Octopus Energy for Business has gone from challenger upstart to one of the UK’s most-quoted SME suppliers in just under a decade. This 2026 review breaks down their pricing, business product range, agile tariffs, EV charging for fleets, smart-meter tooling, customer service track record and the things they are not good at — with no marketing fluff. We’re an independent broker, not Octopus, so this is the same independent view we give clients comparing them against the rest of the UK market.
For a current quote against every UK supplier (Octopus included), run a free 60-second business energy comparison — you’ll see the Octopus number side-by-side with Yu, Pozitive, EDF, British Gas and the rest.
Octopus Energy for Business: who they are in 2026
Octopus Energy was founded in 2016 by Greg Jackson under the Octopus Group umbrella (the FTSE-listed Octopus Capital). It is not a Centrica brand — in fact, Octopus has become Centrica’s biggest direct rival in the SME and domestic space. The business doubled in size after the 2022 Bulb takeover and now serves around 7 million UK accounts, with a sizeable but smaller chunk on the business side.
Octopus’s pitch has always been “tech-first energy retailer”. The Kraken platform — their in-house billing and operations system — is now licensed to other suppliers across Europe, Japan and the US. For business customers, that translates into a noticeably better self-service portal, faster billing-error fixes and tighter half-hourly data tooling than most legacy suppliers offer.
Greg Jackson remains CEO and the public face. The company’s relentless push on agile time-of-use pricing, EV charging and consumer-side renewable PPAs has made it a magnet for media coverage, regulatory attention and Trustpilot reviews — with the latter sitting at 4.8 / 5 from 200,000+ ratings in 2026, the highest of any large UK energy retailer.
Octopus Energy for Business pricing 2026
For a typical SME on a 12-24 month fixed contract, expect Octopus quotes in 2026 to land in this range:
- Electricity unit rate: 24-28p/kWh for under-50,000 kWh sites; 19-23p/kWh for 50,000-250,000 kWh; 16-21p/kWh for HH-metered users.
- Standing charge (electricity): typically 38-65p/day depending on capacity and region.
- Gas unit rate: 6-9p/kWh for SMEs.
- Standing charge (gas): 28-45p/day.
These are quoted ranges, not list prices — Octopus tailors per postcode, meter type, credit profile and usage band, like every UK supplier. For exact numbers you need a Letter of Authority (see our LoA guide) so the supplier can pull your real consumption data.
Standard contract types
- Octopus Business Fixed: 12, 24, 36 or 48 month flat-rate contract. Most common SME product. Per-kWh rate locked, standing charge locked.
- Octopus Tracker for Business: a wholesale-tracking variable rate. Sits a few pence above the day-ahead wholesale price and updates monthly. Best for risk-tolerant businesses with hedging knowledge.
- Octopus Agile Business: 30-minute time-of-use pricing for half-hourly sites. Drop usage between 4-7pm and you save 4-8p/kWh on average; export back to grid via on-site solar/battery and the unit rate can occasionally go negative.
- Octopus Custom: bespoke contracts for 250,000+ kWh users with PPAs, REGO, GoO and 24×7 carbon-free options.
Comparison snapshot 2026: Octopus vs British Gas vs EDF
Indicative ranges from Q1 2026 quote samples. Your actual rates depend on postcode, meter type, capacity and usage band.
For a fuller breakdown of the Big Six and challenger market, see our Big Six business energy suppliers guide and the wider UK business energy suppliers list.
Agile Business: time-of-use pricing for SMEs
Octopus Agile Business is the SME-grade version of the well-known consumer Agile Octopus tariff. Unit rates change every 30 minutes based on day-ahead wholesale prices. The key features:
- Updated 4pm the day before for the next 24 hours.
- Prices visible in the Kraken portal and via API for automation.
- Capped at a regulator-friendly ceiling so you never get a surprise £1+/kWh spike.
- Half-hourly meter required (smart meter HH-enabled or commercial CT-metered).
For a bakery, gym, light industrial unit or office that can shift load — running ovens, charging fleet vehicles, ice-making, water heating — outside the 4-7pm peak window, savings of 12-25% on the all-in unit rate are typical. For loads that can’t shift (24/7 cold storage, server rooms), Agile is usually the wrong choice and a flat fixed contract wins.
If you have on-site solar, Agile pairs neatly with Octopus Outgoing Business: you sell exported solar at the same 30-minute wholesale price you pay for imports. See our business energy tariffs guide for how this fits against fixed, flex and PPA contracts.
EV charging for fleets: Octopus Electroverse and Intelligent Octopus Go for Business
This is one of the strongest reasons UK fleets pick Octopus in 2026. Their EV stack:
- Electroverse: a single RFID card and app that gives access to 800,000+ public chargers across Europe with a single bill back to the business. No more stitching together 12 different fleet cards.
- Intelligent Octopus Go for Business: a smart-charging tariff for depot or office EV chargers. The Kraken platform automatically schedules vehicle charging in the cheapest 6-hour overnight window, dropping unit rate to roughly 7-10p/kWh for those windows.
- Vehicle-to-grid (V2G) trials: Octopus runs the largest V2G pilot in the UK with Powerloop. Compatible Nissan and Ford fleets can earn revenue feeding the battery back to the grid during peak.
A 25-vehicle van fleet running 60 kWh/vehicle/day (typical for last-mile logistics) saves around £15,000-22,000 a year versus public rapid charging by combining Intelligent Go and Electroverse. That’s the headline number their salespeople won’t shut up about — and on the data we’ve seen from clients, it largely holds up.
Smart-meter data and Octopus Watch / Track
For half-hourly sites, Octopus exposes consumption data in the Kraken portal at 30-minute resolution, free, with CSV export and an API. Their newer dashboards (informally called Octopus Watch for monitoring and Track for benchmarking) let you:
- See live spend by site, day-of-week and time-of-day.
- Set spend alerts and CO2 alerts.
- Compare consumption to similar sites in your sector.
- Pipe data into Power BI, Google Sheets, or a BEMS via API.
Most legacy suppliers either charge for HH data export or offer it through a clunky third-party portal. Octopus does it natively. For multi-site businesses serious about energy management, that’s a real edge — pair it with a proper building energy management system for the full stack.
Customer service: why Octopus consistently scores 4.8
Octopus has won every UK utility customer service award worth winning since 2018. The reasons are mundane but real:
- UK-based phone and email support, no offshoring.
- Average phone answer time under 2 minutes (vs 15+ minutes at most legacy suppliers).
- Account managers for clusters of 50,000+ kWh sites.
- “No bot” complaint resolution — complaints route directly to a named human.
The rare bad reviews tend to be billing edge cases on inherited Bulb accounts post-2022 (now mostly resolved), or the occasional smart meter installation delay.
Pros: where Octopus Business genuinely wins
- Best-in-class customer service and complaint resolution.
- Strongest EV fleet integration of any UK supplier.
- Industry-leading half-hourly data tooling for free.
- Genuinely competitive SME pricing (top-three on most quote runs).
- 100% REGO-backed renewable electricity included on most plans.
- Transparent, no-auto-renewal contracts with reasonable early-exit terms.
- Strong financial backing (Octopus Group, KKR, Tokyo Gas, CPP) — very low Supplier of Last Resort risk.
Cons: where Octopus loses out
- Rarely the absolute cheapest for HH-metered 250,000+ kWh users — SEFE, Drax and Smartest usually beat them at scale.
- Flat-rate fixed contracts are sometimes 0.5-1.5p/kWh more expensive than Yu Energy or Pozitive for sub-50,000 kWh sites.
- Limited gas competitiveness vs Crown Gas & Power and SEFE on gas-only quotes.
- Agile and Tracker tariffs require energy literacy and the willingness to shift load — not for everyone.
- No physical branch network for face-to-face complaints.
Who Octopus Business suits best
- SMEs that value service over the last 0.5p/kWh: cafes, salons, offices, light industrial.
- Fleet operators: anyone running 5+ EVs benefits massively from Electroverse + Intelligent Go.
- Tech-led businesses: places that want to integrate data via API.
- Multi-site retail: portal and reporting tools save admin overhead.
- ESG-reporting businesses: REGO + transparent emissions data simplifies Scope 2 reporting.
Less great for: very large industrial sites (250k+ kWh) where wholesale-pass-through specialists win, or businesses purely chasing the lowest unit rate (where Yu Energy, Pozitive Energy or SEFE typically lead).
Octopus Business alternatives in 2026
- British Gas Business — bigger network, slower service. See our British Gas Business review.
- EDF Business — nuclear-backed pricing, similar tier.
- Yu Energy — usually cheaper for sub-15,000 kWh sites.
- Pozitive Energy — competitive SME pricing, growing portal.
- SEFE Energy — best for 50,000+ kWh and gas-heavy users.
- Drax — corporate PPAs and 24×7 carbon-free for 1m+ kWh users.
For deemed/out-of-contract Octopus customers in particular, switching almost always saves money — see our deemed contracts guide and cheapest business energy guide for the playbook.
How to switch to (or away from) Octopus Business
The switching mechanics are identical to any UK supplier: 6-month renewal window, signed Letter of Authority, 28-day cooling-off, and a typical 3-6 week change-of-supplier process for non-HH meters. See our full switching guide — we cover the broker route too.
Frequently Asked Questions
For most SMEs in 2026, Octopus quotes are within 0.5-2p/kWh of British Gas and EDF, and often cheaper after the standing-charge difference. They are not always the absolute lowest on the page (Yu Energy, Pozitive and SEFE often beat them at certain bands) but they sit consistently in the top three.
Yes — all Octopus Business electricity is backed by REGO certificates from UK wind, solar and hydro generation. They publish their fuel mix annually and were one of the first UK suppliers to adopt time-stamped 24/7 carbon-free matching for larger corporate buyers.
No. Octopus Agile Business needs a half-hourly meter or a smart meter operating in HH-enabled mode (SMETS2). Octopus will install one for free as part of contract setup if you don’t already have one. See our half-hourly meters guide.
Standard fixed contracts are 12, 24, 36 or 48 months. Tracker is rolling monthly with 30-day notice. Agile and Custom contracts vary — typically 12-36 months. There are no auto-renewal traps; you’ll get a renewal quote 60 days before contract end, and you can compare elsewhere or accept.
Yes. Octopus is one of the largest energy retailers in the UK with strong financial backers (Octopus Group, KKR, Tokyo Gas, CPP). Their D&B credit rating is investment grade and their Ofgem compliance record is one of the cleanest in the sector. Supplier-of-last-resort risk is very low.
Electroverse is a single RFID card and app that unlocks 800,000+ public EV chargers across BP Pulse, Shell Recharge, Ionity, GeniePoint, Tesla Supercharger and dozens more. All sessions invoice back to your Octopus Business account in one consolidated monthly bill. For fleets running 5+ EVs across multiple regions, it eliminates the "15 different cards" admin headache.
Want to know how Octopus prices for your meter? Run a free 60-second business energy comparison covering Octopus and every other UK supplier, or call 0333 015 2615 to speak to a UK-based energy advisor.
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