Octopus Go review (September 2026)
A cheap overnight electricity rate for a fixed window, with a higher day rate.
Updated for September 2026
Tariff snapshot
The important details in one place
- Current tariff issue
- Octopus Go
- GO-VAR-22-10-14
- Price changes
- By time band
- The same scheduled price periods repeat each day
- Against the price cap
- 0.02p per kWh below today
- Compares today’s regional average unit rate with the applicable cap rate
- Estimated annual cost
- £864
- Based on 2,500 kWh used in the selected region, including the current standing charge
Key tariff facts
- The same scheduled price periods repeat each day
- Variable-rate tariff
- No exit fee on the selected offer
- Monthly Direct Debit · Single-register meter
- Compatible smart meter required
- Electricity tariff
- Regional unit rates and standing charges
Current product options
Current versions of Octopus Go
Suppliers can offer more than one version at once. The independently resolved regional prices on this page use Octopus Go. Other cards identify the product terms held in the current catalogue, but do not turn a product-detail snapshot into a current rate. Compare the exact product code and quote before relying on them.
Octopus Go 12M Fixed
GO-FIX-12M-26-09-18
12-month fixed term
- Unit rate
- Check current quote
- Standing charge
- Check current quote
- Payment
- Monthly Direct Debit
- Exit fee
- None
- Rates shown
Octopus Go
GO-VAR-22-10-14
Variable rates
- Unit rate
- See full schedule below
- Standing charge
- 56.56p/day
- Payment
- Monthly Direct Debit
- Exit fee
- None
The short answer
Who Octopus Go is most likely to work for
Go is the simplest of the EV tariffs: a fixed cheap window overnight, a higher rate the rest of the time, and nothing to schedule beyond setting the car to charge in the window.
Go requires an EV or plug-in hybrid that you charge at home. Once that requirement is met, a battery or other schedulable load can increase the share used overnight; the full household calculation still decides whether the higher day rate is worthwhile.
Octopus Go splits the day in two: a cheap overnight window, and a single higher rate for everything else. It was built for electric vehicles, and it still suits that job best.
The current window and both rates are shown in the band schedule above for the region you have selected. The trade-off is simple. You get a very low overnight price, and you pay more than a standard tariff during the day.
In its favour
- Very cheap overnight rate at a time you can predict
- No hardware compatibility list to satisfy
- You keep control of when charging happens
- No exit fees
Against it
- Day rate is higher than a standard tariff
- Only pays if you can move a lot of load overnight
- The window is fixed, so it does not follow cheap prices
- Needs a smart meter on half-hourly readings
How it works
How Octopus Go sets its prices
Electricity used inside the overnight window is billed at the cheap rate. Everything outside it is billed at the day rate, which is higher than you would pay on a standard variable tariff.
The window is fixed and the same every night, so unlike Agile there is nothing to check and nothing to time beyond setting a charger to run overnight.
Whether Go saves you money depends on how much of your electricity you can move into the window. Below a certain point, the higher day rate costs you more than the cheap nights save.
Things to watch
The main trade-offs
The day rate is higher than a standard tariff. A household without a large overnight load will usually lose money on Go.
The window is fixed. If your car is not plugged in during it, you get no benefit that night.
Heating, cooking and laundry mostly happen outside the window, so they cost more here than elsewhere.
Live tariff data
Octopus Go prices for your area
Electricity rates and standing charges differ by distribution region. Enter your postcode or choose your electricity region before local figures are shown.
Today’s price bands
South Wales
- Average today
- 26.31p
- Cheapest today
- 8.63p
- Most expensive today
- 30.97p
- Standing charge
- 56.56p
weighted by how long each price lasts
per day
Today’s price bands
Octopus Go repeats a daily shape rather than pricing every half hour separately, so the bands are the schedule.
| From | To | Hours | Price |
|---|---|---|---|
| 00:00 | 00:30 | 0.5 | 30.97pmost expensive |
| 00:30 | 05:30 | 5.0 | 8.63pcheapest |
| 05:30 | 00:00 | 18.5 | 30.97pmost expensive |
What the daily bands add up to
Calculated from the complete band schedule shown above. It describes the tariff, not how much of your electricity will land in each period.
- Time at the cheapest rate
- 5 hours
- 20.8% of the schedule
- Time-weighted band average
- 26.31p/kWh
- Assumes constant use or export through the day
- Highest-to-lowest spread
- 22.34p/kWh
- A price difference, not a saving or battery profit
When to use electricity
- Cheapest 3-hour run starts 00:30, averaging 8.63p per kWh.
- Cheapest half hour today is 00:30 at 8.63p.
- Most expensive is 00:00 at 30.97p, so it is worth avoiding heavy use then.
Against the price cap in South Wales
The Ofgem cap for a single-rate direct debit meter here is 26.33p per kWh plus 57.84p a day. Today this tariff averaged 0.02p below the cap unit rate.
This compares one day’s unit rates only. What you pay also depends on the standing charge and on when you use electricity, so treat this as an indication rather than a saving. Cap period 2026-07-01 to 2026-09-30.
Estimated annual cost
£864a year
2,500 kWh a year in South Wales, at 26.31p per kWh plus 56.56p a day standing charge.
Our estimate, using the average price Octopus Go actually charged over the last 31 days. Octopus Go prices change through the day, so what you pay depends on when you use electricity. This applies the time-weighted average price to every unit, equivalent to spreading usage evenly across the recorded price periods.
Octopus Energy quotes £981 for the same household. Their published illustration does not use our measured-history basis, so keep it separate rather than treating the two figures as like-for-like forecasts.
Use your own figures
What could a month on Octopus Go cost you?
Estimate what it would cost
Enter the electricity you expect to use over 30 days.
Enter a number of kWh to see what it would cost at today’s average price.
Cost your home EV charging
The lowest currently displayed rate is 8.63p per kWh (00:30–05:30); the highest displayed rate is 30.97p per kWh. Tell us how much charging you can actually move into the lower-rate period rather than assuming it is all overnight.
Enter all of the figures above to see the calculation.
Household fit
Who Octopus Go might be good for
The right answer depends on your equipment, routine and tolerance for changing prices—not just how much electricity you use.
Likely to suit
- Electric vehicle owners who can charge inside the overnight window
- EV homes that can also fill a battery cheaply overnight
- EV households able to move other loads into the overnight window
Less likely to suit
- Households that cannot move much use into the overnight window — the day rate is higher than a standard tariff
- Anyone without an electric vehicle or plug-in hybrid charged at home
- Drivers whose charging happens at work or in public rather than at home
Before switching
Check the requirements and what will affect the result
What you need
- A smart meter sending half-hourly readings
- An electric vehicle or plug-in hybrid that you charge at the home supplied on this tariff
- Available across Great Britain, priced by distribution region
What drives what you pay
- The proportion of your usage that falls inside the overnight window
- How much you charge, and whether your charger can be scheduled reliably
- Daytime consumption, which is billed at a premium rate
- The standing charge, which applies regardless
Match the tariff to your home
Your largest electrical loads can change the answer
A specialist tariff can be better aligned with one large device, but its eligibility and expensive periods still matter. These are comparisons to make, not automatic recommendations.
If you have an EV
Octopus Go is already designed around electric-vehicle charging. Compare its cheap window, daytime rate, automation and compatibility with the alternatives before choosing.
If you have solar without a battery
The import tariff and the rate paid for exported electricity are separate decisions. A straightforward export tariff can be more useful than a peak-weighted battery tariff when generation is exported as it happens.
If you have solar and a home battery
A paired import/export tariff may fit better because a battery can charge in a cheap period and discharge or export in a more valuable one. The gross rate spread is not the same as profit after losses and degradation.
If you have a heat pump
A heat-pump tariff may align its cheaper periods with space and hot-water heating. Whether it wins depends on insulation, controls and how much heat can move away from expensive periods.
Alternatives
Other smart tariffs from Octopus and EDF to compare
These are other smart-tariff comparisons from the two suppliers, not a claim that every option suits the same household.
Intelligent Octopus Go
Intelligent Go gives a similar cheap window but lets Octopus schedule your charging, extending the cheap rate to slots it chooses outside the standard window. If your car or charger is compatible, Intelligent Go is usually the better version of the same idea. Go is the fallback when it is not.
Review Intelligent Octopus GoAgile Octopus
Go gives one guaranteed cheap window; Agile gives cheap periods that move. Go is simpler and more certain for overnight charging. Agile has more upside for a household that can shift usage across the whole day, and more downside if it cannot.
Review Agile OctopusCosy Octopus
Both are banded tariffs, but they are shaped for different loads: Go for a big overnight draw, Cosy for a heat pump running in blocks through the day. Choose by what you are actually trying to run cheaply.
Review Cosy OctopusOther Octopus Energy tariff reviews
Browse every other Octopus Energy tariff covered on Energy Review. Availability, eligibility and price structure are explained on each review.
Price history
How Octopus Go prices have moved
The line is the average price for each day; the shaded range shows the cheapest and most expensive prices within it.
Combined across 4 versions of this tariff, each shown for the period it was on sale. We hold prices from Oct 2022. A gap means no version of this tariff was on sale then.
What this selected history can show
29 of 30 days are represented in the stored history. The figures below use complete daily or monthly periods only, so a partial period cannot create a false low or high.
Negative-slot frequency, percentiles and a 4pm–7pm peak cannot be calculated from this daily/monthly history. They need a separately bounded half-hourly history read.
- Lowest complete-period rate
- 9.50p/kWh
- Highest complete-period rate
- 39.22p/kWh
- Mean of complete-period averages
- 29.76p/kWh
Last 30 days: 30 days from 22 Aug to 21 Sept. Average prices range from 29.37p to 39.22p per kWh. The shaded band shows the cheapest and most expensive price in each period.
1 of 30 periods are only partly covered by stored prices and are shown as they are rather than filled in.
Show these 30 figures as a table
| Period | Average | Cheapest | Most expensive |
|---|---|---|---|
| 22 Aug | 29.37p | 9.50p | 34.60p |
| 23 Aug | 29.37p | 9.50p | 34.60p |
| 24 Aug | 29.37p | 9.50p | 34.60p |
| 25 Aug | 29.37p | 9.50p | 34.60p |
| 26 Aug | 29.37p | 9.50p | 34.60p |
| 27 Aug | 29.37p | 9.50p | 34.60p |
| 28 Aug | 29.37p | 9.50p | 34.60p |
| 29 Aug | 29.37p | 9.50p | 34.60p |
| 30 Aug | 29.37p | 9.50p | 34.60p |
| 31 Aug | 29.37p | 9.50p | 34.60p |
| 01 Sept | 29.37p | 9.50p | 34.60p |
| 02 Sept | 29.37p | 9.50p | 34.60p |
| 03 Sept | 29.37p | 9.50p | 34.60p |
| 04 Sept | 29.37p | 9.50p | 34.60p |
| 05 Sept | 29.37p | 9.50p | 34.60p |
| 06 Sept | 29.37p | 9.50p | 34.60p |
| 07 Sept | 29.37p | 9.50p | 34.60p |
| 08 Sept | 29.37p | 9.50p | 34.60p |
| 09 Sept | 29.37p | 9.50p | 34.60p |
| 10 Sept | 29.37p | 9.50p | 34.60p |
| 11 Sept | 29.37p | 9.50p | 34.60p |
| 12 Sept | 29.37p | 9.50p | 34.60p |
| 13 Sept | 29.37p | 9.50p | 34.60p |
| 14 Sept | 29.37p | 9.50p | 34.60p |
| 15 Sept | 29.37p | 9.50p | 34.60p |
| 16 Sept | 29.37p | 9.50p | 34.60p |
| 18 Sept | 39.22p | — | — |
| 19 Sept | 33.13p | 9.97p | 39.22p |
| 20 Sept | 33.13p | 9.97p | 39.22p |
| 21 Sept | 33.13p | 9.97p | 39.22p |
Regional comparison
How prices differ across Great Britain
Octopus Go unit rate and standing charge by region
The average price per unit on 2026-09-21, including VAT. The table also shows the daily standing charge.
Hover a region for its figure, or select one to load its prices.
Tap a region to load its prices.
| Region | Per kWh | Standing charge per day |
|---|---|---|
| East Midlands | 25.08p | 52.8p |
| Yorkshire | 25.11p | 63.4p |
| North East England | 25.33p | 63.2p |
| West Midlands | 25.33p | 59.0p |
| Southern Scotland | 25.44p | 64.5p |
| North West England | 26.10p | 46.6p |
| Northern Scotland | 26.27p | 58.0p |
| South Wales | 26.31p | 56.6p |
| London | 26.33p | 44.1p |
| South West England | 26.47p | 58.0p |
| Eastern England | 26.48p | 53.9p |
| Southern England | 26.56p | 49.4p |
| South East England | 26.64p | 54.5p |
| Merseyside and North Wales | 27.35p | 69.7p |
Northern Ireland has a separate electricity market and is not covered by these regions.
Two versions of Octopus Go are running
Octopus Energy keeps existing customers on the version of a tariff they joined on. Both are live in South Wales, and over 51 days when both published a price they differed by 1.69p per kWh on average, with the current version the cheaper of the two.
The current version was dearer on 0% of those days, so the gap held in one direction throughout this period rather than swapping about. Averages over the period: 26.31p on GO-VAR-22-10-14, 28.01p on GO-FIX-12M-26-06-30. It is measured in South Wales and differs by region.
Switching tariff moves you to the current version, so it is worth knowing which one you are on before assuming a change would save you anything.
How to switch
Moving to Octopus Go
- 1
Available to new and existing Octopus customers with a smart meter on half-hourly readings. New customers join Flexible Octopus first and move across once on supply.
- 2
The switch is requested from the online dashboard or the app, and the cheap overnight window applies from the day the tariff starts.
- 3
No exit fees, but leaving locks you out of smart import tariffs for 30 days, so try it for long enough to see a full billing cycle.
Frequently asked questions
When is the Octopus Go cheap window?
The current window is shown in the band schedule above, with the exact times and both rates for your region. Octopus has changed the window over the life of the tariff, so the schedule here reflects what is in force today rather than a figure that might be out of date.
Do I need an electric vehicle for Octopus Go?
Yes. Octopus's current smart-tariff terms require an electric vehicle or plug-in hybrid that you charge at the property supplied on Go.
Is Octopus Go cheaper than Intelligent Octopus Go?
Usually not, if your vehicle or charger is compatible with Intelligent Go. Intelligent Go extends the cheap rate to slots Octopus schedules, so it tends to deliver more cheap hours for the same behaviour.
What happens if I use electricity outside the window?
It is billed at the day rate, which is higher than a standard variable tariff. That is the main trade-off to weigh up.