Reliant tells the truth about free weekends.
It still costs $720 a year.
This is the more interesting case. Where TXU credits only the energy half of your bill overnight, Reliant genuinely waives both halves during its free hours — and says so plainly. The claim is honest. The plan is still the expensive way to buy electricity.
Price at 2,000 kWh/month, Houston 77002 (CenterPoint), captured 2026-08-13 from shop.reliant.com.
Give them credit: the free really is free
“Free electricity every weekend from 8 p.m. Friday to 12 a.m. Monday, with no energy charge ($0) and no delivery fee ($0) during this timeframe.”
Read that against TXU's version, which credits “Nighttime Energy Charges” and states that “TDU charges, taxes, and other applicable fees are not included in the credit”. Reliant is waiving the CenterPoint delivery charge too — 5.15¢ per kWh — which TXU is not. The TXU teardown is here.
So this is not a story about a misleading claim. It is a story about what the claim costs you.
Where the money goes
A weekend is 52 hours out of a 168‑hour week, and Reliant's window runs 8pm Friday to midnight Monday. Whatever that saves you has to be recovered from the other hours, and the price of those hours is set high enough to do it. At 2,000 kWh a month you pay 3.00¢ per kWh more than Reliant's own straightforward plan — $60.00 a month, every month, whether or not you manage to shift your laundry to Sunday.
For the free weekends to pay for themselves you would need to move a remarkable share of your usage into that window. Reliant does not publish what share of a typical customer's usage lands there, and neither will we, because we do not know it. What we can tell you is the price of finding out.
Every Reliant plan, ranked
| Plan | Term | ¢/kWh at 2,000 | The hook |
|---|---|---|---|
| Prepaid Power | Month to Month | 18.1¢ | |
| Clear Flex | Month to Month | 17.9¢ | |
| Flextra Credits 24 | 24 Months | 17.9¢ | 2 highest-use days a week free; $200 in bill credits; 100% solar |
| Solar Payback Match 12 | 12 Months | 17.7¢ | solar panels required |
| Texans plan | 12 Months | 17.1¢ | $100 Fanatics gift card + Texans autograph session |
| Free Overnight 12 | 12 Months | 16.9¢ | free electricity every night |
| Truly Free Weekends 12 | 12 Months | 16.9¢ | free electricity all weekend, energy AND delivery |
| Apartment 12 | 12 Months | 16.4¢ | |
| Power Savings 24 | 24 Months | 15.4¢ | $75 bill credit at 1,000 kWh |
| Power Savings 10 | 10 Months | 14.4¢ | |
| Get More, Save More 12 | 12 Months | 13.9¢ | lower rate after 1,000 kWh |
| Secure Advantage 12 | 12 Months | 13.9¢ | their plain plan: 'Straightforward plan with locked-in energy charge' |
| Get More, Save More 36 | 36 Months | 13.5¢ | lower price after the first 1,000 kWh used |
| Power Savings 2,000 kWh 24 | 24 Months | 10.8¢ | bill credit for monthly usage of 2,000 kWh or more |
Captured 2026-08-13 from shop.reliant.com for ZIP 77002 (CenterPoint). 14 plans.
The $100 gift card costs $768
The Reliant Texans plan offers a $100 Fanatics gift card and an invitation to an autograph session. It is priced at 17.10¢ against Secure Advantage's 13.90¢ — so over a year at 2,000 kWh a month, the gift card costs you $768.
That is the whole pattern in one plan. The hook is real, the gift card is real, and you are paying several times its value for it.
Compare Texas plans at ComparePower
We may be paid if you switch through that link. You can do the same thing for free, and with no benefit to us, at powertochoose.org, the state's own comparison site. It will not show you the advertised plans either — that is the point of this site, not a reason to avoid it.