Outfox backs WattsWatt in challenge to UK energy comparison model
Price comparison sites that sell the worst deals? Here's an alternative.
Outfox Energy has become the first supplier to back WattsWatt, a new platform aiming to reframe how households engage with energy tariffs and challenge the economics of price comparison websites.
The proposition is simple but uncomfortable. UK households are not just paying high prices. They are being guided through a system that optimises switching revenue rather than usable energy. WattsWatt claims this is suppressing the equivalent of £3.8 billion in heat each year.
For over a decade, comparison sites have controlled the customer journey. Suppliers pay to appear and pay again when a household switches. Those costs are embedded into tariffs. The result is a market where visibility and churn matter more than outcomes.
WattsWatt reframes the decision. Not cheapest tariff. Most energy unlocked.
The argument is that households do not experience energy as price per kilowatt hour. They experience whether they can heat their home.
The current system creates a structural distortion:
- suppliers compete for position not performance
- consumers are nudged toward switching not optimisation
- acquisition costs are recycled into bills
- households ration heat despite being on competitive tariffs
CEO Lisa Malyon describes a system that erodes confidence and rewards confusion rather than clarity. The platform positions itself as independent and impartial by removing pay per switch incentives and only showing tariffs that maximise usable energy.
For Alec Bastian, the alignment reflects a longer standing position. Outfox has avoided pay per switch models on the basis that they inflate system costs and reduce value for customers. Backing WattsWatt is a continuation of that approach.
Instead of monetising switching, WattsWatt proposes a flat contribution model from suppliers at four pence per electricity meter per year. The intent is to remove ranking bias and maintain independence while funding a national service.
Beating price comparison sites? https://wattswatt.co.uk/
The model then shifts behaviour in a way that directly challenges the comparison market:
- households are encouraged to fix tariffs with their current supplier first
- switching is treated as a secondary step not a default action
- administrative churn costs of around £120 per customer are reduced
- more energy is unlocked without changing generation or infrastructure
Three additional major suppliers are expected to join later this year.
The significance sits beyond tariffs. If households are under heating homes because of how choices are structured, this becomes a question of health, productivity and housing quality. The concept of heat hours lands because it translates pricing into lived experience.
WattsWatt is early and its claims will need to be tested at scale. It has reported around 70,000 heat hours unlocked since launching in December 2025. The real question is whether enough suppliers support the model and whether households change behaviour when presented with a different frame.
If that happens, this is not another comparison tool.
It is a challenge to what comparison has meant for the last decade.