 20 Google Play users. One iPhone user reported being unable to change their Direct Debit, and another said the app would not keep them logged in.
What do customers complain about most at each supplier?
British Gas reviewers mainly mention long phone waits, difficulty reaching a helpful adviser, mixed messages and appointments moved at short notice. Home Energy reviewers mention price rises soon after switching, missing statements, slow refunds and problems updating or closing accounts.
Why is there no Citizens Advice or Which? score for Home Energy?
A current figure from either source is not available for Home Energy. This means its service can mainly be judged from its 950 Trustpilot reviews. British Gas has a Citizens Advice score of 2.61 and a Which? total score of 59%.
How does British Gas do on help for customers who need extra support?
The Which? supplier assessment gives British Gas 8 out of 10 for help for those who need it. This rates the support it offers rather than promising that every customer will get the same help.
What changed this month
This month, Home Energy's iOS app updates in last 90 days rose from 0 to 1, Home Energy's iOS app days since last update fell from 240 to 28, and British Gas's iOS app days since last update fell from 29 to 5. There were 23 other data changes this month — see the full changelog below for details.
Data changes this month (30)
British Gas
- Trustpilot reviews357,334 → 360,671
- iOS app ratings count15,000 → 16,000
- iOS app days since last update29 → 5
- iOS sampled reviews avg stars1.67 → 1.33
- Play Store rating4.2234955 → 4.0832157
- Play Store ratings count13,984 → 14,084
- Play Store days since last update30 → 6
- Play Store positive ratings %81.6 → 77.7
- Play Store negative ratings %15.5 → 19.2
- Play Store neutral ratings %2.9 → 3.1
- Play Store net-positive %66.1 → 58.5
- Cheapest fixed tariff£1,950.21 → £2,066.49
Home Energy
- Trustpilot rating4 → 3.9
- Trustpilot reviews916 → 950
- Trustpilot 5-star %71 → 70
- Trustpilot 1-star %20 → 21
- Trustpilot negative reviews replied %94 → 95
- Trustpilot positive reviews %75 → 74
- Trustpilot negative reviews %23 → 24
- Trustpilot net-positive %52 → 50
- iOS app days since last update240 → 28
- iOS app updates in last 90 days0 → 1
- iOS sampled reviews avg stars1.5 → 1
- Play Store rating2.1111112 → 2
- Play Store ratings count18 → 20
- Play Store days since last update21 → 32
- Play Store positive ratings %16.7 → 15
- Play Store negative ratings %66.7 → 70
- Play Store neutral ratings %16.7 → 15
- Play Store net-positive %-50 → -55
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Written by
Rob Gibbs
Hi, I'm Rob, and I run Energy-Review.co.uk. I initially started this project in 2018 when I was looking to switch energy suppliers and found there wasn't a website that provided simple, data-backed reviews on all the suppliers available. Since then, I have spent a lot of time (too much, some may say!) looking at all publicly available data about each supplier and writing reviews using this information. These reviews are updated as regularly as possible, and any data is backed up by a source where necessary. I have also started writing guides on various energy-related topics, which hopefully you will find useful. If you find any issues, please use our contact form to let us know.