What CHOICE Found About Comparison Sites, and What's Changed Since

In 2022, CHOICE published an investigation into Australian energy comparison sites. Their central finding: the main problem with commercial comparison sites is that they don't show all available deals on the market.

That finding was accurate then. The market has changed since, in some ways for the better and in some ways not. And there's a dimension of the comparison accuracy problem that CHOICE's investigation didn't examine: even when a site shows you all available plans, the comparison it runs may still be wrong for your household.

This is the current state of energy comparison in Australia, updated for 2026.

What CHOICE Found in 2022

CHOICE's investigation tested major Australian energy comparison sites by running identical queries and comparing results. Their key findings:

Limited plan access. Commercial comparison sites earn commission on switches. They only show plans from retailers who participate in their commercial network. Plans from non-participating retailers, including some of the cheapest available, were absent from commercial comparison results.

Inconsistent results across sites. The same query run on different commercial comparison sites returned different "cheapest plan" results, because each site has a different commercial network with different participating retailers.

Energy Made Easy as the more complete option. The government's non-commercial comparison service, Energy Made Easy, showed a broader set of plans because it uses the government's CDR data feed, which requires accredited retailers to publish plan data regardless of commercial relationships.

Disclosure gaps. Some sites' commission relationships and plan selection limitations were not clearly disclosed to users.

What's Changed Since 2022

The Consumer Data Right has expanded. CDR obligations for energy retailers have been strengthened since 2022. More retailers are required to publish accredited plan data through the CDR feed. This means both government and commercial comparison services with CDR access show a more complete picture of the market than was available when CHOICE investigated.

Smart meter rollout has accelerated. More Australian households now have smart meters that can provide 15-minute interval consumption data. In states and territories where smart meter data sharing is active through CDR, comparison services can access your actual historical consumption data (with your permission) rather than relying on assumptions. This is a genuine improvement for comparison accuracy where it's available.

The competitive energy market has continued to shift. Some retailers who were active in 2022 have exited the market or been acquired. New entrants have appeared. Tariff structures have become more complex (time-varying FiTs, time-varying import rates, demand tariffs for residential customers), making accurate comparison harder for tools that apply generic assumptions.

Commercial comparison site business models are under more scrutiny. The AER and ACCC have increased scrutiny of how energy comparison services present results, commission relationships, and plan completeness disclosures. Disclosure standards have improved, though the fundamental commercial structure, commission on switch, remains unchanged.

What Hasn't Changed

Commercial comparison sites still don't read your bill. This is the unchanged structural limitation. CHOICE's investigation focused on plan access and commercial relationships. Neither CHOICE nor regulators have examined the accuracy problem at the level of individual household comparison.

Every major Australian energy comparison site (Finder, Canstar Blue, iSelect, Compare the Market) asks for your postcode or your usage estimate. None of them read your actual bill. None of them know your actual tariff rates. None of them know your actual consumption pattern.

The comparison they run is accurate for a hypothetical average household with your postcode. It is not personalised to your specific plan, your specific usage, your specific tariff structure.

The plan recommendation can still be wrong for your household. Even with complete CDR access and improved disclosure, a comparison run against a generic usage assumption can recommend the wrong plan for high-usage households, TOU customers, and solar households. The assumption problem hasn't been addressed because no commercial comparison site has built the capability to address it.

Non-participating retailers may still be absent from some commercial comparisons. CDR access has improved, but the commercial comparison model still involves some level of curation. Sites may choose to feature participating retailers more prominently than the CDR would suggest, or to de-emphasise plans from retailers outside their commercial network.

The Two Things To Look For in 2026

When using any energy comparison service, ours or anyone else's, two questions determine how much to trust the result:

1. What usage figure is the comparison based on? If the comparison is based on a postcode average or a figure you entered from memory, the accuracy depends on how close that figure is to your actual usage. If the comparison is based on data extracted from your actual bill or smart meter data, it's more accurate.

2. Does the comparison show all plans or only participating plans? Government tools (Energy Made Easy, Victorian Energy Compare) show the full CDR dataset without commercial curation. Commercial sites show their panel of retailers. The difference may be small in states with high retailer CDR compliance, or significant where key retailers participate in some platforms but not others.

Where Fix Your Bill Sits in This Landscape

We're a commercial comparison service. We earn commission when you switch through our platform. We're not the government and we don't claim to be.

What we do that's different: we read your bill. Not a usage figure you entered. Not a postcode average. The actual data from your actual bill: your usage, your current rates, your tariff structure.

We run that bill-extracted data against the full CDR dataset. If there's a cheaper plan from a retailer who doesn't pay us commission, we show it. We'd rather you get the right answer than protect a commission from an irrelevant one.

Our commission model is disclosed on our How We Make Money page. Our comparison methodology is explained on this site. Our accuracy confidence ranges are shown on every result.

CHOICE's 2022 finding, that you should be cautious about commercial comparison sites, is still sound advice. Apply that caution to us too. Look at our methodology. Look at what data we're comparing against. Ask whether the saving figure we show you is based on your actual bill or an assumption.

Then make your own call.

The Bottom Line for 2026

The best comparison available to an Australian energy customer in 2026:

1. Upload your bill to a service that actually reads it (Fix Your Bill, or any service that develops this capability)
2. Cross-check against Energy Made Easy using the same usage figures, to verify you're seeing the full CDR plan set
3. Read the accuracy confidence on any comparison result, and understand what assumptions were made and how confident the service is in the result
4. Switch directly through the new retailer if you find a better plan, or through a comparison service whose disclosure you trust

The market has improved since 2022. It hasn't been solved. The best protection is understanding what the comparison tool knows about your household and what it's assuming.

Fix Your Bill is an independent commercial comparison service. We earn commission on switches made through our platform. Our comparison is based on bill-extracted data and CDR plan data. CHOICE's investigation referenced in this article is publicly available at choice.com.au.