Audit Your Own Commercial Electricity Bill in 15 Minutes
Pull your last three bills and check five things: whether your contract expired into a variable rollover rate, your demand charge against your peak 15-minute usage, TDU delivery lines, rider fees, and whether a sales tax exemption applies. Texas commercial accounts average 8.66¢/kWh all-in (EIA, 06/2026), but that blended figure isn't directly comparable to your supply-only contract rate.
A Fort Worth warehouse running 40,000 kWh a month on a 10.5¢ supply contract pays roughly $4,200/month in energy charges alone, for example. But energy charges are never the whole bill. By the time TDU delivery, demand charges, riders, and taxes get layered on, the total in that same example scenario can land 35 to 45% higher, call it $5,700 to $6,100 a month. Most business owners glance at the total, wince, and pay it. They never break it apart. Fifteen minutes with your last bill and this checklist will show you exactly where that gap comes from, and where it's padded.
The Five Line Items on Every Texas Commercial Bill
Every commercial electricity bill in ERCOT territory breaks into the same five buckets, whether you're a McKinney medical clinic or a Midland oilfield services shop. Learn to spot these five and you can read any commercial bill in the state without help.
- Energy supply charge: your contracted or index rate times kWh used. This is the only line a Retail Electric Provider actually controls, and the only one shopping around changes.
- TDU delivery charges: set by your wires company (Oncor, CenterPoint, AEP Texas, TNMP, or another) and identical no matter which supplier you choose. These are not negotiable and not shoppable.
- Demand charge: billed on your single highest 15-minute kW interval of the entire month, not your average usage. Present on most mid-size and large commercial accounts.
- Riders and pass-through fees: small TDU-approved surcharges for things like transmission cost recovery, worth checking against the TDU's published tariff sheet if the number looks unfamiliar.
- Sales tax: many Texas commercial accounts qualify for a manufacturing or predominant-use exemption. If that paperwork was never filed with your REP, you're paying tax you don't legally owe.
Three Overcharges We Catch Most Often
Reviewing Texas commercial bills, the same three mistakes show up over and over. None of them require a forensic accountant to find. Just your last invoice and five minutes per item.
- Expired contract rollover: once a fixed term ends, most REPs default the account to a month-to-month variable rate that can run well above the negotiated price. Check your contract end date against today's date.
- Demand charge miscalculation: confirm the kW figure on your bill roughly matches your own equipment load. A single misread meter interval can inflate this charge for months before anyone notices.
- Wrong TDU rate class: delivery charges are billed by meter class and voltage level. A misclassified account pays a delivery rate built for a different type of business entirely, and it rarely corrects itself without someone asking.
The most expensive mistake in Texas commercial electricity isn't a bad rate. It's no rate. Once a fixed contract lapses, ERCOT-indexed variable pricing kicks in automatically, and it moves with the wholesale market. A business that rides out even one hot ERCOT summer on a rollover rate can end up paying far more than it would have by locking in months earlier. Check your contract expiration date today, not next quarter.
Demand Charges: The One Line Most Owners Ignore
Demand charges get billed on the single worst 15-minute stretch of your entire billing cycle, not your average draw. Run every walk-in cooler, rooftop HVAC unit, and piece of equipment at once for fifteen minutes, even by accident, and that spike sets your demand charge for the whole month. In Houston, where CenterPoint serves one of the most competitive commercial electricity markets in the country, demand charges can run 30 to 40% of a monthly bill for energy-intensive operations. Larger accounts on interval data metering also feed into ERCOT's 4CP calculation each summer: the four coincident peak intervals between June and September that set transmission cost allocation for the following year. If your demand charge looks disproportionate to your usage, that's the line to question first.
If your business runs multiple suites, floors, or locations, each with its own ESI ID, bundle them into a single competitive bid instead of shopping each meter separately. A Plano office park tenant with four ESI IDs will usually land a sharper rate bundled than negotiated one meter at a time. This is exactly the kind of leverage a registered Texas broker brings to a renewal.
When a Bill Is Worth a Professional Review
A 15-minute self-audit catches the obvious problems: an expired contract, a tax exemption never filed, an unexplained spike in a single month. But if your account runs interval metering, carries demand charges above roughly a third of the total bill, or spans multiple ESI IDs, the math gets complicated fast, and that's where a broker's line-by-line review earns its keep. We do this for a living, and we recommend getting a second set of eyes on the bill any time a number doesn't add up or your contract is within 90 days of expiring, rather than waiting for the renewal notice to force the decision.
Send us your last three commercial electricity bills and we'll show you exactly where the money is going, and what a competitive Texas contract should actually cost.
Get My QuoteFrequently asked questions
Texas's average all-in commercial rate is 8.66¢/kWh compared to the 14.19¢/kWh national average (EIA, 06/2026). That figure includes supply, delivery, and fees combined. A supplier's quoted contract rate is supply-only, so don't compare the two directly.
The average Texas commercial account uses about 9,701 kWh per month (EIA, 2026), though that blends everything from a small salon to a hospital. Twelve months of your own bills is a far better benchmark than any statewide average.
Most Texas REPs roll expired contracts onto a month-to-month variable rate tied to the ERCOT wholesale market. It's rarely the cheapest option and it can move against you fast during high-demand months. Mark the expiration date and shop early: 12 to 18 months out is ideal, and 60 to 90 days ahead is the bare minimum.
The TDU's demand-based delivery charges are tariff-set and not negotiable. What you can shop is how the supply side handles your demand profile: some contract structures smooth or cap demand-related exposure, and demand-response riders can pay you back for cutting load at peak times. That's a standard point brokers push on during renewals.
Often, but you may not need to pay for one. A broker review like ours is free to the business (the winning supplier pays the broker's commission), and for accounts above 25,000 kWh/month, multi-meter operations, or heavy demand charges a line-by-line review is worth it. A straightforward single-meter office bill you can usually handle yourself with the checklist above.