Electricity comparison sites: who runs them, who pays them and how to check one

We are The Day Company, a publisher in Spokane, Washington. We write guides and score companies from public records. We are not a comparison site, but our pages carry a plan finder from one partner, so you should hold us to the same test.

The finder reads your ZIP and shows plans only in TX, PA, OH, NJ and IL. Everywhere else, it shows none, and we say so. The finder is the partner's tool, so the partner controls its list and its sort order. The end of this page grades us on the eight checks.

Open the site you want to test, then tick each thing you can see. It takes about two minutes. The result names what is still missing.

This counts what you saw on one page of one site. It is not a rating of a company, and a site may explain more on a page you did not open.

If a site fails the first three, treat it as an ad. If it passes them, it still helps to confirm the price on your state's own site, because that is where the plan must be certified.

These five are run by the agency that licenses the sellers. Here is what each one's own page says. We read them on October 25, 2026.

Two limits. Some state sites show less than a commercial one, such as no usage-based cost. And a state site lists offers, not advice, so the choice is still yours.

These sites are the ones that tend to show up when you search. We read what each says about itself on one page. We did not test their prices, and a site may explain more on a page we did not read.

What this shows: two of the five say in plain words that companies pay them. One says rank cannot be bought and does not say how it earns. One says it is free and shows no payment statement on the page we read. One says partners do not direct its editorial content and points to a money page we did not read. None of that proves bias or fairness. It tells you what to ask.

The Federal Trade Commission says a payment tie that readers might not expect must be clearly disclosed, and close to the link. Its guidance says a plain "paid link" label next to a link is enough. A bare "affiliate link" or a "buy now" button is not.

Texas adds its own rule for one kind of business. An aggregator, which joins customers into a buying group, must register with the Public Utility Commission of Texas. The commission says it must tell the customer how it is paid and disclose any ties to a seller. The commission keeps a list of registered aggregators. Whether a particular comparison site is an aggregator is a fact about that business, so ask the site. We did not read the separate broker rule text, and we do not say how it applies.

Here is our own page against the eight checks, as of October 25, 2026.

1. 1
   Start with your state's site.

   It has the full list of licensed sellers and no sale to make. Our guide to choosing a plan says what to compare.

2. 2
   Use a commercial site to save time, not to decide.

   Write down the price, the monthly fee and the exit fee.

3. 3
   Confirm on the company's own sheet,

   then sign with the new company only. Our switching guide has your cancel days.

Every fact about another site comes from that site's own public page, read on October 25, 2026. Pages change, so we will re-read all ten in January and July, and sooner if a site changes how it describes itself. We do not use another site's ratings or review counts. The count of states where our finder works is set by a person from our partner's coverage and changes when the partner adds a state.

What we could not verify: how any site sorts its results, whether the commercial sites' prices match the plans' own sheets, and whether a site says more about pay on a page we did not open. If you run one of these sites and we got a fact wrong, email info@theday.company and we will fix it.