What is energy auto-switching?
It’s a way to automatically switch energy suppliers without having to lift a finger. All the hard work goes into initially setting up, with the promise being that you’ll have “cheaper energy bills forever”.
Where & when did energy auto-switching start?
The concept of auto-switching started with Flipper who built out an auto-switching energy supplier service back in 2016. It became a lot more prominent when in the summer of 2018, the co-founders of Look After My Bills pitched on the BBC programme Dragons’ Den and secured £120,000 for 3% of the business. Look After My Bills was bought almost a year later for £12.5m by price comparison website GoCompare.
Since then, major price comparison websites have been aiming to get into the auto-switching business with the likes of GoCompare opening up “WeFlip”, MoneySuperMarket creating “Energy Monitor”, and Compare The Market with “EnergyCheck” – highlighting where the market for comparison products is potentially pivoting towards a more automated approach.
We’ve found that there are currently 8 “real” auto-switching services, as these are fully automated services that don’t only tell you about new savings opportunities, but also do the legwork in switching you automatically to the cheapest deal in the background whilst you’re sipping a cup of tea & watching TV.
Who provides energy auto-switching?
| Auto-switching company | Launch Date |
| Switchd | 2017 |
| Flipper | 2016 |
| Look After My Bills | 2018 |
| WeFlip | 2019 |
| Switchcraft | 2018 |
| Migrate | 2016 |
| Labrador | 2016 |
| Homebox | 2019 |
We’re currently writing up a more comprehensive guide on ‘auto-switching’ and will be looking at the auto-switching energy comparison websites above, so that you can pick the right auto-switching business to go with.
In the mean time, it’s not too difficult to switch energy suppliers without auto-switching, and you can do so by visiting the link below:
