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Last updated Nov 13, 2026Written and edited by Ali PeivandizadehNo ads. No sponsors.
Marketing · Action

Test your plans the way the new AI brokers do

By Ali Peivandizadeh, business growth and AI implementation specialist.

Published Nov 13, 2026 · Last checked Nov 13, 2026 · Last changed Nov 13, 2026
The short answer

New Texas brokers rank every plan on Power to Choose against a customer's own smart meter data and flag the fine print. Run the same test on your own plans first. Find the plans that look good at one level of use and lose at a customer's real use.

Verdict
ACT
For
Electricity sellers, energy brokers. Sells to homes. 21 to 1,000 people. Pricing, marketing, compliance.
Cost and time
No cost beyond staff time. About two days for a pricing analyst.

Why

Energy Choice Matters reported on Nov 10, 2026 that a new Texas broker, Wattpal, compares every Power to Choose plan for a home. It uses the customer's 15-minute smart meter readings and tests them against every active fixed-rate EFL. Its scanner flags bill-credit cliffs, base fees, tiered usage penalties, AutoPay requirements and early termination fees. The report costs the customer $9.99, and Wattpal says it takes no commission from any REP. A second broker launched a similar ranking the same week. A plan that is cheap at 1,000 kWh and costs more at the customer's real use is the plan this test finds.

What to do

  1. List every plan you sell today, with its EFL.
  2. Take twelve real usage patterns from your own book. Remove names, addresses and ESI IDs.
  3. Work out the full bill for each plan at each pattern. Include the base fee, the TDU charges, every credit and every tier.
  4. Mark each plan where a small change in use moves the bill by a large amount.
  5. List what a scanner would flag in each EFL: credit cliffs, base fees, tier penalties, AutoPay rules and early termination fees.
  6. Give the list to pricing and compliance. Decide which plans to keep, change or retire.
  7. Show each plan's price at more levels of use on your own site, in plain text.
  8. Repeat the test before you launch a new plan.

The rule to check

The PUC's rules govern what an EFL must show and how a plan is advertised. Use customers' meter data only as your terms and the PUC's rules allow, and remove names and ESI IDs before the analysis. Send every changed plan page through compliance.

What can go wrong

The test can show that a best-selling plan earns its margin from customers who miss a credit, and changing it costs margin now. The timing is also open. NRG's consumer president said on Nov 9, 2026 that AI shopping has not yet changed customer behavior.

Sources

Plain text version