Two storefronts, one engine
Shop the Oncor market and you will find a Gexa Energy plan called Eco Saver Plus 12, wearing a 100% green badge and a very low advertised average. Keep shopping and you will find Frontier Utilities Saver Plus 12, marketed as its own plan from its own company. We priced both in our live rate feed on August 6, 2026. Same energy charge: 13.3 cents per kWh. Same $125 usage credit at 1,000 kWh. Same $150 cancellation fee. Same bill, to the penny, at every usage level we price: $100.93 at 500 kWh, $72.80 at 1,000, $266.53 at 2,000.
That is not a coincidence. Both brands answer to the same parent. NextEra Energy (then FPL Group) announced its acquisition of Gexa in 2005; NextEra Energy Services agreed to acquire Frontier Utilities in a deal reported in January 2019. NextEra Energy Services' own history page says the company "entered the competitive retail market in 2005 with the acquisition of Gexa Energy." One owner, one pricing engine, two labels on the shelf.
The one difference our feed shows is the wrapper. The Gexa version is 100% renewable, backed by renewable energy credits. The Frontier version of the same structure lists 30.4% renewable content. The green is real, and we will get to it. But it is paint. Underneath both labels sits the same $125 cliff, and the cliff is what decides your bill. This review covers both names.
Claims vs. fine print
Four claims on the front. Four footnotes on the back. Here they are, side by side.
The mailer says
An advertised average of 7.3 cents per kWh at 1,000 kWh (Oncor, as of August 2026).
The fine print says
The rate you sign is 13.3 cents per kWh, every hour, every kWh, plus Oncor delivery charges. The 7.3 cent figure is an arithmetic artifact: a $125 credit lands at exactly 1,000 kWh and drags the average down at that one point. At 500 kWh the same plan averages 20.2 cents. At 2,000 kWh, 13.3 cents.
Source: Plan pricing components in our live Oncor feed, pulled August 6, 2026
The mailer says
A "$125 usage credit" on your bill.
The fine print says
All or nothing, decided monthly. Use 1,000 kWh or more in the billing cycle and the full $125 appears. Use 999 and you get zero. There is no partial credit, and every billing cycle starts the count over. The credit's own trigger is the trap: the months when you conserve are the months it abandons you.
Source: Credit component (minimum 1,000 kWh) in our live Oncor feed, August 6, 2026
The mailer says
100% green energy.
The fine print says
Real, as accounting. Gexa's own site says it "purchases renewable energy credits (RECs) from renewable generation resources throughout North America to match 100% of the energy sold under your electric plan." The electrons at your meter are unchanged, and so is the pricing. The identical Frontier version carries 30.4% renewable content in our feed, which tells you the green badge is a branding decision layered on the same engine.
Source: gexaenergy.com (REC disclosure); our live Oncor feed, August 6, 2026
The mailer says
Frontier Saver Plus, presented as a separate plan from a separate company.
The fine print says
Identical energy charge, identical credit, identical threshold, identical cancellation fee, identical totals to the penny in our August 2026 feed pull. Gexa has been a NextEra company since 2005; Frontier Utilities came under NextEra Energy Services in a deal reported in January 2019. Two labels, one spreadsheet.
Source: Our live Oncor feed, August 6, 2026; NextEra Energy newsroom (2005); EnergyChoiceMatters (January 28, 2019)
The rate is public. The average is the trick.
Give Gexa and Frontier this much: unlike TXU's phone-only Free Pass, these plans publish their Electricity Facts Labels, and every number in this review is checkable. What you pay in Oncor territory, as of August 2026: an energy charge of 13.3 cents per kWh, plus Oncor's delivery charges (6.0 cents per kWh and $4.06 a month), passed through. No REP base fee. Then one conditional line: $125 off in any billing cycle where you used 1,000 kWh or more.
The advertised average is computed at the exact point where the credit lands. At 1,000 kWh the bill is $72.80, so the average is 7.3 cents. Move off that point and the average moves fast: 20.2 cents at 500 kWh, 19.8 cents at 999, 13.3 cents at 2,000. One plan, one rate, four different advertised realities depending on where you stand on the usage curve.
Here is the number that exposes the engine. The cheapest flat, no-gimmick plan in Oncor territory costs 13.2 cents all-in at 1,000 kWh as of August 2026. Eco Saver Plus's energy charge alone is 13.3 cents. Strip the credit away and you are holding a plan that loses to the boring option at every usage level. The credit is not a bonus on top of a good rate. The credit is the entire pitch.
Both versions are sold on the brands' own sites, gexaenergy.com and frontierutilities.com, with the Electricity Facts Label shown after you enter a ZIP code. Neither plan appeared in the Power to Choose results we pulled for a Dallas ZIP on August 6, 2026; Gexa listed its Eco Choice plans there and Frontier listed its Power Saver plans. If you enroll, pull 12 months of your own usage first and count how many months fall below 1,000 kWh.
How the $125 credit works
The mechanism is one sentence long: if your usage in a billing cycle is 1,000 kWh or more, $125 comes off that bill; if it is anything less, nothing does. There is no proration and no makeup. A 999 kWh month earns the same credit as a zero kWh month: none. Each cycle stands alone, so a strong July does nothing for a mild October. Delivery charges, taxes, and the energy charge itself are untouched either way.
There is no ceiling on the other side. A 2,000 kWh month gets the same $125, spread across twice the usage, which is why the average climbs back to 13.3 cents. The plan's sweet spot is a narrow band starting right at 1,000 kWh. Land in it and you win. Drift above it and you are paying roughly what a flat plan charges. Drop below it and you are paying 19.8 to 20.2 cents in a market where boring plans cost 13.2.
And you do not control which side of the line you land on. Weather does, and so does your meter-read calendar. A cool spring, a two-week vacation, a billing cycle that happens to close a few days early: any of these can pull a month under 1,000 kWh. You cannot see the cliff from your thermostat, and you find out which side you landed on when the bill arrives.
Do the math on the 1,000 kWh cliff
Start with the two bills that define this plan, priced in Oncor territory as of August 2026. Use 999 kWh: no credit, $197.60, a 19.8 cent average. Use 1,000 kWh: credit lands, $72.80, a 7.3 cent average. One kilowatt-hour, about twenty cents' worth of electricity at this plan's rates, swings the bill by $124.80. No other plan structure in the Texas market punishes a single kilowatt-hour this hard.
The cliff also inverts the relationship between using and paying. An 800 kWh month on this plan costs $159.05, a 19.9 cent average. A 1,200 kWh month costs $111.54, a 9.3 cent average. Use 400 fewer kilowatt-hours, pay $47.51 more. Every instinct you have about conserving electricity works against you below the threshold, which is a strange engine to find under a plan with Eco in its name.
Now place a real home on this curve. The average Texas household used 1,096 kWh a month in 2024, per the U.S. Energy Information Administration. That average is made of hot summers well above the line and mild springs and falls below it. A home that averages 1,100 kWh will likely collect the credit in July and August and miss it in some shoulder months, and every miss is a roughly 20 cent month. Whether the credit months outweigh the miss months against a 13.2 cent flat plan depends entirely on your own 12-month usage history. That is the honest test, and neither Gexa's nor Frontier's marketing will run it for you.
$124.80
Bill swing between a 999 kWh month ($197.60) and a 1,000 kWh month ($72.80), Oncor, as of August 2026
19.9 vs 9.3
Average cents per kWh for an 800 kWh month vs a 1,200 kWh month: the smaller month is the bigger bill
1,096 kWh
Average Texas home's monthly usage (EIA, 2024): 96 kWh from the cliff
13.3 vs 13.2
This plan's energy charge vs the cheapest flat no-gimmick Oncor plan all-in at 1,000 kWh (August 2026)
Fine print, decoded
The five footnotes on the back of the mailer, translated into plain English.
| What the footnote says | What it means |
|---|---|
| $125 usage credit applies in billing cycles with usage of 1,000 kWh or more. | All or nothing, every month, forever. 999 kWh earns zero. The months you conserve, or travel, or get mild weather are the months the credit walks away. |
| Energy charge of 13.3 cents per kWh plus Oncor delivery charges (6.0 cents per kWh and $4.06 per month), passed through without markup. | Without the credit, this is a slightly-above-market flat plan: the cheapest no-gimmick Oncor plan was 13.2 cents all-in at 1,000 kWh as of August 2026. Everything you might save rides on hitting the threshold. |
| 100% renewable energy, matched with renewable energy credits purchased from generation resources throughout North America. | The green is real bookkeeping: Gexa retires RECs to match your usage. It changes nothing about the electricity at your meter or the cliff in the pricing. Frontier's identical plan lists 30.4% renewable content, so the badge is the brand's choice, not the plan's. |
| 12-month term. Early termination fee: $150. | Discover the cliff in month three and it costs $150 to leave. Two missed thresholds can cost more than that in rate difference, so run your usage history before signing, not after. |
| Gexa's Happiness Guarantee: within 60 days, switch to any other eligible Gexa plan without penalty. | A real escape hatch, but it opens onto Gexa's own shelf, which carries four other usage-credit plans with different thresholds (500, 750, 1,500, and 2,000 kWh in our August 2026 feed). Read the EFL of whatever you land on as carefully as the one you left. |
Why one plan wears two names
Selling one structure under multiple brands is legal and common in Texas retail electricity, and NextEra is not the only owner doing it. But it has a practical effect on you: it makes comparison shopping look like it is working when it is not. You compare Gexa against Frontier, see two companies, and believe you have checked the market. You have checked one spreadsheet twice.
The tell is in the totals. When two "competing" plans price to the penny at 500, 1,000, and 2,000 kWh, with the same credit at the same threshold and the same cancellation fee, you are looking at one pricing decision wearing two logos. The defense is the same as always: compare plans by their all-in cost at your own usage, not by brand count.
What to do instead
For contrast, here is the live Oncor market on the day we published (August 2026). The cheapest all-in plan at 1,000 kWh was 7.0 cents per kWh, and it is a bill-credit plan too; the whole class cuts both ways. The cheapest flat plan with no credits and no tiers was 13.2 cents at 1,000 kWh, one tenth of a cent below Eco Saver Plus's energy charge before delivery. Compare plans at your own usage, including the rest of the Gexa and Frontier lineups, below.