What Is Ohio's "Price to Compare"? The One Number That Decides Everything
Unlike Texas, where everyone must pick an electricity company, Ohio gives you a do-nothing option: if you never choose a supplier, your utility provides "standard service offer" supply at a published rate. That rate is the Price to Compare (PTC) — and it's the single most useful number in Ohio energy shopping, because it converts every supplier offer into a simple question: is this above or below my default?
Where to find yours
It's printed on every electric bill, usually labeled "Price to Compare" with a sentence like "for you to save money, a supplier must offer a price lower than X¢ per kWh." Each utility also publishes it — as of July 2026, the residential PTCs in the territories we track cluster around 10.9–11.2¢/kWh (AEP $0.1097, Ohio Edison $0.1092, Illuminating $0.1116, Toledo Edison $0.1110). We show the current PTC at the top of every electric comparison page and compute each offer's savings against it automatically.
Why it changes (and why that matters)
The PTC isn't set by politicians or the utility's whim — it comes from competitive auctions where generators bid to supply the utility's default customers, typically resetting portions of the price a few times a year (you'll see effective periods like "July 1 through September 30" on the fine print). Two consequences worth understanding:
- A fixed offer that beats today's PTC might not beat next year's. If wholesale prices fall, the PTC can drop under your locked rate. The reverse is also true — locking below the PTC before an upward reset is how shoppers win big.
- Default service is not a scam. Unlike Texas's punishing holdover rates, Ohio's default is a genuinely reasonable, auction-priced product. Plenty of Ohioans rationally stay on it. The case for switching is the gap — when suppliers offer 1–2¢/kWh below the PTC, that's $8–$16/month at typical usage for ten minutes of effort.
The ten-second offer test
Offer rate below the PTC → you save that difference on every kWh, guaranteed for the term (if fixed). Offer above the PTC → you're paying extra for something (a long price lock, renewable content, a gift card — decide if it's worth it). Two traps to watch:
- Monthly fees hide above-PTC math. A 10.5¢ offer with a $6.99 monthly fee is really ~11.4¢ at 750 kWh — above every current PTC. Our tables fold fees into the estimated cost so the ranking can't be gamed this way.
- Intro teasers expire. An offer marked "Intro" beats the PTC for a month or three, then converts to something that usually doesn't. That's why our comparison hides intro/promo offers by default.
What the PTC doesn't cover
Only the supply portion of your bill — roughly half to two-thirds of the total. Delivery charges (the wires, the meter, the outage crews) are identical no matter what you choose and are never part of the comparison. Switching suppliers can't change them, and neither can staying put.
The habit
Twice a year, put your bill's kWh into your utility's page on this site and glance at the top of the table. If the best offers beat your current rate meaningfully, the switch takes ten minutes. If they don't — congratulations, doing nothing is currently the right move, which is a sentence Texans never get to hear.