Octopus Energy vs EDF Energy (2023 Comparison)

EDF Energy is a well-known energy supplier and one of the UK’s ‘big six’ suppliers, established in 2002.

By comparison, Octopus Energy is a relatively new energy supplier that has quickly climbed the ranks to be one of the UK’s most popular suppliers due to its competitively priced energy tariffs and excellent reputation.

Octopus Energy was established in 2015. In this guide, we will compare these two suppliers head to head to determine which one comes out on top in the categories that matter most.

Who are EDF Energy?

EDF Energy has been supplying energy to the UK market since 2002. They are owned by French company Électricité de France, abbreviated to EDF for the UK market. EDF’s offices are based in London, and they supply over 5.7 million homes. Considering its large size, EDF has a relatively low number of customer complaints.

EDF are not just about energy either. They supply a range of smart home products, including electric vehicles, charging points, as well as boiler insurance.

Who are Octopus Energy?

Octopus Energy is part of the wider Octopus Group, established in 2000. They deal in the energy market and the investment management sector. Octopus Energy started supplying the UK energy market in 2015. Since entering the market, they have gained an impressive 5 million customers.

Octopus focus on supplying green energy, and they generate their own green electricity and gas. 100% of the energy they supply into the UK comes from renewable resources. This is produced using a combination of anaerobic digestion, wind, solar, and sea power.

Octopus has achieved several prestigious awards within the energy market for its competitive tariffs and excellent customer service record. Including the Uswitch supplier of the year and the Which? Energy supplier of the year.

Octopus vs EDF: What’s the difference in price?

Due to the Energy Price Guarantee, most suppliers are offering a very similar price to new customers. Octopus do however offer a 4% discount on the Standing Charge of their tariff, meaning they are likely to be slightly cheaper. This section will be updated once the market becomes more competitive again.

We ran a price check on both suppliers using the following criteria to see how they measure up:

• Dual Fuel supply
• Standard Meter
• Medium usage (3-bedroom house with 4 occupants)
• 2900 kWh of electricity and 12000 kWh for gas
• Postcode in the South East of England

Let us look at how they compared:

EDF Energy

EDF offered us only one tariff called Fix Total Service, costing £156 per month or £1872 for a year based on the above details.

Octopus

We used the same parameters to obtain a quotation from Octopus energy. We were offered a choice of two tariffs:

The lowest price tariff was Octopus Fixed at £144.47 per month or £1733.64 a year.

The second tariff option offered was super green Octopus costing £146.99 per month, which works out at £1763.88 for a year.

Octopus vs EDF: What’s the difference in tariff options?

EDF

EDF energy offered us just one tariff at the time of quote:

Fix Total Service

Fix Total Service is a fixed rate tariff until October 2023. This means your unit prices will not fluctuate over the contracted period. However, if you choose to change supplier or tariff early, there is a £200 exit fee for doing so (£100 per fuel).

The Fix Total Service tariff includes 100% carbon neutral electricity.

Octopus

Octopus Energy is offering just two tariffs at this time:

Super Green Octopus

Octopus Energy’s environmentally-friendly tariff is Supergreen Octopus. With this tariff, your unit price and standing charges are locked in for two years. Unlike EDF, if you choose to switch suppliers early, they won’t charge an exit fee.

With this tariff, 100% of the electricity supplied to your home will come from renewable sources. Octopus also offsets their Supergreen customers gas usage through a partnership with Renewable World.

Octopus Fixed

Their environmentally-friendly tariff is Supergreen Octopus. With this tariff, your unit price and standing charges are locked in for two years. Unlike EDF, if you choose to switch suppliers early, they won’t charge an exit fee.

With this tariff, 100% of the electricity supplied to your home will come from renewable sources. Octopus also offsets their Supergreen customers gas usage through a partnership with Renewable World.

Octopus Energy vs EDF: Who offers the greenest energy?

As we become more environmentally conscious and aware of the benefits of switching to renewable energy sources, we want to know if our energy supplier is taking steps to make energy more sustainable and what they are doing to move away from fossil fuels.

Here we look at where both of these suppliers stand when it comes to green energy:

EDF

EDF is one of the largest investors in renewable energy. They are Britain’s biggest generator of zero-carbon electricity and meet around one-fifth of the countries demand for renewable electricity. Unfortunately, at this time, EDF does not have a green gas offering for comparison.

Octopus

Octopus Energy put a large number of resources into generating green energy. 100% of the electricity they generate is from renewable sources. This is standard on both tariffs currently on offer. If you choose Octopus’s Supergreen tariff, your carbon use is also fully offset.

An impressive 40% of the solar power generated across the UK comes from Octopus investments. As a company, Octopus plays a significant role in implementing and developing new renewable energy solutions to replace fossil fuels.

Octopus vs EDF: Who has better customer reviews?

We consulted Trustpilot to see how EDF and Octopus’s customers rate their customer service. Both companies have 10,000s of genuine customer reviews.

Here is what we found:

• EDF scored 4.2 out of 5 based on over 49,000 reviews
• Octopus scored 4.8 out of 5 based on over 130,000 reviews

Both suppliers ask their customers to review their service, both good and bad. Both suppliers appear to take the time to respond to reviews that are negative promptly.

From reading some of the reviews, it seems in both cases; their customers are generally pretty happy. However, we have noted that considering their size, EDF energy has a considerably lower number of reviews than Octopus. We are not sure of the reason for this.

Octopus energy customers frequently praise the quick and efficient service they have received. EDF customers praise the chat and text functions available to them, while a few customers complained about long wait times to get through to customer services or the time taken to resolve problems.

Octopus vs EDF: Who has the better website and app?

Both EDF and Octopus have easy to use and functional websites. Once signed up with them, you can manage your energy account and tariff, it’s simple to find their contact information and corporate information. We had no trouble finding everything we needed quickly on either website.

Both EDF and Octopus Energy offer an app that customers can download onto a smartphone. In Octopus’s case, customers rank their app at 4.8 out of 5 on the Apple App Store. Reviews show customers are happy with the control they have over their account through the app, which lets them pay bills, give meter readings and see up to date usage.

EDF’s app seems to fair almost just as well, with an app store score of 4.5 out of 5, showing that they have developed a functional and user-friendly app too.

Octopus vs EDF: Who has the better customer service?

CitizensAdvice offer a neutral and unbiased customer service comparison for energy suppliers. We checked the website to see how EDF and Octopus did in critical areas that matter to their customers.

This table gives a summary of how both suppliers compare with the latest data (from July to September 2022):

As you can see, both suppliers are relatively evenly matched, with the exception of email response time According to citizens advice, both suppliers offer a good level of customer service.

Octopus energy answers the phone on average 48 seconds slower than EDF. You are also much more likely to receive an email reply within two days from EDF than you are from Octopus.

EDF has a slight advantage when it comes to accurate bills and also switching, with customers switching to EDF more likely to do so within 15 days compared to EDF.

Both companies have regular opening hours, EDF’s customers have the advantage of calling outside of regular business hours, and they can also contact EDF via webchat.

Octopus vs EDF: Who has less complaints?

We looked at the complaint data each energy provider openly provides. To make sure we cover the same period for both, we will look at Q4 for 2022.

We have summarised the data in the below table:

Octopus vs EDF: What are the main differences between the two?

These two suppliers are pretty well known across the UK energy market. EDF is part of the big six energy suppliers and has over five million customers. Octopus has been around for just five years but has made a name for itself for offering energy tariffs that are fair and green.

Both are significant investors in the production of green energy. Both have a relatively good record and are rated well by their customers when it comes to customer service.

Here is our breakdown of how each supplier did per category:

• In the price category, this is currently a tie.
• When it comes to tariff choices, EDF offer just one option and Octopus offers two – making them the winner here.
• Both are making good progress in supporting green electricity generation. However, Octopus is one step ahead here with its carbon offering tariffs for gas customers as well as electricity.
• When it came to customer reviews, Octopus came out ahead.
• Octopus offers a slightly better digital service with their app that customers highly rate, although only slightly higher than EDF’s.
• Octopus received far fewer complaints per 100k customers, making them the winner of the customer service category.

Is Octopus Energy better than EDF?

Octopus are the stand out winners of this comparison. If price, tariff choice, service and green credentials are important to you, Octopus energy is a great choice.