TL;DR
- Octopus Agile is a 48-band half-hourly variable electricity tariff. Prices for the next day are published at around 4pm each afternoon, derived from the wholesale day-ahead market.
- Cheap and even negative rates appear regularly on windy overnight periods, especially in autumn and winter. Peak rates can spike well into the 50-90p per kWh range during cold still evenings.
- The 100p per kWh ceiling on the Agile contract is a hard cap, in place since the 2022-23 wholesale crisis.
- Agile suits households with a home battery, electric vehicle, or both. It punishes households that cannot move evening cooking and heating off the 4pm to 7pm peak.
- Standing charge applies regardless of usage. For most homes that is between 40p and 67p per day depending on region.
Last reviewed: May 2026
Agile is a wholesale-exposed product that turns the customer into a part-time energy trader. Every afternoon the next day's 48 half-hour prices land. A household with a battery, an EV with smart charging, or a heat pump on a flexible schedule can move significant load to the cheapest bands and pay an average rate well below the Ofgem cap. A household without any of those levers usually pays more on Agile than on a normal variable, because the peak rates are punitive and the dishwasher does not care what time it is.
The honest answer to "is Agile worth it" is: only if there is something in the house that can shift load without a person standing at it.
How the day-ahead pricing works
The 48 half-hour prices each weekday are based on the GB N2EX day-ahead auction result, with network charges, policy costs, supplier margin, and VAT layered on. The publication time is approximately 4pm UK time. Sometimes the auction result is late and prices land closer to 5pm; this is rare but documented on the Octopus status page.
The half-hour bands are aligned with the GB settlement period. Each band's price is independent of the next. A cheap band at 02:00 to 02:30 will often be followed by a slightly more expensive 02:30 to 03:00 band, then a return to cheap. The system runs on wholesale movement, not on a smoothed curve.
The catch is that the consumer-visible price is one step removed from wholesale. Octopus applies a fixed retail margin and the policy uplifts to the wholesale band. When wholesale goes negative (which happens overnight on windy days), the retail Agile price can also go negative. When it does, customers are paid to use electricity, with the credit appearing on the bill.
Negative pricing and what it actually looks like
Negative half-hours appeared on 67 days during 2025, according to the Agile rate history published on the Octopus customer portal. Most occurred between midnight and 5am during high-wind periods in autumn and winter. The deepest negative was around minus 13p per kWh on the night of 25 November 2025, when a North Sea storm pushed onshore wind output past 22 GW while demand collapsed.
A household with a 5 kWh battery on Agile, set to charge during the cheapest three or four half-hours each night, can capture most of the structural saving. The battery acts as a buffer that lets daytime consumption draw from cheap overnight electricity. Without a battery, the saving is whatever load can be deliberately shifted into those windows.
EV owners can do something similar with a smart charger. The Ohme, Indra, and Zappi units all integrate with the Agile API and can schedule charges around the cheapest bands. The catch is granularity: most chargers prefer 30-minute blocks, which fits Agile cleanly, but some legacy units only handle one-hour slots and miss the half-hour optima.
Peak pricing and the 100p ceiling
The contractual ceiling on Agile is 100p per kWh. That cap was introduced after the late 2022 wholesale crisis when a small number of half-hours saw uncapped prices breach the contract floor of the time. In practice the cap rarely triggers; the largest 2025 peak was around 92p per kWh on the evening of 8 January 2025, during a cold snap with low wind output.
The typical winter weekday evening peak runs between 30p and 55p per kWh in the 4pm to 7pm slot. That is higher than the Ofgem cap unit rate (around 27p in Q1 2026) and significantly higher than Tracker. A household cooking dinner across that slot, running a tumble drier, charging laptops, and watching TV will absorb most of the day's price hit in three hours.
Where it breaks for the unprepared household: the peak rates are not a curiosity; they are the structural payment for the tariff design. Negative overnight rates are subsidised by punishing peak rates. A household that cannot or does not shift load off the peak loses the negative-rate benefit and pays the peak penalty.
Who actually saves money on Agile
The customer profiles that consistently come out ahead, based on aggregated Agile community data published on the unofficial Octopus Agile dashboard run by Energy Stats UK, fall into a small set.
| Profile | Typical annual saving vs cap | Why it works |
|---|---|---|
| Battery storage owner | 15-25% | Battery charges in cheapest 3-5 half-hours each night |
| EV-only household | 10-18% | Smart charger scheduled around cheap bands |
| EV plus battery | 20-35% | Both loads shifted; arbitrage across day |
| Heat pump with thermal store | 8-15% | Thermal store charged in cheap windows |
| No flexible load | -5 to -15% | Peak rate hit without negative-rate offset |
The bottom row is the important one. Roughly one in three new Agile sign-ups, based on Octopus's own published churn data for 2024, leaves within three months. Most of those leavers had no flexible load. The tariff hurt them. They moved back to Tracker or Flexible Octopus.
Setting up the practical side
The Agile sign-up requires a working SMETS2 smart meter in half-hourly settlement mode. Octopus arranges the meter mode flip automatically during the switch. The actual change from cap to Agile typically completes within five working days; the Ofgem switching rules updated in May 2022 set the upper bound.
Most Agile customers run two things on top of the bare tariff: an app showing today and tomorrow's prices, and an automation that triggers loads (battery charge, EV charge, dishwasher, washing machine) in the cheapest windows. The Octopus Home Pro hub does this natively for compatible appliances. Home Assistant users typically install the Octopus Energy integration maintained by the open-source community to schedule loads from a local server.
Without that scheduling layer, Agile becomes a manual exercise. Some households can manage it; most cannot maintain the routine through a winter.
The other practical layer is settlement. Half-hourly settlement requires the meter to deliver readings every 30 minutes to the Data Communications Company (DCC). Where the comms hub is weak (basement flats, thick stone walls), readings drop and Octopus estimates the missing half-hours. The estimation algorithm tries to be neutral but can leave a customer worse off than actual consumption justifies.
When Agile is the wrong tariff
Agile is wrong for a household without flexible load, without time to think about energy use, or without the temperament to absorb daily price variability. It is wrong for shared-house tenancies where the bill is split equally; one resident's evening cook can punish the whole household. It is wrong for vulnerable customers who depend on stable, predictable utility costs, particularly those eligible for Warm Home Discount support announced by DESNZ on 23 August 2025.
It is also wrong for off-peak storage heater households on a Restricted Hours meter (formerly Economy 7, Economy 10, or White Meter Scotland). Those meters do not communicate half-hourly data and cannot serve Agile. The customer must transition to a SMETS2 single-tariff meter first.
For the right customer, Agile is the lowest-cost retail electricity in the UK most months of the year. For the wrong customer, it is a slow drain.
Setting up the home automation that makes Agile work
The defining feature of an Agile-optimised household is automation that responds to the next-day price publication. Three components form the typical setup. A home automation hub (most commonly Home Assistant running on a Raspberry Pi or dedicated server) ingests the Octopus Agile API. A battery management system (most often a Tesla Powerwall, GivEnergy, or Fox ESS unit) accepts schedule commands. A smart EV charger from Ohme, Wallbox, or myenergi receives charging slot instructions.
The Home Assistant integration for Octopus Energy, maintained by the open-source community, pulls Agile rates from the Octopus API every afternoon and exposes them as sensor values. Automations can trigger battery charging during the cheapest half-hours, EV charging in the same windows, and even discharge of the battery into the home during peak hours.
For households without home automation skills, an off-the-shelf alternative is the Octopus Home Pro hub, launched in late 2023. It bundles smart plugs and integrations with major appliance brands so the customer can opt-in to off-peak scheduling without writing code. The Home Pro is less flexible than a self-built setup but accessible to non-technical users.
The maintenance overhead is real. Home Assistant automations need occasional updates as API formats change. Firmware updates on chargers and inverters can break compatibility temporarily. Households without the time or interest to maintain the stack typically capture less of the structural saving than households with active engagement.
Editorial disclaimer. Kaeltripton is an independent UK finance publisher. This article is general information for UK adults making their own decisions, not regulated financial advice. Agile rates change every half hour and the examples here reflect Octopus and Ofgem publications dated before the last-reviewed date at the top of this page. Always confirm current rates with the supplier before switching. For complaints, refunds, or vulnerable-customer protection the formal route runs through the supplier first and then the Energy Ombudsman.
FAQ
How often do negative prices appear?
On 67 days during 2025, mainly between midnight and 5am during high-wind periods in autumn and winter. Negative half-hours are concentrated in a few weather patterns, not evenly spread.
What happens when the smart meter loses signal?
Octopus estimates missed half-hours based on the local profile. A consistent comms issue should be raised with the supplier; persistent failure can be escalated through the complaint process.
Is it possible to be on Agile and Cosy at the same time?
No. Agile and Cosy are alternative tariffs for the same electricity supply. A household chooses one. Some Agile customers run a heat pump on a manual cheap-window schedule rather than paying for Cosy's separate band structure.
Is there an exit fee on this tariff?
No. Agile is a variable tariff with no minimum term. Customers can leave at any time.
Are gas prices set on Agile too?
No. Agile is an electricity-only product. Gas, where present, sits on a separate Octopus tariff such as Flexible Octopus or Tracker gas.
Are there penalties for switching from Agile back to Tracker?
No financial penalty. Agile and Tracker are both no-exit-fee variables. The change typically completes within a few days through the Octopus dashboard.