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Octopus Go review: what it costs and who it suits

Octopus Go is good value if you can move a large share of your electricity use into five hours overnight, and poor value if you can't. I'm a Go customer, so this review draws on using it as well as on Octopus's published rates.

Andy Hodges · Updated 24 September 2026 · Octopus Go customer

How Go works

Go has two rates: a cheap rate from 00:30 to 05:30 every night, and a single higher rate for the rest of the day. The cheap rate applies to the whole house, not just the car, so a dishwasher or washing machine on a timer benefits too.

The current version is a 12-month fix with no exit fees. Octopus says it is only offering fixed rates on Go at the moment.

To be eligible you need to:

• own or have a long-term lease on an EV or plug-in hybrid that you charge at home
• have a SMETS2 or Secure SMETS1 smart meter, which Octopus says takes about 14 days to connect to the tariff
• be an Octopus customer

Go works with any EV and any charger, which is the main difference from Intelligent Go, covered below.

What it costs

Rates vary by region. These are the September 2026 fixed rates from Octopus's own pricing data, including 5% VAT. VAT on home electricity falls to 0% from 1 October 2026 until 31 March 2027, so the second set of figures removes that 5%. Always check your own quote, as the figures below are my calculations.

The night rate is the same in every region I checked. The standing charge is not, and Scotland's is noticeably higher than London's.

A worked example

Take a driver covering 8,000 miles a year at 3.5 miles per kWh, with the rest of the house using 2,700 kWh and 15% of that already falling overnight. Using South Scotland rates with VAT removed, compared with the GB average price cap:

• The car needs about 2,286 kWh. That's £602 at the cap and £217 on the Go night rate, a saving of £385.
• The rest of the house costs £711 at the cap and £880 on Go, £169 more.
• The standing charge is about £24 a year more.

The net result is about £190 a year better off, provided all the charging happens in the cheap window. Halve the mileage and it roughly breaks even. Move more household use overnight and the saving increases. The calculator runs the same figures with your own numbers.

Who it suits, and who it doesn't

It suits you if the EV is your main load, you charge at home overnight, and you can put a few other appliances on a timer. That describes most EV households without a battery or solar.

It is unlikely to suit you if you rarely charge at home, use a lot of electricity during the day (working from home with electric heating, for example), or mostly charge elsewhere. In those cases the higher day rate costs more than the night rate saves.

Intelligent Octopus Go, compared

Intelligent Go is the version where Octopus controls when the car charges. You set how much charge you need and by when in the app, and Octopus schedules it. I haven't used Intelligent Go, so this section is based on Octopus's published terms and pricing.

• The cheap window is six hours, 23:30 to 05:30, rather than five.
• The night rate was 8.4p/kWh in September. Octopus's product page says 8p/kWh from 1 October.
• The day rate in South Scotland was 37.76p/kWh and the standing charge 64.51p/day, both including 5% VAT.
• If Octopus schedules your car to charge outside the cheap window, the terms say that charging is still billed at the night rate. The product page goes further and says the whole house gets the night rate during those slots.
• It is a 12-month fix with no exit fees.

The main limitation is compatibility. You need a car or charger that Octopus can control (the page names Ohme Pro and Andersen among the chargers), you have to register it in the app within 7 days, and Octopus says it can't guarantee compatibility. Customers who aren't eligible are directed to standard Go.