How to Read a Texas Electricity Facts Label in 5 Minutes
A Texas Electricity Facts Label (EFL) is the legally binding price sheet every retail plan must provide. Read three things in order: the Average Price columns at 500/1000/2000 kWh (not the headline rate), the Base Charge (a flat fee regardless of usage), and any Bill Credit threshold, which often disappears entirely if you fall even 1 kWh short.
Bills analyzed on Voltcheckr over a recent 90-day window (102 distinct bills, average $360.31, median $298.14) show an average effective rate of 21.08¢/kWh. The EIA's statewide average for Texas sits at 16.99¢/kWh (04/2026 vintage). That four-cent gap isn't random. It's what happens when a household's real usage pattern doesn't match the one number a plan was built to advertise, and the only document that would have warned them is the Electricity Facts Label.
What an EFL Actually Is, Legally
The EFL is a standardized disclosure the Public Utility Commission of Texas requires every retail electric provider to issue before you enroll. It is not marketing copy. If a sales page says one thing and the EFL says another, the EFL wins, because it's the contract-adjacent document your provider is legally bound to. The problem is length and layout: three pages of small print, usually skimmed in under a minute, when the two or three lines that matter take closer to five.
The Three Price Tiers: 500, 1000, 2000 kWh
Every EFL is required to show the all-in average price per kWh at three fixed usage levels: 500, 1000, and 2000 kWh a month. The intent is comparability, since every plan is measured at the same three points. The distortion is that plans are frequently priced to look best at exactly one of those tiers, usually 1000 kWh, and that's the number that ends up in the ad. Texas households average 1,095 kWh a month statewide (EIA, 2026), just above that 1000 kWh marker, but plenty of cities run well past it: Houston averages 1,420 kWh, Katy averages 1,500 kWh, while Austin sits lower at 1,060 kWh (EIA residential usage data, 2026). A household in Katy reading a rate quoted at the 1000 kWh column is looking at a price built for 400 kWh less than they'll actually use.
- •Average Price (¢/kWh) at 500, 1000, and 2000 kWh: find the column closest to your actual monthly usage, not the one highlighted in bold.
- •Base Charge: a flat fee applied every month regardless of usage, sometimes called a customer charge.
- •Energy Charge: the per-kWh rate before fees and credits are layered in.
- •TDU Delivery Charges: the utility's pass-through cost for wires and poles, bundled into your Average Price but occasionally itemized separately.
- •Bill Credit conditions: the exact usage threshold required to trigger any advertised discount, and what happens if you fall short.
- •Cancellation Fee: the dollar penalty for leaving before your contract term ends.
The EFL prices plans at 500, 1000, and 2000 kWh. Actual average usage in Texas cities rarely lines up with those exact marks.
The Two Lines That Predict a Surprise Bill
Two lines on the EFL do more damage than any other, and neither is the headline rate. The first is the Base Charge, a flat monthly fee that applies whether you used 1 kWh or 999. Say a plan lists a $4.95 base charge (a labeled example, not a live rate). At 2000 kWh that fee adds less than a quarter-cent per kWh to your effective rate. At 300 kWh, the same $4.95 adds over a full cent and a half per kWh, quietly pushing your true cost above the number you thought you'd signed up for. The second is the Bill Credit line, which sets a usage threshold, commonly 1000 kWh, that you must hit to receive an advertised discount at all.
A bill credit tied to a 1000 kWh threshold is not a discount that shrinks as you use less power. It's a discount that disappears entirely the moment you fall below the line, even by a single kWh. Two neighbors on the same plan, one at 1005 kWh and one at 998 kWh, can see effective rates that differ by several cents per kWh for a 7 kWh gap in usage.
Where Fees Hide Once You're Past the Front Page
Delivery charges, set by the Transmission and Distribution Utility that owns the wires in your area, get folded into the Average Price columns on most EFLs rather than broken out as their own line. That's not a violation, it's the standard format, but it means the number you're comparing across two plans already includes a delivery cost you have no control over and that stays the same no matter which retail provider you pick. The retail provider's actual margin is the smaller piece hiding underneath.
- •Minimum usage fees: a penalty charged if you fall below a usage floor, separate from the bill credit cliff.
- •Early termination fees: usually a flat dollar figure per remaining month left on your contract, listed near the bottom of the EFL.
- •Time-of-use or free-hours carve-outs: rates that look low overall but only apply to specific hours, with a higher rate covering the rest of the day.
- •Renewable energy charges: sometimes itemized separately even when the plan is marketed as 100% renewable.
Never compare two plans by their headline rate alone. Compare the Average Price column closest to your own monthly usage, since that's the only column both plans were required to disclose using the same math.
Pull your last 3 bills and find your actual average kWh usage. Then go straight to the EFL column nearest that number, not the one printed largest on the page. That single habit accounts for most of the gap between the EIA's 16.99¢/kWh Texas average (04/2026) and the 21.08¢/kWh average effective rate seen across recently analyzed bills.
The EFL tells you what a plan will cost at three fixed points. The only way to see what it costs at your actual usage, today, is to compare live rates for your home.
Compare rates for your homeFrequently asked questions
It's a standardized, PUCT-mandated disclosure every retail electric provider must give you before enrollment. Unlike marketing pages, the EFL is a legal document, so its numbers, not the ad headline, are what you're actually held to.
The advertised rate is usually the Average Price at one usage tier, often 1000 kWh. Voltcheckr's 90-day bill analytics show an average effective rate of 21.08¢/kWh across analyzed bills, well above the EIA's 16.99¢/kWh Texas average (04/2026), which suggests plenty of households are landing outside the tier that made the plan look cheap.
Texas requires EFLs to show the all-in average price per kWh at three fixed usage levels so plans can be compared apples-to-apples. The catch is that your actual usage rarely lands exactly on 500, 1000, or 2000, and the price per kWh can shift noticeably between those columns.
It's when a plan's advertised discount only applies if usage crosses a specific threshold, commonly 1000 kWh. Fall one kWh short and the credit doesn't shrink, it vanishes, which is why the EFL's credit language deserves closer reading than the base rate.
They're usually folded into the Average Price columns rather than itemized separately, since Texas TDU delivery charges are passed through from the utility and baked into the total. Look for a line labeled TDU Delivery Charges near the base charge to see them called out on their own.