🤝What Loyal Octopus Actually Is
Loyal Octopus is a twelve-month fixed tariff: your electricity and gas unit rates and both daily standing charges are set on the day you take it and don't move until the year is up. Ofgem's quarterly cap announcements stop applying to you for the duration. It is, in every structural respect, the same product as Octopus 12M Fixed.
The difference is who can see it. Loyal Octopus is offered to people already supplied by Octopus, and it's taken from inside the online account or the app — a tariff change, not a supply switch. Someone joining from another supplier is quoted 12M Fixed instead. Octopus prices the two separately, which is why the “Loyal” name exists at all: it lets the company offer its own customers a fix without that rate automatically being the one it has to advertise to the market.
Everything else that makes an Octopus fix unusual carries over. There are no exit fees — Octopus charges none on any domestic tariff — so a Loyal fix behaves as a ceiling you can walk away from rather than a contract you're held to. No smart meter is required, because a flat-rate tariff has nothing for half-hourly data to do. And VAT is applied on top at whatever rate the government sets, so the 0% electricity VAT from 1 October reaches Loyal customers too.
⚖️Loyal Octopus vs Octopus 12M Fixed
| Feature | Loyal Octopus | Octopus 12M Fixed |
|---|---|---|
| Who can take it | Existing Octopus customers | New customers switching in |
| How you take it | Tariff change in your account or app | Chosen during or after the switch |
| Term | 12 months | 12 months |
| What's locked | Both unit rates and both standing charges | Both unit rates and both standing charges |
| Exit fees | None | None |
| Smart meter needed | No | No |
| Pricing | Set separately for existing customers | Set for the open market |
| At the end | Rolls to Flexible Octopus; new Loyal fix usually offered | Rolls to Flexible Octopus; Loyal fix offered thereafter |
Read the table and the honest conclusion is that the two are one product with two doors. The rates can differ on a given day because Octopus sets them independently, and existing-customer offers have at times sat a little below the open-market fix — but that isn't a rule you can bank on, and the gap is rarely large enough to matter next to the thing that actually decides whether fixing pays: the cap's direction over the next two quarters.
What does matter is that the Loyal door only opens once you're inside. If you're with another supplier and want this fix specifically, the route is to switch first and fix second — covered below — rather than to wait for an offer that will never reach you where you are.
📊The Rates, and the Cap They're Measured Against
We don't publish a Loyal Octopus rate card, and you should be wary of any site that does. Octopus reprices its fixes as forward wholesale gas moves, and the numbers differ across the fourteen GB regions, so a figure printed today is an anecdote by next month. What stays useful is the yardstick. From 1 October 2026 the Ofgem cap sets electricity at 26.32p/kWh with a 54.83p daily standing charge (quoted at 0% VAT) and gas at 7.97p/kWh with a 29.68p standing charge (inc 5% VAT), which is £1,723 a year for a typical household.
A Loyal quote has four numbers. Compare each against its cap counterpart — the unit rates carry most of the weight, but a standing charge that's 10p a day higher costs £36 a year, enough to erase a modest unit-rate discount. Then run the total for your own usage rather than Ofgem's typical household; our savings calculator does the arithmetic against both cap periods and shows what January's forecast would mean.
Why a fix that only matches October can still win
Cornwall Insight — whose October forecast landed £14 from Ofgem's actual figure — expects around £1,872 for January–March 2027, a further 8.7%, arriving in the quarter you burn the most gas. A Loyal fix taken this autumn at roughly cap level is flat through that rise. If the forecast is wrong and prices fall instead, you leave for nothing. That asymmetry is the whole case for an Octopus fix, and it's set out properly in should you fix your tariff.
🔁Switch Now, Fix Later: How New Customers Reach Loyal
This is the part most guides skip, and it's the reason the “existing customers only” label matters less than it sounds. Because Octopus charges no exit fees and starts new customers on a variable tariff, you can turn yourself into an existing customer in a few working days without committing to anything.
The only cost of this route is a short spell on Flexible while the switch completes, and Flexible sits at cap level, so you're paying what you'd pay on most other suppliers' standard tariffs anyway. See how switching works for the full timeline, and the referral code page for exactly when the £50 lands.
🎯Who Loyal Octopus Suits
A good fit if you…
- ✓ Are already with Octopus on Flexible and want winter certainty
- ✓ Believe the January forecast and want to be flat through it
- ✓ Have a traditional meter, or a smart meter running dumb after a switch
- ✓ Don't have an EV, heat pump or battery to make a smart tariff pay
- ✓ Want to stop thinking about energy for a year without giving up the exit
Look elsewhere if you…
- ✗ Charge an EV at home — Intelligent Octopus Go at ~7p overnight beats any fix
- ✗ Run a heat pump — Cosy Octopus is built for it
- ✗ Have solar and a battery — Flux earns on the export side
- ✗ Want to ride the market down — Tracker passes falls through daily
- ✗ Expect wholesale prices to drop sharply and would rather not be on any fix
📱How to Take Loyal Octopus as an Existing Customer
Log in to your Octopus account online or open the app, find your current tariff and look for the option to view other tariffs or fixed offers. The Loyal quote shows all four rates and the end date. Accepting it is a tariff change effective from your next billing point — there's no supply switch, no cooling-off complication and no exit fee from Flexible.
If you can't see a fixed offer, it usually means Octopus isn't offering one at that moment — they pull fixes when the forward market makes them unattractive to price. Check again after the next cap announcement; late November 2026, when Ofgem confirms January, is the obvious date. Our price cap predictions page tracks the forecast in the meantime, and the news hub records each announcement on the day.
✅Verdict — The Same Fix, One Door Further In
Verdict: Worth taking if you're already inside — and worth switching for if you're not, because the switch costs nothing.
Loyal Octopus is Octopus 12M Fixed for people already on supply: twelve months of locked rates with no exit fees, normally priced under the cap. Its real significance is what the no-exit-fee rule does to the decision. You're not betting a year on the forecast; you're buying a ceiling for the winter Cornwall Insight expects to be 8.7% dearer, with a free way out if they're wrong. New customers get there by switching first and fixing a week later, collecting £50 on the way.
Octopus Energy supplies 7.3 million UK households, has been Which? Recommended for 9 consecutive years and holds a 4.8/5 Trustpilot rating from 800,000+ reviews. Switch via our referral link and £50 free credit lands regardless of which tariff you settle on. Compare every Octopus tariff, or read the Flexible Octopus guide to understand the tariff you'll start on.
Sources: Ofgem — energy price cap · Cornwall Insight — cap forecasts. Figures last checked September 2026.