The average Texas household paid about 15.4 cents per kWh for electricity in 2025.
You never saw that number in an ad.
If you have shopped for cheap electricity in Texas lately, you saw 8.7 cents. 9.9 cents. “Free nights.” Plans on Power to Choose built around a single usage number, 1,000 kWh, where the math works beautifully and nowhere else.
Earlier this month, the U.S. Energy Information Administration released the final 2025 data from Form EIA-861, the annual census of electric utilities and retail providers. It tells us what Texans actually paid, not what was advertised. And the gap between those two numbers is the whole story of why residential electricity pricing in Texas is broken.
What the 15.4 cent average actually measures?
Across Texas, the average residential price in 2025 was about 15.4 cents per kWh.
That is not an offered rate. This part matters, so let me say it plainly: the EIA number is average revenue per kWh. It is all-in (energy plus delivery plus taxes plus fees), blended across every plan type out there: fixed-rate electricity plans, variable, indexed, bill-credit, free-nights, all of it. It is not a rate anyone was offered, and it is not what any specific household paid. It is what the average household paid, all-in. That is what makes it credible, and that is also its limit.
Within that average sits a wide spread. A cluster of big, familiar brands, the names you see on billboards, averaged roughly 18 to 20 cents per kWh across their residential books. Together those large mainstream brands serve more than four million Texas households, and as a group they averaged about 18.6 cents, roughly 21% above the state average. At typical household usage, that 3.2-cent gap works out to about $428 a year.
Why is my Texas electric bill higher than the advertised rate?
That $428 figure is illustrative math from group averages: not a rate anyone can sign up for, and not a claim about any single household’s bill. But it sets the scale: roughly a fifth above average, hiding inside plans marketed as cheap.
The gap between the advertised rate and the 15.4-cent reality is not a conspiracy. It is arithmetic.
Most advertised Texas electricity rates assume you use exactly 1,000 kWh, or exactly 2,000. Use 950 or 1,150 and the bill-credit plan that advertised 9 cents bills at 16. Base charges get divided across fewer kilowatt-hours for small users. Tiered rates punish the very usage patterns the ad assumed away. Delivery charges pass through no matter whose name is on the bill.
The advertised price is not a price. It is a function of assumed usage. And almost nobody uses exactly the assumed amount. That is the honest answer to “why is my electric bill so high in Texas” for most households: the rate you compared was never the rate you would pay at your usage.
The highest average on the list is not the villain
One more number, because it shows why averages need context. The single highest average on the list, about 20.9 cents, belongs to a brand that serves mostly low-income, prepaid households, people who cannot pass a traditional credit check and pay in advance to keep the lights on.
That high average reflects customer mix and credit risk, not expensive plans sold to mainstream homes. It is a poverty premium, not a pricing scandal. Anyone who publishes this data without that paragraph is either careless or selling something.
What this means when you compare electricity plans in Texas
If you work in commercial energy, none of this surprises you. Commercial pricing is even more opaque, with load profiles, demand exposure, and contract structures that make a residential bill-credit plan look simple. But the residential data is useful precisely because it is measured: it proves the confusion is structural, not anecdotal.
That is why we are building MyPowerNegotiator as an energy-technology company rather than a traditional brokerage. The problem is not that shoppers are lazy. The problem is that the plan cannot be evaluated without the data that describes the buyer: real usage. Price without usage is noise.
We are about to release a free tool we call the Plan Fit Analyzer. You enter your real usage, and it shows what you would actually pay across plan types: all-in, at your usage, not the ad’s usage. Just see what you’d actually pay. Shopping through MyPowerNegotiator costs you nothing: there is no charge for comparing plans, and if you enroll through us, we are compensated by the provider.
The teaser-rate era worked because nobody could check the math. Now the data exists to check it. We are building for the market on the other side of it.
Frequently asked questions
About 15.4 cents per kWh, all-in (energy + delivery + taxes + fees), according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration’s Form EIA-861 final 2025 data, released October 7, 2026. It is an average of what households paid, not an advertised offer.
Most advertised rates assume an exact usage level, usually 1,000 or 2,000 kWh per month. Bill-credit plans, base charges, and tiered pricing mean your effective rate changes with your actual usage. Your bill reflects your usage; the ad reflected theirs.
Only if you use exactly the usage the ad assumes. Miss the bill-credit threshold by a little, and a plan advertised under 10 cents can bill at 16 cents or more. Always evaluate a plan at your own historical usage.
The EIA-861 is the U.S. Energy Information Administration’s annual census of electric utilities and retail energy providers. Its “average price” is total revenue divided by total kilowatt-hours sold: an all-in, all-plan-type average, not a utility tariff or an offered rate.
Sources
- U.S. Energy Information Administration, Form EIA-861 data: https://www.eia.gov/electricity/data/eia861/
- EIA-861 2025 final data file (released October 7, 2026): https://www.eia.gov/electricity/data/eia861/zip/f8612025.zip
- Analysis of Schedule 4D Texas retail-provider residential sales by MyPowerNegotiator, October 2026. Provider names withheld; figures are EIA-measured group averages.
MyPowerNegotiator is a Houston-based energy-technology company (PUCT Cert. No. 250187). Your True Power to Choose.
