The best heat pump tariffs in the UK for 2026: a data-driven comparison

Heat pump electricity costs three to four times more per unit than gas — but a heat pump uses three to four times less energy per unit of heat delivered. That balance is what makes a heat pump cheaper to run than a gas boiler, but only just. The single biggest lever on your annual heating bill isn't the brand of your heat pump or how cold the winter is. It's the electricity tariff sitting behind it.

This guide compares the six heat pump tariffs that matter in the UK in 2026: Cosy Octopus, Intelligent Octopus Go, Octopus Agile, Octopus Tracker, EDF Heat Pump Tracker, and E.ON Next Pumped. We've used published rates from each supplier (May 2026) and modelled the annual cost for a typical 6,600 kWh/year heat pump household across all 14 UK DNO regions.

If you want to skip straight to your own numbers, you can register for a free account, upload your smart meter data, and compare every tariff against your real consumption.

TL;DR: the six tariffs at a glance

Rates are national averages from each supplier's published May 2026 tariff information. Your actual rates depend on your DNO region, payment method and whether your supplier has revised prices since this post was published.

Why tariff choice matters more for a heat pump than for anything else

A typical UK household uses 2,700 kWh of electricity a year. A heat pump household uses around 6,600 kWh — over twice as much electricity. Every penny per kWh you save on your tariff is worth more than twice as much to a heat pump owner as to a typical household.

A 5p/kWh reduction in your average blended rate saves a heat pump household roughly £330 a year. The same 5p reduction saves a non-heat-pump household just £135. That's why tariff optimisation is, in pure financial terms, the highest-leverage thing a heat pump owner can do.

The catch is that heat pumps don't naturally run during the cheap windows that energy companies offer. Your heat pump turns on when your home calls for heat. That usually means early mornings (when you wake up) and evenings (when you come home) — exactly the times when peak rates apply. To benefit from any time-of-use tariff, you need either smart scheduling (running the pump and storing heat in your hot water cylinder or thermal mass during cheap windows) or a tariff structured around when heat pumps actually run.

That's the entire design problem behind the tariffs below.

Cosy Octopus

Cosy Octopus is the most widely adopted heat pump tariff in the UK, with the largest single fleet of heat pumps on a smart tariff. It has three unit rates, not two:

• Cheap rate (~14.5p/kWh): 04:00–07:00, 13:00–16:00, 22:00–00:00 — eight hours a day in total
• Peak rate (~51.7p/kWh): 16:00–19:00
• Standard rate (~33.3p/kWh): everything else

The structure is deliberate. The three cheap windows match when heat pumps can pre-heat efficiently: early morning before you wake, mid-afternoon when the house is empty, and late evening to top up. The 4–7pm peak is when the grid is most stressed and you're most likely to be running the heat pump on demand.

Cosy is a flexible tariff — Octopus can change the rates with reasonable notice — but there are no exit fees. Octopus's three off-peak windows are typically 50% cheaper than the standard day rate, and the 4–7pm peak runs around 30% above standard.

Best for: heat pump owners without an EV who can schedule their heating around the cheap windows and avoid the 4–7pm peak.

Worst for: households that can't shift load — if you run the heat pump straight through 4–7pm at full tilt, the peak rate eats most of the savings from the cheap windows.

→ Switch to Octopus and get £50 credit (referral link)

Intelligent Octopus Go

Intelligent Octopus Go was designed for EV drivers, but it's increasingly used by heat pump owners who can run the pump overnight. The structure is simpler than Cosy:

• Off-peak (~8p/kWh): 23:30–05:30 — six hours every night
• Peak (~28p/kWh): all other times

Off-peak applies to the whole house, not just your EV. If your heat pump can pre-heat the house and charge the hot water tank between 11:30pm and 5:30am — and your home has enough thermal mass to coast through to mid-morning — Intelligent Go gives you the cheapest rates on the market.

The trade-off is the daytime rate. At ~28p/kWh, running the heat pump during the day is more expensive than Cosy's standard rate. If your heat pump runs for more than six hours a day total (likely in cold weather), Cosy is usually cheaper. If you have an EV plus a heat pump, Intelligent Go's combined savings typically win.

Best for: heat pump + EV households, or heat pump homes with battery storage that can soak up cheap overnight electricity.

Worst for: heat pump-only homes with high daytime heat demand — the 28p daytime rate erodes savings fast in midwinter.

→ Sign up to Octopus

Octopus Agile

Agile is Octopus's half-hourly dynamic tariff. Your rate changes every 30 minutes based on wholesale electricity prices, published the day before at around 4pm for the following 24 hours. Average rates sit around 22p/kWh, but you'll see:

• Negative rates during periods of grid surplus (you get paid to use electricity)
• High rates during winter evening peaks — capped at 100p/kWh

Agile is the highest-ceiling, highest-floor option. With a battery and an automated control system that can schedule the heat pump and hot water cylinder around the cheapest half-hours, Agile can deliver the lowest annual cost of any tariff on this list. Without automation, it requires constant attention and the savings collapse.

Best for: technically engaged heat pump owners with batteries, automated heating controls, and the willingness to optimise. Cheapest tariff on paper if you can engineer your way to it.

Worst for: anyone who can't or won't automate. The 100p cap is rare but punishing if you happen to use power during it.

Octopus Tracker

Tracker is Agile's calmer sibling. Instead of half-hourly pricing, the unit rate is recalculated once a day based on the day-ahead wholesale market. There's one rate per day, applied to all 48 half-hours.

Tracker rates have been consistently below the Ofgem price cap throughout 2025 and 2026 — typically 5–10p/kWh cheaper than standard variable tariffs. The downside is uncertainty: you don't know tomorrow's rate until late afternoon, and a cold snap can push the daily rate up sharply.

Best for: heat pump owners who want to beat the price cap without the complexity of half-hourly Agile. No load-shifting required.

Worst for: budget-anxious households — you can't predict your monthly bill in advance.

EDF Heat Pump Tracker

EDF's heat pump tariff takes a different approach: instead of separate cheap and peak rates, you get a flat 10p/kWh discount off your region's standard rate during two off-peak windows:

• Off-peak windows: 04:00–07:00 and 13:00–16:00 (six hours total)
• Day rate: equal to EDF's standard tariff rate in your region (tracks the Ofgem cap)
• No peak rate — there's no expensive evening window

The 10p discount is fixed for three years. Because the day rate equals the standard cap, you can never be worse off than a customer on the standard variable tariff — only better.

EDF cites typical savings of £164/year versus the standard variable tariff for a 2,700 kWh household — that's based on Ofgem's average consumption, not heat pump consumption. For a 6,600 kWh heat pump household with 20% of usage in the off-peak windows, the saving is closer to £132/year just from the 10p discount, before any tariff-comparison wins.

Best for: risk-averse heat pump owners who want guaranteed savings versus the price cap without committing to a peak/off-peak structure. Best safety-net tariff on the list.

Worst for: anyone with the load flexibility to fully exploit Cosy or Intelligent Go — the lack of a deeply discounted off-peak rate means less upside.

→ See EDF's heat pump tariff details (referral link)

E.ON Next Pumped

E.ON Next's heat pump offering is the closest of the six to a traditional Economy 7 structure. Cheaper rates apply between 22:00 and 06:00 (eight hours, longer than the others), with a single standard rate the rest of the day. Both rates track the Ofgem cap rather than wholesale prices.

The advantage is simplicity and predictability. The disadvantage is that the cheap window is overnight only — there's no afternoon dip to top up the hot water cylinder, and the 8pm–10pm prime-time slot when most heat pumps run hardest is at full daytime rate.

Best for: heat pump owners who want a simple, Economy 7-style structure and whose heating profile is overnight-heavy.

Worst for: households whose heat demand is concentrated in evenings — there's no peak rate but no afternoon cheap window either, so most of your usage falls on the standard rate.

Worked example: 6,600 kWh/year, national average

The figures below model a typical 6,600 kWh/year heat pump household, using national average rates from each supplier as of May 2026. Annual electricity cost only — gas is excluded (most heat pump households don't have it, or use little of it).

These figures assume active load shifting where applicable. A passive user on Cosy who doesn't avoid the 4–7pm peak might save only £35/year versus the cap. The numbers above represent what a reasonably engaged household actually achieves.

The big-picture insight: every tariff on this list beats the standard variable price cap, often by £200–£500/year. The choice between them is mostly about how much complexity you're willing to manage in exchange for incremental savings.

Why generic comparisons get this wrong

Every tariff comparison on the open web — including this one until you get to your own numbers — relies on assumptions. We've assumed 6,600 kWh/year, a specific load shift percentage, and national average rates. But your actual heat pump might use 4,500 kWh, or 9,000. Your DNO region might have rates 10% above or below the national average. Your heating schedule might match Cosy's windows beautifully, or fight them every day.

The only way to know which tariff actually saves you the most is to run your real half-hourly smart meter data against each tariff's rates. That's the difference between a guide and an answer.

This is what our platform exists to do. Register for a free account and upload your smart meter data — or connect Bright by Hildebrand after signing up for automatic syncing — and you'll see exactly what each of these six tariffs would have cost you over your actual usage. No averages, no assumptions.

Decision tree: which tariff suits you?

Heat pump only, no EV, no battery, willing to schedule heating: → Cosy Octopus is the default recommendation. The three cheap windows match when heat pumps can usefully pre-heat.

Heat pump + EV (or heat pump + battery): → Intelligent Octopus Go. The longer cheap window and lower off-peak rate beat Cosy when you can use it.

Heat pump + solar + battery + automation: → Octopus Agile. Maximum savings if you can engineer the optimisation. Tracker is the calmer alternative.

You want guaranteed savings versus the price cap, no commitment to peak/off-peak structures: → EDF Heat Pump Tracker. The 10p discount is locked in, no peak rate to worry about.

You prefer simplicity and your heat pump runs mostly overnight anyway: → E.ON Next Pumped or stay on a standard tariff if your supplier doesn't offer a heat pump variant.

FAQ

Do I need a smart meter for any of these tariffs? Yes. All six require a SMETS2 or compatible SMETS1 smart meter sending half-hourly readings.

Can I switch tariff if it doesn't work for me? None of the tariffs above have exit fees as of May 2026, so you can switch freely between them. Some Octopus fixed-term variants have introduced a £25 exit fee in 2026 — check before signing.

Will Cosy Octopus' rates change? Yes — it's a flexible tariff, so rates rise and fall with wholesale electricity prices. Octopus gives reasonable notice of changes. The structure (three cheap windows, one peak window) is unlikely to change.

Is Octopus Agile too volatile for a heat pump? Without automation, yes. The 100p cap is rarely hit, but a few unlucky half-hours during a winter cold snap can swing the math. With automation (most heat pump controllers now have Agile integration), Agile is usually the cheapest tariff.

Why isn't OVO Heat Pump Plus on the list? OVO withdrew the Heat Pump Plus add-on tariff from February 2026, so it's no longer available to new customers.

Should I switch supplier just to access these tariffs? Probably. The annual savings versus a standard variable tariff (£200–£500 for an active heat pump household) typically outweigh any short-term inconvenience of switching. Most switches complete in under three weeks.

Compare these tariffs against your real usage

Published rates only tell you part of the story. Your actual savings depend on when your heat pump runs, how cold your winters are, your DNO region, and your willingness to schedule.

Compare every UK heat pump tariff against your own smart meter data →

It's free, takes 60 seconds to register, and shows you the precise annual cost of each tariff based on your real consumption — not anyone else's averages.