Compare Texas electricity providers and find the right one for your home.
Energy Texas offers competitively priced plans with a simple, straightforward customer experience.
Champion Energy focuses on straightforward fixed-rate plans backed by exceptional customer service.
Rhythm Energy offers competitively priced plans with a focus on 100% renewable energy and a modern digital experience.
Our recommendations are editorial and are not influenced by payments from electricity providers.
These are retail electricity providers serving competitive Texas markets. The order below is not a ranking. What separates providers is mainly the kind of plan they sell, so that is what the table shows.
Plan availability varies by service address, and not every provider offers every plan in every utility territory. Power Texas does not rank providers or rate them.
If you live in a deregulated part of Texas, your electricity provider is the company you choose to buy electricity from. You’ll also hear them called retail electricity providers (REPs), electricity companies, power companies, or light companies. In Texas, they’re all referring to essentially the same thing.
Companies like TXU Energy, Reliant, Rhythm Energy, Champion Energy, and Gexa Energy are electricity providers. They create the plans you shop, set the energy price and contract terms, enroll you as a customer, send your monthly bill, and handle your account and renewal.
What often confuses people is that your electricity provider is not your utility. Your provider sells you the electricity plan, while your local utility — such as Oncor or CenterPoint — owns the poles and wires that deliver electricity to your home and handles outages.
In other words, you can choose your electricity provider, but you can’t choose your utility.
Your provider is who you’ll deal with for most of the customer side of your electricity service, including choosing a plan, enrollment, billing, payments, contract questions, renewals, and switching plans.
Texas electricity providers must be certified by the Public Utility Commission of Texas (PUCT) before they can sell electricity to customers in the state’s competitive market.
Two different companies are involved in your electricity service, and choosing a provider only makes sense once you can tell them apart. You choose your retail provider. You do not choose your utility, because it is assigned by your service address and cannot be changed by shopping.
That single fact settles most of the confusion around switching. Your utility keeps delivering your power, maintaining the same lines, and answering the same outages no matter which provider you buy from.
| Electricity provider (REP) | Utility (TDU) | |
|---|---|---|
| Do you choose it? | Yes — you pick your provider and can switch | No — it is set by your service address |
| What does it sell you? | The electricity plan, rate and contract | Nothing. It delivers power for every plan |
| Who bills you? | Your provider sends one bill covering both parts | It bills your provider, not you |
| Who do you call in an outage? | Not your provider — it does not operate wires | Your utility dispatches the repair crews |
| Does switching change it? | Yes — that is what switching means | No. Same utility, same meter, same crews |
| Who sets its charges? | The provider competes on its energy charge | The PUCT approves regulated delivery charges |
Your utility is determined by where you live. These are the six utilities serving customers in Texas’ competitive electricity market.
| Utility | Major service area |
|---|---|
| Oncor Electric Delivery | Dallas–Fort Worth, North and Central Texas |
| CenterPoint Energy | Greater Houston and southeast Texas |
| AEP Texas Central | Corpus Christi, the Rio Grande Valley and South Texas |
| AEP Texas North | Abilene, San Angelo and parts of West Texas |
| Texas-New Mexico Power | Gulf Coast, North-Central and West Texas territories |
| Lubbock Power & Light | Lubbock |
Want to learn more about utility service areas, delivery charges, outages, and how your utility affects your electricity bill?
The right electricity provider starts with the right plan, but the company behind the plan matters too. Price, plan structure, contract terms, customer service, and the overall customer experience should all factor into your decision.
Start with a recent bill and find your average monthly kilowatt-hours. Advertised rates are quoted at 1,000 kWh, but plans behave differently as usage moves, so a plan that looks inexpensive at that level can cost more at 500 or 2,000 kWh. Whenever you can, compare plans against your own typical usage rather than the advertised benchmark.
The advertised cents-per-kWh rate does not always tell you what a plan will cost for the amount of electricity you actually use. A fixed-rate plan holds the energy charge steady for the length of the contract. A bill-credit plan advertises a low average rate that depends on your usage reaching a set threshold, so the credit can disappear in a lighter month. A variable-rate plan can change from month to month. On top of the energy charge, many plans add a base or minimum-usage fee, and every plan includes your utility’s regulated delivery charges.
Every Texas plan comes with an Electricity Facts Label that lists the energy charge, the fees, the contract term, and the average price at 500, 1,000 and 2,000 kWh. It is the clearest view of how a plan really prices. For more, see how to compare Texas electricity plans and how to read an Electricity Facts Label.
Terms usually run from month-to-month up to 36 months. A longer contract holds your rate longer but commits you longer, and most fixed-term plans charge an early termination fee if you leave before the end. Some plans ask for a deposit, though many providers waive it depending on credit. It is also worth knowing what happens when the term runs out, since a contract left alone will roll onto a new rate. If you might move or shop again within the year, factor that in before signing up for a long term.
Once you have found plans that work on price, the company behind the plan is worth a look. Your provider is who you deal with for billing, payments, contract questions and renewals, so customer service, how clear the bill is, how well the online account and mobile app work, and which payment options are available can all shape the experience. Some providers also stand out for renewable plans or other features you may care about. Not all of this matters equally to everyone, but the plan is only half of what you are choosing.
The goal is to find a plan that works well for how you use electricity, from a provider you are comfortable doing business with.
Texas has dozens of retail electricity providers, but there isn’t one number that accurately describes the providers available to every customer. Some providers serve residential customers, some focus on commercial customers, and some serve both. Providers can also enter or leave the market or stop actively enrolling new customers.
What matters more when you’re shopping is which providers and plans are available at your address. In most deregulated areas, you’ll have multiple providers competing for your business.
Electricity choice is available across most of Texas’ competitive electricity market, but not everywhere. Some areas are served by municipal utilities or electric cooperatives where customers don’t choose a retail electricity provider.
Electricity rates change regularly, and the lowest-priced provider can vary based on where you live, how much electricity you use, and the plans available at the time you shop.
Texas electricity providers offer different types of plans for different needs. Some prioritize predictable pricing, while others are designed around consistent usage, renewable energy, or greater flexibility.
Lock in the plan’s energy price structure for a set contract term.
Offer credits when your monthly usage reaches certain thresholds, making them more attractive when your usage regularly falls in the qualifying range.
Can work well if you can shift a meaningful amount of electricity use into the plan’s free or discounted hours.
Avoid a long-term commitment, but the price you pay can change.
Provide alternatives for shoppers who want to avoid or reduce a traditional electricity deposit.
Match some or all of your electricity usage with renewable energy or renewable energy certificates.
If you’re new to Texas, having a choice of electricity providers can feel a little unusual. In most deregulated areas, you choose the company that sells you an electricity plan, while your local utility continues delivering the electricity to your home.
That means choosing a new provider doesn’t change the power coming into your house. There is no new meter, no technician visit, and no interruption in service. You’re simply choosing a different company, plan, and price for your electricity.
If you already have a provider and decide to switch, the process works much the same way. Your new provider handles the change while your utility continues delivering electricity as usual.
Learn more about switching electricity providers in Texas →
Moving to Texas? Learn how to set up electricity at your new home.
Texas electricity plans can be difficult to compare. Power Texas brings rates, providers, plan details, and helpful information together so you can understand your options and choose an electricity plan with confidence.
Whether you want to shop on your own or have questions along the way, our goal is to make finding electricity simpler.
Learn more about Power Texas →
Power Texas may receive compensation from electricity providers when customers enroll through our marketplace. However, commissions, advertising relationships, and other commercial arrangements do not determine our editorial content or recommendations.
Our recommendations are based on our independent assessment of the Texas electricity market and the information we believe is most useful to consumers.
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