Octopus Energy Referral Link 2023

Octopus Energy New Customer Switching Bonus

If you’ve found this page through a Google search then you are probably looking for information on the Octopus Energy referral bonus. As an Octopus Energy customer myself, I have been a strong advocate for the company thanks to their excellent customer service and fair pricing.

If you’re considering switching to Octopus Energy then it should please you to know that switching is super simple and only takes a few minutes of your time. Firstly, you just need to enter your details into the Octopus website. But an important reminder at this point – if you want to benefit from £50 of free credit on your bill then you can sign up through my Octopus Energy referral link.

Octopus Energy in the Fight for Fairer Prices

With turmoil across the energy market right now, it’s great to know that Octopus Energy is actively fighting for fairer energy prices for consumers. In the news recently (22-08-22), the company announced that it was working with the National Grid on a new way to help consumers save money on their energy bills. One proposal was the scrapping of VAT on energy bills, along with an initiative to boost energy supplies in the UK.

Octopus also announced a new ‘Fan Club’ tariff designed to help customers get cheaper energy bills if they live near wind turbines. I recently received an email from Octopus Energy about these initiatives which clearly outlines the fossil fuel crisis, including details of existing government support (more up0to-date info on this below) and the various reasons for the UK’s energy price increases.

Octopus Energy’s 100% Renewable Energy Promise

As most of us already know, climate change is hurting our planet and our environment. Octopus Energy already supplies customers with 100% renewable energy, so making the switch will help to reduce your carbon footprint as well as potentially save you money on your energy bills.

Just to reiterate, you can use my Octopus Energy referral link to get an energy quote and benefit from £50 credit on your bill when you sign up. The credit is normally added AFTER your first direct debit payment has been made to Octopus after you’ve made the switch.

Electric Blanket Scheme from Octopus Energy

In October, Octopus Energy announced a fantastic new initiative aimed at helping people in need by giving away 10,000 free energy-efficient electric blankets to the most vulnerable customers and those in need. The scheme has now closed after receiving nearly 100,000 applications but you can still make some significant electricity savings by buying an energy efficiency electric blanket from retailers like Amazon.  At the time of writing, one of the most popular electric blankets on sale is the Silentnight Comfort Control blanket, starting at around £35 for a single bed and £40 for a double.

Octopus Energy says that a typical home could save £300 by using an electric blanket to keep warm. The calculations are based on the average cost to heat an entire home for a day (around £3-4) compared to the cost of running an energy-efficient electric blanket (just 2-4p per hour).

For more information on this great initiative, visit the Octopus Energy blog page.

Payment Options with Octopus Energy

As with most good energy suppliers, Octopus Energy provides a range of payment options for customers to settle their energy bills. The most common payment method is Direct Debit, and Octopus Energy is fairly flexible with how they approach this in terms of allowing customers to adjust their Direct Debit payment amount within their online billing platform.

Provided that you make the adjustment at least a few working days before your payment is due you can normally change your monthly payments to suit your needs (as long as you don’t owe Octopus money). The same rule applies to the payment date which can be adjusted in the Octopus Energy online billing platform.

Choosing a Fixed or Flexible Energy Tariff

There’s been loads of debate lately about whether customers should choose a fixed or flexible energy tariff. On the upside, fixed tariffs provide peace of mind that your energy bills won’t increase for a set time period – usually twelve months. With Octopus Energy, you can fix for up to twelve months, or use the Flexible Octopus tariff which changes based on the wholesale price of gas and electricity at the time.

It’s a bit of a gamble as to what you should choose, but considering that energy prices are at an all-time high right now, I have decided to remain on the Flexible Octopus tariff (for now!). Having said that, even if you choose the fixed tariff, which provides Octopus customers with 100% renewable energy, there are no exit fees so it’s easy to switch back.

Recent advice from money saving expert Martin Lewis says that things have changed recently due to the new universal energy price guarantee announced by the UK Government in recent weeks. Previously, Octopus Energy customers would have been covered by the energy price guarantees for two years, but this has now been brought forward to April 2023.

Mr Lewis says that the new price guarantee for standard tariffs is provided as a reduction to the planned October unit rates, but the Government has said from 1 October the same 4p per kilowatt hour gas, and 17p per kilowatt hour electricity reduction will apply to many (but not all) fixed rates too. That’s about a 30% decrease.

In short, Lewis says that if you are currently on a fix, “it’s safest to do nothing till you hear from your energy firm”.

Customer Service Benefits of Switching to Octopus Energy

When we moved over to Octopus Energy about three years ago we moved from a large and well-known supplier of energy who were frankly not very caring. Our original energy supplier was a legacy courtesy of the previous tenant of the property we moved in to, so there were no options (initially) about which provider we could choose for our energy.

But after six weeks we were able to shop around for the best energy deal and, after lots of research and deliberation, we decided to move to Octopus Energy because they appeared to be both cheap, reliable and very well reviewed. On Trustpilot the energy supplier has more than 117,00 reviews, 95% of which are (at the time of writing) four stars or higher.

The service provided by the company has been exceptional since day one. Whenever we’ve needed to speak to someone we have emailed Octopus Energy’s customer service team who usually respond within a day.

If you are in any doubt then feel free to take a look at the 100,000-strong list of customer reviews about Octopus Energy on Trustpilot. This is what enticed us to switch to them for our energy supply in the first place.

Energy Price Changes from July 2023

Over the last few weeks there has been speculation that energy prices could drop amidst the notable improvement in gas prices as a result of reduced gas demand caused by unseasonably warm weather (even though it’s minus 3 as I write this!).

An energy consultancy company called Cornwall Insight predicts that average household energy prices will fall to around £2,200 from July – about £300 lower than previous predictions. That’s great news for consumers like you and me although sadly our bills are still much, much higher than they used to be.

The good news for Octopus Energy customers is that these lower prices should translate into higher-than-average savings partly due to the fact that Octopus is generally very competitive with its pricing.

Whether or not this new lower price prediction remains for the long term is something we won’t know until further down the line, as the volatility of gas and electricity prices will most likely continue.

Just a reminder that if you are considering switching energy supplier then you can £50 of free credit on your first bill if you switch to Octopus Energy via my referral link.

Octopus Energy Referral Link (£50 Reward)

One of the other great benefits about switching to Octopus Energy is the option to build and grow your own energy referral scheme. For each customer you successfully refer to Octopus Energy, you will get a £50 refer a friend bonus and so will they.

The bonus is applied to your bill after your ‘Refer a Friend’ has become an Octopus Energy customer and paid their first Direct Debit payment.

When you become a new customer at Octopus, you’ll automatically be gifted your own referral link to share with your friends and family. This is all you need to start your own Refer a Friend scheme. Octopus takes care of all the hard work. All you need to do is share your Octopus Energy referral link to get £50 back on your bill when your friend or family sign up.

It’s important to note that there are some rules on how you can promote your Octopus Energy referral link which include things like not spamming the link on social media or ‘piggybacking’ off of Octopus’s social posts. All fairly obvious stuff but as long as you are fairly and genuinely building a network of referrals then you should be fine.

The screenshot below shows what the Octopus Energy referral link dashboard looks like so you can track the number of referrals you’ve got pending and complete.

Save Money with Octopus Energy

In the second half of 2022, Octopus Energy ran a Winter Workout initiative to help customers save money. The theme of the initiative was to help customers reduce their bills by completing a list of small but effective energy saving tasks around the home designed to reduce electricity and gas consumption and wastage.

For me, the most useful tip was reducing the flow of our boiler. This took literally a few seconds to achieve and has reduced our has bills by around 25%. This guide from Octopus Energy demonstrates how to reduce the flow on your boiler. I really would recommend anyone who has a boiler with adjustable flow to try reducing it and see how it impacts your bills.

The main point to note here is that your water may be slightly cooler than normal after you reduce the flow. For us, this wasn’t an issue as the previous temperate was too high to bath or wash in, so reducing it was actually beneficial for us.

Octopus Energy has just announced that they’re launching their second ‘Winter Workout’ this autumn, with prizes for customers who make the biggest energy savings. There’s a tonne of information about it on the Octopus Energy website here. You can also see some of the customer success stories, such as one person who reduced their energy usage by 36kg of CO2 over a 12-week period.

Important: Don’t forget to click the Octopus referral link!

Just a gentle reminder that if you want to take advantage of the Octopus Energy referral link to get £50 of free credit added to your first bill, please sign up using my Refer a Friend link.

Unfortunately neither you or I will benefit from the credit if you forget to sign up this way.

If you have any questions or need some help then your best option is to contact Octopus Energy directly. For general support enquiries you should call the Octopus Energy Support Line on 0808 164 1088 or visit the Octopus Energy website support page.

Octopus Energy Referral Link for Business Customers

If you are a business and would like to benefit from a similar offer, use my Octopus Energy referral link and you will get £100 towards your first bill after you sign up. Please remember that the Octopus Energy terms and conditions apply, and you might need to wait a few weeks for the bonus to be applied to your bill.

Smart Metres from Octopus Energy

Octopus is keen to get customers upgraded to the latest smart metres. According to the company, customers with a smart metre pay less for their energy than those who don’t have a smart metre. Octopus also offers smart metre customers free incentives and bonuses like:

1. Get cheap or free energy at the greenest times
2. Monthly chance to win a year’s free energy
3. Double spins on the wheel of fortune game (a game that allows you to spin a prize wheel each time you submit a metre reading)

The more obvious benefits of having a smart metre are the ability to view real-time energy usage, check week-on-week comparisons of energy usage so you can watch your habits over time, and up-to-the-minute energy insights from the latest Octopus Home Mini smart metre.

Octopus Energy says that it now has more than one million customers benefiting from smart metre usage.

Octopus Energy Pricing & Energy Price Cap Info

At the time I first wrote this article, the UK energy price cap was set at around £1,900 per year. This increased again in October 2022 to an £2,500 per year (60-70% higher than it was the previous October and well over twice what it was in winter 2021).

In May 2022 the government announced that it would provide £400 of support per household through what it calls an ‘energy support grant’. The aim of the grant is to reduce the average household’s energy bill by this amount through a direct payment to the energy companies.

The latest energy support includes both a cap of the unit price for electricity and gas (£0.34 per/kWh for electricity, £0.10 per kWh for gas), plus a payment of £400 for each household in the UK, applied to customer’s energy bills over six months, with a reduction of £66 in October and November, and £67 every month between December and March 2023

Your energy company will then be responsible for reducing the amount you pay each month by the appropriate amount depending on your energy usage and any amount already owed on your energy account.

The energy support grant is automatic, meaning that you won’t need to apply for it or take any action to benefit from it.

Households on lower incomes should have already received two additional support payments directly to their bank accounts in July 2022 and again in autumn. These payments are designed to help ease the burden of rising energy prices on struggling households.

Octopus Energy says that it is actively pushing for more government support for consumers in the form of energy price caps or grants. The company also provides help and support for customers who are struggling, saying that customers can call Octopus Energy to discuss their individual circumstances for the possibility of “direct financial assistance”.

The Octopus Energy Assist fund has been created to help those most in need, and offers a number of support mechanisms including:

1. Direct financial assistance
2. Payment plans
3. Free electric blankets over Winter (using electric blankets to stay snug on your sofa can save £400 on your energy bill)
4. Loaning thermal cameras to spot heat loss around the home

Update on the Energy Price Cap for Octopus Customers

On 8th September 2022 the Government announced an update to the energy price cap affecting Octopus Energy customers. For residential energy users, an energy price guarantee was implemented that would typically cost each household around £2,500 per year.

The energy price cap then rose again in January to around £4,200 per year, although this was reduced under the Government’s Energy Price Guarantee (EPG) which promised to pay a percentage of the unit rate of gas and electricity for each household.

It’s important to note that these price caps aren’t the absolute most you could pay for energy in a year. They are an average cost, calculated by average household use of both gas and electricity across the UK. This means that you could pay more or less depending on your individual circumstances.

According to the Energy Saving Trust, the price cap limits the amount that a supplier can charge for their default tariff. This includes:

• The standing charge (a fixed daily amount you have to pay for energy, regardless of how much energy you use)
• The unit price of electricity and gas (measured in pence per kilowatt hours, or p/kWh).

The energy regulator Ofgem uses a figure of 12,000kWh as an illustrative figure of the average household’s annual energy use. As I mention above, this number represents a fairly typical household’s energy use for a year although it isn’t an absolute cap on the total amount your household will pay for its energy use over a one-year period.

If you are frugal with your energy use then this amount could be much lower. Conversely, if you are a high user then the amount you pay could be much higher.

The Government said previously the price cap intervention will create certainty for households until 2024, although this has now been brought forward to the end of March 2023.

In addition to the price cap which started in October 2022, most households will have received a £400 “energy rebate” on their energy bills in addition to a small reduction on their bills of about £150 a year as a result of the green levy being temporarily removed.

Overall, energy bills for the next 12 months should average out at around £2,000-£2,500 after these deductions.

Help & Support – How Do I Use the Octopus Referral Link?

If you’d like to switch to Octopus Energy and would also like to benefit from the £50 switching bonus, please remember to sign up via my Octopus Energy referral link.

Unfortunately if you forget to sign up via this link then you may not be eligible for the offer.

How Much Will I Get When Signing Up Through the Referral Link?

As part of the Octopus Energy refer a friend programme you’ll receive £50 of credit on your energy bill after you’ve paid your first direct debit payment. This bonus is typically applied to your account within six weeks of signing up.

For more information or to check the progress of your referral bonus, login to your Octopus account and check the Balance History page.

If you have any questions or issues please contact Octopus Energy direct on 0808 164 1088.