Bill Credit Calculator

Bill credit plans sound like free money. Use enough electricity, get $50 or $100 knocked off your bill. Easy, right? Here’s what they don’t tell you.

These plans charge you a flat rate per kilowatt-hour, but dangle a monthly credit if you hit a usage threshold. The catch? That flat rate is almost always higher than standard fixed rates, and the threshold is set just high enough that you might miss it in mild weather months when your AC isn’t running full blast.

The math works like this: You pay the elevated rate on every single kilowatt-hour you use. If you hit the threshold (say, 1,000 kWh), great – you get your $100 credit and might come out ahead. Miss it by even 50 kWh? You just paid a premium rate all month for nothing.

In Houston, this means gambling on the weather. Hit 1,000 kWh every month from May through September when it’s 95 degrees? The credits add up. Drop to 800 kWh in March when you’re barely running the AC? You’re paying that higher rate with no credit to offset it.

This calculator shows you month by month whether you’d actually earn those credits based on your real usage patterns. No guessing, no “what ifs” – just your actual Smart Meter Texas data showing how many months you’d hit the threshold and whether the plan saves you money or costs you more over the full year.

You can find the terms in the EFL(Electricity Facts Label) for the specific plan you are comparing- AKA Facts Label from Power To Choose

You will also need your data usage file from SmartMeterTexas. See instructions here