Is it cheaper to switch both gas and electricity to the same provider?

Introduction

Most households in Great Britain buy their gas and electricity from the same company. This setup is known as a dual fuel tariff. For years, energy suppliers have heavily promoted these bundled deals, offering them as the simplest and most cost-effective way to power your home.

By keeping both fuels under one roof, you get a single monthly bill, one Direct Debit to manage, and one customer service team to call if something goes wrong. It cuts down on household paperwork and makes it easier to track your overall energy spending.

But while dual fuel is undoubtedly the most convenient option, it is not automatically the cheapest. In a competitive market, splitting your gas and electricity between two different suppliers can sometimes save you money. You might find that one company offers a market-leading price for gas, while another has a much better rate for electricity. Deciding whether to stick with a dual fuel deal or split your supply means weighing up the convenience of a single account against the potential savings of picking the best individual rates.

What is a dual fuel tariff?

A dual fuel tariff is a contract where one energy supplier provides both your gas and your electricity. Instead of having two separate accounts with two different companies, everything is managed together.

When you sign up for a dual fuel deal, your supplier calculates your estimated annual usage for both gas and electricity. They combine these figures to work out a single monthly Direct Debit amount. This means you pay for all your energy in one go, usually on the same day each month.

When your bill arrives, it will still show your gas and electricity usage separately. You will see exactly how many kilowatt-hours (kWh) of gas you used and how many kWh of electricity you used, along with the unit rate and standing charge for each. However, the final total at the bottom of the bill is combined, making it easy to see exactly what you owe.

In the past, suppliers often offered a specific, lump-sum discount to encourage you to take both fuels — perhaps £15 or £30 knocked off your bill each year. The energy regulator, Ofgem, heavily scrutinised these complex discounts to make the market simpler and more transparent. Today, suppliers are still allowed to offer competitive combined rates, but the financial benefit is usually built directly into the unit rates and standing charges rather than appearing as a separate discount line on your bill.

Suppliers prefer you to take both fuels because it lowers their administrative costs. It is cheaper for them to process one Direct Debit, send one bill, and maintain one customer account. Any saving depends on the tariff. Compare the combined annual cost, including the unit rates and standing charges for each fuel, before deciding whether to keep both supplies with one company.

Is it actually cheaper to bundle your energy?

If you only look at one supplier, their dual fuel deal will be the cheapest option they offer. However, if you compare prices across the entire energy market, a dual fuel tariff might not be the absolute cheapest way to power your home.

Energy suppliers constantly change their prices to attract new customers. Sometimes, an independent supplier will launch a highly competitive gas-only tariff to win business, even if their electricity prices are entirely average. At the same time, a different supplier might offer an exceptionally low electricity rate.

If you split your supply, you can take advantage of these targeted deals. You can pick the cheapest gas rate from one supplier and combine it with the cheapest electricity rate from another. For households willing to put in a little extra administrative effort, this mix-and-match approach can sometimes beat the best dual fuel deal on the market.

Splitting your supply is particularly useful if your home has skewed energy usage. For example, if you live in a well-insulated home with an electric heat pump, your electricity usage will be very high, but you might only use a tiny amount of gas for a cooking hob. In this case, finding the absolute lowest electricity unit rate is the most important factor for your bills. A dual fuel deal that offers mediocre electricity rates but cheap gas would not suit you. By splitting, you can focus entirely on securing the best possible electricity tariff, without worrying about the gas rate.

Conversely, if you live in an older house with gas central heating, your gas usage will dominate your winter bills. You might benefit from finding a supplier that offers a rock-bottom gas unit rate, even if you have to get your electricity elsewhere. While the savings from splitting can be worthwhile, they are usually marginal. You might save a few dozen pounds a year rather than hundreds, so you must decide if that saving is worth the extra time it takes to manage two separate energy accounts.

Current energy costs and the price cap

To understand whether a tariff is a good deal, you need to know the current average costs. The energy market is regulated by the Ofgem price cap, which sets a maximum limit on what suppliers can charge for unit rates and standing charges on standard variable tariffs in Great Britain.

As of 1 July 2026, the Ofgem price cap for a typical dual-fuel household paying by Direct Debit is set at £1,663 a year. This figure is an illustration based on a household using 2,500 kWh of electricity and 9,500 kWh of gas annually. Under this current cap, the average electricity unit rate is roughly 26.11p per kWh, with a daily standing charge of 57.19p. For gas, the average unit rate is roughly 7.33p per kWh, with a daily standing charge of 29.04p.^[1][2][3][4]

The July 2026 cap represented an increase from the spring, driven by higher wholesale gas prices following supply disruptions earlier in the year. Looking ahead, analysts currently forecast that the next price cap, which takes effect on 1 October 2026, will rise slightly to between £1,701 and £1,747 a year to account for higher winter demand.

You do not have to stay on a standard variable tariff. Around 40% of UK homes are currently on fixed energy tariffs. Many of these households have locked in fixed deals below the £1,663 cap to secure cheaper rates and protect themselves from the expected autumn price rise. The UK Government has also recently launched a £15 billion Warm Homes Plan to upgrade home energy efficiency over time, but your immediate bill costs will always be dictated by your tariff choice and usage.

The standing charge trap

If you decide to look for separate gas and electricity suppliers, you must pay close attention to the standing charges. This is the daily fee you pay to your supplier just to have your home connected to the energy grid, regardless of whether you use any energy that day.

You will always pay a standing charge for electricity and a standing charge for gas. If you have a dual fuel tariff, both charges are bundled into your single bill. If you split your supply, you pay the electricity standing charge to one supplier and the gas standing charge to the other.

The trap lies in how some single-fuel tariffs are structured. A supplier might advertise an incredibly low unit rate for gas to grab your attention. But to make their money back, they might inflate the daily standing charge. If you are not careful, you could sign up for a cheap gas unit rate, only to find that the high daily standing charge wipes out any savings you made.

To avoid this trap, you must calculate the total annual cost of the tariff, not just look at the unit rates. You can do this by multiplying the unit rate by your estimated annual usage in kWh, and then adding the daily standing charge multiplied by 365 days. Only by comparing the total estimated annual cost can you be sure that splitting your supply is genuinely cheaper than taking a dual fuel deal.

Comparing dual fuel against separate suppliers

Choosing between a dual fuel deal and separate suppliers comes down to balancing cost against convenience. The table below outlines the main differences you will experience day to day.

The main advantage of a dual fuel tariff is simplicity. With one supplier, you only have to set up one Direct Debit. If you need to query a bill, submit a meter reading, or arrange a smart meter installation, you only have one customer service desk to deal with. If you choose a fixed tariff, both your gas and electricity rates will end on the exact same date, making it very easy to plan your next switch.

The disadvantage is that you might pay slightly more for this convenience. You are tied to one company's pricing structure, which means you cannot take advantage of another supplier's aggressively priced gas or electricity deal. If the market changes and prices drop, and you are tied into a dual fuel fix, you lose out on potential savings for both fuels.

Using separate suppliers gives you total flexibility, but the administrative burden is doubled. You will receive two separate bills, which might arrive at different times of the month. If you take out two fixed tariffs at different times of the year, they will expire at different times. This means you will have to organise two separate switches at different points in the year, rather than handling everything at once.

How smart meters handle separate suppliers

If you have a smart meter, or plan to get one, you might wonder how it works if you buy your gas and electricity from different companies. In a standard setup, you have one gas meter and one electricity meter. The gas meter does not usually connect directly to the wider network. Instead, it sends its readings to your electricity meter. The electricity meter acts as a hub, sending both your gas and electricity data back to your supplier.

If you use two different suppliers, they both need to connect to your central smart meter hub to pull their respective readings. Modern smart meters are designed to handle this without any issues. They connect to a central national database, allowing any authorised supplier to access the data they need.

However, splitting your supply can occasionally cause communication glitches. Sometimes, when a new supplier takes over just one fuel, the connection can drop, and the meter stops sending automatic readings for that specific fuel. If this happens, you will need to step in and provide manual meter readings to that supplier until they can re-establish the smart connection.

If you currently have traditional meters and want to upgrade to smart meters, having two suppliers can make the installation process slightly more complicated. You will normally need two separate smart-meter installations, one arranged by each supplier. With a dual fuel tariff, a single engineer usually replaces both meters in one visit.

How to switch if you split your supply

Switching to two different suppliers follows the same basic process as a normal switch, but you have to do everything twice. Here is how to manage the process smoothly:

Under Ofgem’s switching rules, a household energy switch should take up to five working days. You do not need to contact your old supplier to cancel; your new suppliers will handle the handover behind the scenes.

Remember that if you are currently on a fixed dual fuel tariff, leaving early might trigger exit fees. You will need to check if your current supplier charges an exit fee for gas and a separate exit fee for electricity, and factor these costs into your decision before you switch.