Ofgem has what is called Typical Domestic Consumption Values (TDCVs), which is basically their estimate on the UK’s ‘average’ or ‘typical’ household’s energy usage. This is what comparison sites and other energy switching services use to calculate the cost of a typical energy bill. However, a recent government report, which we have included in our whitepaper shows that this typical median hardly applies to anyone at all in the UK. The chart below shows the point (red line) at which the typical usage is derived from.
On the plus side, there’s a 98% chance that you’re not average after all. However, these findings do suggest a 98% chance that any savings claims based on typical usage aren’t applicable to you. The only way to really know how much you will save is to do it based on your actual household’s usage. We know this can be a real pain and the majority of people don’t know (or care) about kWh’s and unit rates and would rather let someone like Flipper take your latest bill and a meter reading and do all the work for you and find the best supplier rates based on your personal usage, because your certainly not ‘average’ or ‘typical’ to us.
Moneysavingexpert.com claims to save you a typical £300+/yr, but we know know this will only apply to less than 2% of the UK population. Another less known fact is that Money Saving Expert take commission form the suppliers when you switch through them. The same way all the big comparison sites are funded. Wouldn't you rather be with a switching service that is totally impartial and independent?
£518 sounds like a lot, right? To most people this would be. There’s no doubt that this is a true claim from one our fellow switching services out there, but without any further clarity on their website regarding this ‘up to’ figure - we are left in the unknown as to where this figure comes from. For example, could this amount be their highest ever saving? Is this their maximum saving? Perhaps it means that you could save ‘up to’ that amount if you had similar usage scenario to this mystery saver's usage? How much did everyone else save? Is it possible everyone else didn’t save anything? It’s all a bit of slightly exaggerated speculation I know, but a bit more clarity and transparency when claiming such large amounts of savings would be the more honest approach, in our opinion. Without the clarity this amount of saving could be misleading for the many people whose energy usage is much lower than this.
Beware of the asterisk*. As you can see they’re only stating that 10% of people who switched energy supplier for both gas and electric saved £447. What happened to the other 90%?
It’s exactly what it says on the tin. Everyone’s accumulated savings divided by the amount of people who have switched their energy. No hidden asterisks, no vague and inflated ‘up to’ amounts and definitely not figures based on only 10% of our customers. Just our average savings. Last week (9th - 16th April) the total number of savings divided by the amount of switches was actually an above average amount of £392.37. If were to follow the same principles as Uswitch and just use a list of our top 10% of customers that saved for the same week the saving at the bottom of that list is still a whopping £695.19! So we could say we save up to £695.19... But we don't. There are some pretty big savers every week here at Flipper. Last week we saved a new member £1,277.09 on their dual fuel bill. In fact, our highest ever saving was over £4,000…But, we know that not everyone lives in a mansion and it doesn’t apply to everyone – therefore it would be misleading to make everyone think they could save that amount. Shouldn't we all be telling the same honest story when it comes to average savings?
With Flipper you can see a very accurate estimate in less than a minute based on the amount you spend (don’t worry about the kWh’s and tariff info for now we’ll do that all for you later). Then you can simply send us a picture/scanned/posted copy of your latest bill (it's probably in the kitchen draw somewhere) with a quick meter reading (takes about 1 min – here’s how) and we’ll go away and do the rest. Our smart algorithm, which we’ve been developing for years now will go away and look for the best tariffs and supplier for you based on your specific details (not ‘typical’ or ‘average’ guesswork). Not only that, but we’ll go away check every month to make sure you’re still on the best deal – and if you aren’t we’ll automatically switch you again whenever we're able to save you another £50.
Giving you peace of mind you’re on the best deal, forever. So different from the traditional switching, we called it Flipping. Give it a try
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Visit Help Centre* Flipper is free until you are switched for the first time and start saving.
The annual membership fee of £30 is only taken once we have instructed your first switch and you are only charged once per annum, not per switch.
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Our membership fee means we don't take commission from any of the energy suppliers so can switch you to more deals, more often to save you more money.