Why is my electric bill so high?

A high bill can only come from two places. Either you used more electricity, or each kWh cost you more. Sometimes both. Your bill already contains the answer.

Find two numbers on it: the total kWh you used, and the average price per kWh. Texas bills print that average right on the statement. It is your real, effective rate for the month, with everything included. If you cannot find it, divide the total dollars by the total kWh and you have the same number. Now pull last month’s bill and the same month from last year, and note the same two numbers.

If usage jumped but the rate held steady, the story is about your home. If the rate jumped, the story is about your plan. The next sections take the causes one at a time, most common first.

Texas usage swings hard with the weather. Cooling a home through a 100 degree August takes two or three times the power of a mild October. A brutal summer month can double a bill all by itself, with your plan working exactly as promised.

Compare against the same month last year, not last month. If this August beat last August by a wide margin, think about what changed. A heat wave. A new pool pump. An EV in the garage. A teenager home all summer. An aging AC working harder than it used to. Usage growth is the most common cause of a high bill, and the least sinister.

This one is the silent bill killer. A fixed-rate plan locks your price for its term. When the term ends and you do nothing, you do not keep your old rate. Most contracts roll you onto a holdover rate, sometimes called a month-to-month or default rate. It is a variable rate the provider sets at will, and it is usually far higher than what you were paying.

Nothing on the bill announces this loudly. The kWh look normal. The total does not. If your bill jumped and your usage did not, check your contract end date first. Providers must send renewal notices before the term ends, but the notices are easy to miss in the mail pile.

The fix is simple: pick a new fixed-rate plan before the old one lapses. Set a reminder two weeks before every contract end date, forever.

Some plans are engineered to look cheap at one usage level and cost more everywhere else. If your bills run hot in specific months, the plan’s own fine print is the suspect.

• A bill credit you keep missing. The plan subtracts a credit only in months when your usage lands inside a window. Miss the window and the month runs expensive. Our bill-credit guide shows the math.
• A minimum usage fee. A monthly charge in any month you use less than a set amount. It hits hardest in mild months and small homes.
• Conditional fees. Some plans charge extra in any month you skip autopay or paperless billing. These land every month until you notice.

All of these are stated in the plan’s Electricity Facts Label. Our EFL guide shows where each one hides. Ten minutes with that document usually explains a mystery bill.

If you are on a free-nights or free-weekends plan, the math depends on when you use power. The daytime rate on these plans is high, and it applies to every kWh outside the free window. A household that cannot push a big share of its usage into the window pays more than it would on a plain fixed rate, month after month.

Our free-nights guide has the break-even math and shows how to check your real split using your smart meter data.

Run this once and you will know which cause is yours.

1. Find the average price per kWh printed on your bill. Note it for this bill, last month’s, and the same month last year.
2. If usage rose and the rate held: weather or a new load. Look at the home, not the plan.
3. If the rate rose: find your contract end date. If it passed, you are on a holdover rate. That is the whole mystery.
4. If the rate is high in some months only: pull your plan’s EFL. Look for credit windows, minimum usage fees, and conditional fees. Match them against your expensive months.
5. If you are on a time-of-use plan: compute your free-window share and run the break-even math.

There are no loyalty rewards in the Texas electricity market. Staying put past your contract end is how bills quietly grow. Switching is normal here, and the process is handled by the new provider once you enroll.

Two things to check first. Your cancellation fee comes first. If you are mid-contract, compare the fee against what the better plan saves you over the remaining months. Sometimes leaving early still wins. And the move exception: moving to a new address usually lets you leave a contract without the fee.

Then comes the shopping question: where to compare. Power to Choose is the state’s official listing site, run by the Public Utility Commission. Every certified plan can appear there, and every listing links the plan’s real documents. Its limitation is the sort. Plans are ranked by their advertised averages at 500, 1,000, or 2,000 kWh. Those three numbers are the ones plans are engineered to win. This entire site exists because of that. The plan at the top of that list is the plan that best gamed the checkpoint, not the plan that costs you least.

Alternatives to Power to Choose exist, and they differ in one way that matters: how they rank. Some rank by the same advertised averages. Some rank by what a plan pays them. Ours ranks by one number: the true annual cost of each plan against your own twelve months of usage, fees and credits included. Here is exactly how. Whatever tool you use, apply one test: does the ranking change when your usage changes? If it does not, it is not ranking for you.

Right now we price 638 fixed-rate plans this way, every day.