How this savings calculator works (and what it can't do)
The two questions above — business type and rough monthly energy spend — are enough to produce a directionally correct estimate of what a UK small business might save by switching to a competitive fixed-rate contract. The numbers it returns are not a quote. A quote needs your MPAN/MPRN, your contract end date, your annual consumption in kWh, and your load profile. The calculator gives you a starting point. The point of a starting point is to tell you whether spending fifteen minutes pulling those details together is likely to be worth it.
Where the saving estimate comes from
The estimate is built from three inputs.
1. Business-type consumption baselines. Different business types have different typical load profiles. A small office uses electricity primarily during weekday daytime hours, with low gas. A restaurant has high evening peaks and substantial gas use. A warehouse can have a flat load or a sharp peak depending on whether refrigeration or heating is present. We use baseline kWh per £100 of monthly spend by business type, drawn from the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero's published consumption statistics for UK non-domestic premises.
2. Current-market unit rates. The "what you'd pay now" half of the comparison is benchmarked against the Ofgem business energy price tracker for the relevant quarter, and against the published average deemed rates that suppliers must display on their websites. A business that's out-of-contract is benchmarked against the deemed rate; a business in-contract or near renewal is benchmarked against the supplier's current renewal terms for that consumption band.
3. Forward-fix offers from the broker panel. The "what you could pay" half draws from the fixed-rate offers our broker partners currently have on the market for businesses of that type and spend band. These offers move daily; the calculator caches the most recent offer set per business type and refreshes when the broker panel publishes new rates.
What the calculator deliberately ignores
It doesn't ask for your postcode or DNO region. UK business energy unit rates vary by Distribution Network Operator region; the calculator returns a national-average estimate, not a region-specific one. It doesn't ask about your specific meter type — half-hourly metered sites get a generic profile, not the bespoke load-shape pricing they need for a real quote. It doesn't ask about non-commodity charges (Climate Change Levy, capacity market, distribution use of system) which can add 10-25% to a final bill.
These are deliberate omissions. Asking for them upfront would make the calculator slower and would feel intrusive for the use it's designed for, which is the directional question: is switching plausibly worth my time? If the answer is yes, the more detailed quote conversation happens with the broker or supplier, not on this page.
When the estimate is more reliable, and when it's less
The estimate is most reliable for a business in a typical office, retail or hospitality setting using somewhere between £200 and £1,500 a month on energy. That range covers the bulk of UK SME consumption and the baselines we use are tightest there. The estimate is less reliable for very small (<£100/month) sites where standing-charge weighting dominates the unit-rate comparison, and for very large (>£5,000/month) sites where bespoke load-profile pricing makes a generic baseline unsuitable.
If your business is at either end of that range, treat the number as a directional cue only and book a fifteen-minute call with one of our partner brokers for a real quote. The calculator's purpose is to tell you whether that fifteen-minute call is worth booking. For most small businesses currently out-of-contract or in a renewal window, the answer is almost always yes.