Eliot Crook, Founder · Updated 12 July 2026 · 10 min read
Octopus Energy Tariffs Explained
Octopus Energy runs a family of six main time-of-use tariffs, each built around a different way of shifting your electricity use to cheaper periods: Octopus Go (fixed overnight window), Intelligent Octopus Go (smart-scheduled EV/battery charging), Agile Octopus (half-hourly dynamic wholesale-linked pricing), Cosy Octopus (three cheaper windows for heat pump households), Flux (import/export tariff for solar-and-battery homes), and Octopus Tracker (daily-changing wholesale-linked pricing). None is universally 'best' — the right one depends on whether you have an EV, a heat pump, solar panels, a battery, or none of the above, and how much price volatility you're comfortable with.
A quick note before we start
This is an independent explainer. OffPeak Energy is not affiliated with, sponsored by, or working on behalf of Octopus Energy — we simply cover the UK home battery and tariff market and get asked about these tariffs constantly by readers weighing up a battery purchase.
Rates change — always check Octopus's current pricing. Correct as of July 2026. Every tariff described below is explained by its structure (how the pricing windows and bands work), not by specific pence-per-kWh figures, because those move with wholesale markets and Ofgem price cap reviews. Treat any numbers you see quoted elsewhere as a snapshot, not a permanent fact.
We've grouped the tariffs by the problem they're trying to solve, then looked specifically at how a home battery changes the maths for each one.
Octopus Go — the fixed overnight window
Octopus Go was Octopus's original EV tariff and remains the simplest of the bunch. It works on a fixed daily off-peak window — typically a set four-to-five-hour block in the early hours of the morning — during which electricity is priced substantially lower than the rest of the day. Outside that window, you pay a flat day rate.
It suits households with predictable routines: an EV that's plugged in every night, or a battery that can be scheduled to charge on a timer without needing to react to anything dynamic. Because the window is fixed and known in advance, you don't need a smart meter that talks back to Octopus in real time for scheduling purposes — you just need a plug-in timer or a battery/EV charger that lets you set a charging schedule.
The limitation is inflexibility. You get one window, at the same time every night, regardless of what's actually happening on the grid that day. If your usage pattern doesn't fit a single overnight block — for example if you work night shifts, or want to charge a battery around solar generation rather than overnight — Go's simplicity becomes a constraint rather than a benefit.
Intelligent Octopus Go — smart-scheduled charging
Intelligent Octopus Go builds on the same low overnight rate as standard Go, but adds a layer of automation. Rather than you manually setting a timer, Octopus's platform communicates with a compatible EV or charger (and increasingly, compatible batteries and other smart devices) to schedule charging automatically, sometimes extending slightly beyond the core cheap window if it determines the grid has spare low-carbon capacity.
This tariff needs compatible hardware — a smart EV charger or vehicle that Octopus can control, linked through their app — which is the main practical barrier to entry. It's aimed squarely at EV owners who want the cheap-rate benefit without having to think about timers, and who trust an automated system to have their car charged by morning.
The trade-off for that convenience is a loss of direct control: Octopus's algorithm decides exactly when charging happens within the eligible window, not you. For a battery-only household with no EV, the standard Go tariff or a dedicated battery-friendly tariff is usually the simpler fit, since Intelligent Go's automation layer is built primarily around vehicle charging.
Agile Octopus — half-hourly dynamic pricing
Agile is the most volatile tariff in the family. Prices change every half hour, tracking wholesale electricity markets a day ahead, with a cap in place so prices can't rise beyond a set ceiling (and can occasionally turn negative, effectively paying you to use power, during periods of oversupply).
This structure suits engaged households — typically ones with home battery storage, solar, or an EV that can be charged flexibly — because the biggest savings go to whoever can shift the most usage into the genuinely cheapest half-hour slots, which move around day to day and don't follow a fixed pattern. Manual use of Agile without automation is possible but demanding; most people who do well on it pair it with a battery or EV charger that can respond automatically to the published price schedule.
The honest limitation is unpredictability. Your bill on Agile can vary noticeably month to month depending on wholesale market conditions, cold snaps, and wind generation levels. It rewards flexibility and a bit of engagement (or automation to replace that engagement) and can be an uncomfortable fit for anyone who wants a stable, predictable bill.
Cosy Octopus — built around heat pumps
Cosy Octopus takes a different structural approach: rather than one overnight window, it offers three separate cheaper periods spread across the day — typically an early morning slot, a midday slot, and an early evening/late slot — designed to match how heat pumps are actually used, since a heat pump often needs to run at various points through the day rather than just overnight.
It's aimed at households with an air- or ground-source heat pump, where the three-window structure lets you pre-heat or run the pump at cheaper times without being restricted to a single overnight block. It can also suit a battery, since three cheaper windows give more flexibility for topping up charge than a single Go-style window.
The limitation is that the cheap windows are narrower and more numerous rather than one long block, which means the savings per window are typically smaller than a single deep overnight discount, and the tariff is really designed with heat pump load shapes in mind rather than general household flexibility.
Flux — the solar-and-battery tariff
Flux is structured specifically for households that both generate and store their own electricity. It's an import-and-export tariff with three pricing bands across the day — a cheap overnight import period for topping up your battery from the grid, a standard daytime rate, and a premium evening period with a correspondingly higher export rate, encouraging you to discharge your battery (or export solar) into the grid exactly when demand — and the price — peaks.
This is arguably the tariff most explicitly designed around home battery ownership: it pays you more for exporting during the evening peak than most flat-rate export tariffs, on the logic that a battery-and-solar household is providing genuinely useful grid capacity at the moment it's most needed.
It needs both solar generation and a battery (or at minimum a battery, since the tariff still functions without solar, just with less to export) to make full sense — a household with neither solar nor storage gets little practical benefit from Flux's structure over a simpler tariff, since the value comes specifically from shifting stored energy around the three price bands.
Octopus Tracker — daily wholesale-linked pricing
Tracker sits between Agile's half-hourly volatility and a standard fixed tariff. Rather than changing every 30 minutes, the unit rate changes once a day, following wholesale price movements. There's no dedicated cheap window at all — you pay the same rate all day, but that daily rate itself moves with the market.
It suits households that want closer exposure to wholesale pricing than a fixed tariff offers, without the complexity of reacting to half-hourly changes — useful if you just want to see, and potentially benefit from, day-to-day wholesale swings without needing automation to chase specific windows.
The honest limitation is that Tracker offers little for battery owners specifically, since there's no time-of-day discount to arbitrage — a battery on Tracker can still shift some usage around within a day, but it isn't rewarded with a structural cheap window the way Go, Cosy, or Flux customers are. It's higher-risk than a fixed tariff (rates can rise as well as fall day to day) in exchange for tracking the market more closely.
How a home battery changes the picture for each tariff
The common thread across this whole family is that Octopus's cheaper tariffs are only as good as your ability to actually use the cheap periods — and a battery is one of the most effective tools for doing that automatically, without changing your daily habits.
On Go and Intelligent Go, a battery can charge fully during the fixed overnight window and then discharge to cover the household through the following day, effectively converting the whole day to off-peak rates. On Cosy, a battery can top up across all three windows rather than just one. On Agile, a battery paired with compatible smart-charging software can chase the very cheapest half-hours automatically, which is where Agile's biggest savings potential — and its biggest need for automation — both live. On Flux, the battery is the whole point: charge cheap overnight, hold through the day, and discharge into the high-value evening export period. Tracker is the outlier, since there's no structural window for a battery to exploit beyond ordinary day/night self-consumption patterns.
Worth flagging honestly: pairing a battery with any of these tariffs assumes the battery and its control software can actually talk to the tariff's pricing schedule (directly, via an API, or via a smart home/EV charger integration). Not every battery and inverter combination supports this out of the box, so it's worth checking compatibility before assuming a tariff switch alone will unlock the full saving — our /guides/best-home-battery-uk guide and /calculator can help you work out whether your specific setup is a good match.
Switching between Octopus tariffs
One genuinely useful feature of being an Octopus customer is that moving between their own tariffs is generally free and can usually be done through the online account or app, without the exit fees or lengthy process associated with switching supplier entirely. This means you can, for instance, start on a standard variable or fixed tariff, move to Go once you get an EV, and later move to Flux once you add solar and a battery, without leaving Octopus each time.
That said, 'free to switch' doesn't mean instantaneous or without caveats. Some tariffs (particularly Agile, Cosy, and Flux) have eligibility requirements around smart meters, export meter-reading capability (for Flux), or specific compatible equipment, and there can be a short delay between requesting a switch and it taking effect. If you're on a fixed-term deal there may also be conditions attached to leaving it early, even within Octopus's own tariff range, so it's worth checking your specific account terms rather than assuming every switch is frictionless.
For anyone comparing this landscape more broadly — including how it stacks up against other suppliers' EV and export tariffs — our /tariffs, /tariffs/ev-tariff-comparison and /tariffs/best-seg-rates pages look at the wider market rather than one supplier's range in isolation.
At a glance
| Tariff | Rate structure | Best for | Battery angle |
|---|---|---|---|
| Octopus Go | One fixed overnight cheap window, flat rate elsewhere | EV owners, simple overnight battery charging | Charge overnight, discharge all day |
| Intelligent Octopus Go | Same cheap window, plus smart-scheduled auto charging | EV owners wanting hands-off charging | Mainly EV-focused; some battery integrations |
| Agile Octopus | Half-hourly dynamic pricing, capped, tracks wholesale | Engaged or automated households chasing the cheapest slots | Biggest upside with automated battery smart-charging |
| Cosy Octopus | Three cheaper windows per day (morning, midday, evening) | Heat pump households | More flexible top-up windows than a single overnight block |
| Flux | Three-band import/export tariff, high evening export rate | Solar-and-battery households | Designed specifically around battery charge/discharge cycles |
| Octopus Tracker | One rate per day, changes daily with wholesale prices | Households wanting market exposure without half-hourly complexity | Limited — no structural cheap window to target |
Frequently asked questions
Which Octopus tariff is best for a battery?
There's no single answer — it depends on your setup. If you have solar panels alongside your battery, Flux is structurally the best match, since it's built around charging cheaply overnight and exporting at a premium in the evening. If you don't have solar, Octopus Go (or Cosy if you also have a heat pump) gives a simpler fixed cheap window to charge from. Agile can deliver the deepest savings but works best with automated smart-charging software rather than manual scheduling.
Can I switch between Octopus tariffs?
Generally yes — moving between Octopus's own tariffs is usually free and done through your online account, without the exit fees associated with switching supplier. Some tariffs have eligibility requirements (a working smart meter, an export meter for Flux, compatible EV/charger hardware for Intelligent Go), and fixed-term deals may carry their own conditions, so check your account terms before assuming an instant, unconditional switch.
Is Agile Octopus risky?
It carries more price volatility than a fixed or single-window tariff, since rates change every half hour with wholesale markets (within a cap). For households that can shift usage — manually or via an automated battery/EV charger — into the cheapest slots, it can be rewarding. For households that can't be flexible about when they use power, it can occasionally produce more expensive days than a simpler tariff, so it suits engaged or automated users more than passive ones.
Does Flux need solar?
Flux is designed around households that generate their own electricity, so it works best with solar panels feeding a battery. It can technically apply to a battery-only setup without solar, but the higher evening export rate — one of Flux's main selling points — has much less to offer if you have no generation to export in the first place.
Do I need to be an existing Octopus customer to get one of these tariffs?
No — these tariffs are generally available to new customers switching to Octopus as well as existing ones, though availability and any eligibility requirements (smart meter, compatible hardware) can vary by tariff. It's worth checking current eligibility directly with Octopus, since criteria and rollout can change.
What's the difference between Octopus Go and Intelligent Octopus Go?
Both offer the same style of low overnight rate. Standard Go gives you a fixed window that you manage yourself with a timer. Intelligent Octopus Go automates the charging of a compatible EV (and some other smart devices) within and slightly around that window, using Octopus's own scheduling system, in exchange for needing compatible hardware linked through their app.
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