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Plainly

The cheapest plan is never the one on TV.

Free nights. Free weekends. Bill credits. Gift cards. Every Texas electricity plan is advertised with one number, and that number is almost never what you end up paying. We re‑price every plan from the legal document behind it and show you the real cost at your usage.

$1,752 / year
What TXU's Free Nights & Cool Summer 12 costs an Oncor home using 2,000 kWh a month, against the cheapest plain fixed‑rate plan whose price holds at any usage level. One worked example of a much bigger pattern.
TXU Free Nights & Cool Summer 12
18.20¢
TXU Simple Rate 12 (plain fixed)
16.50¢
True Power True Value 12
10.90¢

Average price per kWh at 2,000 kWh/month, Dallas. TXU figures captured 2026-08-12 from shopping.txu.com; the third from powertochoose.org on 2026-08-13. All three include TDU delivery charges — TXU says so in its own footnote, and every Electricity Facts Label states the same basis, so these are like for like.

Even TXU's own plain plan beats it

Set the rest of the market aside. On the same page, on the same day, TXU sells Simple Rate 12 at 16.50¢ and Free Nights & Cool Summer 12 at 18.20¢. Buying the free‑nights version of TXU costs $408 a year more than buying the boring version of TXU.

Why the free hours don't help

Your electricity bill has two halves. The retailer sells you energy. The wires company — the TDU — delivers it, and bills you separately per kilowatt‑hour no matter who you buy from. In Dallas that's Oncor, at 6.03¢ per kWh plus $4.06 a month.

A free‑nights plan credits the energy half overnight. It does not touch the delivery half. TXU says so themselves, in the footnote directly beneath the words “free nights all year”:

“Nighttime Energy Charges credited at 100% all year long. During July, August, and September, an additional credit of up to 25% on nighttime Energy Charges may apply and will be used toward daytime Energy Charges. TDU charges, taxes, and other applicable fees are not included in the credit and will be billed separately. Other eligibility rules apply.”

TXU Energy, txu.com homepage, footnote 1

So every “free” kilowatt‑hour you use at 2am still costs you 6.03¢ in Oncor delivery. Read the plan card again and the wording is exact:

“Get free energy charges every night, all year, plus a 25% bonus toward daytime usage all summer. Rooftop solar and other customer exclusions apply.”

TXU Energy, shopping.txu.com, plan card for Free Nights & Cool Summer 12

Free energy charges. Not free electricity. That one word is the whole product.

Where does the premium come from?

Nobody gives away electricity. The overnight credit is paid for by a higher rate the rest of the time, and the number above is what's left after both sides net out. At 2,000 kWh a month you are paying 1.70¢ per kWh — $34.00 a month — for the privilege.

This is not really about TXU

We read the Electricity Facts Label for 737 plans across all five Texas delivery utilities to see how common this is. It isn't:

Plain plans
89%
Bill credit, tiered, time-of-use, bundled
11%

89% of listed plans are plain — one rate, no hook, no threshold. The Texas retail market is mostly boring.

So why does it feel like it's full of gimmicks? Because the hooked ones are the ones that get advertised. TXU sells ten plans on its own website and half of them carry a hook. Those are the ones on television. Here they are, priced.

That's the pattern worth knowing, and it has nothing to do with any single company. The plans marketed to you are not a random sample of the plans available to you. Television, radio and direct mail sell the hook. If you only ever see the advertising, you never meet the 89%.

Which is why every table on this site is sorted by whether the advertised price survives contact with your actual usage, and why we say which plans we read the document for and which we only inferred.

See the plans you can actually buy

Which plans you can buy is decided by the utility that delivers your electricity, not by the retailer you pay and not by your ZIP code. Pick yours:

Oncor Electric Delivery113 plansCenterPoint Energy Houston Electric116 plansAEP Texas Central109 plansAEP Texas North109 plansTexas-New Mexico Power108 plans

It's named on your bill, usually under “TDU Delivery Charges”. How to find it.

Or start from your ZIP code

We'll suggest a utility, but we won't pretend to be certain. We tested a sample of ZIP codes against the state's own plan data and 16% of them were served by two different utilities, so a site that takes your ZIP and shows one list is guessing. Confirm against your bill before you switch.

Read next

The full Free Nights teardown — every TXU plan on Oncor, ranked by what it actually costs.
What TXU sells you vs. what TXU lists on the state's own comparison site — they are not the same plans.
Why your ZIP code is the wrong question.