You were put on a rate plan. Nobody told you which.

Why the number here is different

You turned the thermostat up and the bill still went up. That is the part no amount of trying harder fixes, because the lever is not how much you use — it is which schedule you are billed under, and when.

Every other calculator answers with your state’s average price. That number describes nobody. It cannot tell you that running the dryer at 2pm costs several times what it costs at 2am, because an average has no hours in it.

This reads your utility’s actual filed tariff — the hour-by-hour schedule, the tier thresholds, the fixed charge.

Here is what an average erases. Same meter, same house, same kilowatt-hour — one year of it, drawn at the price actually charged for each hour:

If the bill itself is the confusing part

The rate pages tell you what your utility charges. These explain why it charges that, what the words on your bill mean, and which of them you can do anything about — with the numbers measured from the tariffs rather than repeated from somewhere else.

• Why is my electric bill so high? Seven causes, in the order to check them

  Seven causes, ranked by how often they are the answer. Only two are about using more.

• Why is my electric bill so high in summer?

  Usually three causes at once, and only one of them is your air conditioner.

• When should you charge an electric car at home?

  The single biggest load most homes can move, and the easiest to automate.

• Should you switch to a time-of-use electricity plan?

  A wide peak-to-off-peak gap is a lever, not a saving. Levers need something to move.

Where those numbers come from

One identical household, run hour by hour through every residential plan at 85 utilities, from the tariffs they filed. At 35% of them the default plan is already the cheapest — and we say so. Everywhere else, moving is worth a median $43 a year, and more than $200 at 17 utilities. The full ranked table, the method, the limits, and a CC0 download are on one page.