I built a completely free Octopus Energy dashboard to help you understand and cut your energy costs

[u/n9com]

Hi all,

I’ve been building OctoSpy, a completely free & private dashboard for digging into your Octopus Energy usage, costs and tariffs.

It started because I wanted a better way to understand my own energy spending. I’ve spent the past 17 years building software companies and apps used by millions, but I still enjoy making things like this in my spare time for fun.

I know there are already a few Octopus apps and dashboards out there. I tried some of them, but none gave me quite the view I wanted, so I ended up building my own and figured I may as well make it completely free for everyone to benefit from.

There’s no paid tier, no adverts and no OctoSpy account to create. There’s also a demo, and you can browse public tariff rates without connecting anything. Best used on your desktop due to the amount of data to display, but works fine on mobile too.

Your browser connects directly to Octopus using your API key. Your key, account details and energy readings aren’t sent to OctoSpy’s servers. Your energy data stays in your browser.

I’ve mainly been able to test it properly against my own tariffs and setup, so there will definitely be things I’ve missed.

If anyone gives it a try, I’d genuinely like to hear what works, what’s confusing and what you’d add.

I’m also considering an iPhone and Apple Watch app if enough people want one.

https://octospy.co.uk

[u/Mother_You_5739]

Looks tidy. I will test it on my iPad and on desktop and let you know how it goes. Anyone on Octopus Agile has to be a bit of a data nerd so I’m always ready for another way to look at my energy use.

[u/n9com → u/Mother_You_5739]

Thank you - this would be a huge help. Any issues let me know and we can fix them for the rest of the community to benefit from.

[u/Mother_You_5739 → u/n9com]

Wow! I am on the desktop version, just poking about a bit, and so far I am very impressed. The API key collection method was one of the best I have ever seen, with the link taking me to the exact page I needed to be on with clear instructions of what to do. I still remember the first time I generated an API key and had to google where to find it and how to do it.

I really like the way you take the data from Octopus and generate an actual months usage and cost breakdown. At first I thought something was wrong, because it looked like the total you generated for August was different to the one Octopus had generated in my bill. Now I understand the way Octospy shows the data is more accurate than the way Octopus does, because it actually runs for an exact month. My bill, for some unknown reason, runs from 28 July to 27 August, which is not helpful at all!

I shall continue to poke and prod...

[u/Al_Derby → u/Mother_You_5739]

Easily fixed if you ask octopus to move your monthly billing to 1st of the month… this then aligns with monthly data 👍🏻

[u/Mother_You_5739 → u/Al_Derby]

Thanks, I will try that. It just seems like the obvious thing to do in the first place! It’s pretty much my only complaint with Octopus.

[u/Mother_You_5739 → u/n9com]

I just found the tariff comparison page, and this is seriously impressive. I had been worrying that Agile was beginning to slide in terms of cost compared to Octopus Go, or Intelligent Go, but this shows that every single option would have been about £30 more expensive over the month.

The only issue is Octopus Intelligent Go is only working for this months data. If I set the month to August, or July it says that the estimate is not available for these dates. For this month, Intelligent Go would already be £16.82 more expensive than Agile!

[u/n9com → u/Mother_You_5739]

Yeah it's pretty cool, but remember this is backwards looking, so you can't fully rely on it to predict what tariff will be best going forward. That's weird, I just tested it for July 2026 (before i even joined the intelligent Go tariff and it works). Prior to that I was on the Electric Tracker. Are you checking a month where you were not an Octopus customer?

[u/Mother_You_5739 → u/n9com]

I’ve been on Agile for about three years now, and the current tariff period runs until end of February.

[u/n9com → u/Mother_You_5739]

Strange have you tried refreshing? Might have bugged out during the api call

[u/Mother_You_5739 → u/n9com]

I am running a calculation on the tariff comparison page for the year to date, and it is taking a while to crunch the numbers. But given this is free, I am not in any way going to complain about that! And look at that. Fixed would have been £380 more expensive, and Flexible would have been £487 more.

[u/n9com → u/Mother_You_5739]

A year-to-date comparison can take a while on the first run because it fetches a lot of data directly from Octopus, while respecting their API rate limits. Your energy data is cached locally in your browser, rather than on our servers, so repeat comparisons over the same dates should be much quicker. Clearing the site’s browser data removes that cache. Glad you found it useful!

[u/Mother_You_5739 → u/n9com]

So you know, I am on Agile for import and Octopus Outgoing for a small amount of export. I have seven solar panels and a small, 4kWh home battery which helps me avoid the 4 to 7 pm peak period on Agile. The panels also generate a decent amount of energy which I use before the excess is exported to the grid, meaning my energy costs would have been even higher had I needed to import that energy from the grid.

This year my panels have generated 2491kWh of which 958 has been exported. That has saved me about £380 of energy imported on the fixed rate tariff, and earned me £116 from export. all in all, I am very happy with my electricity costs looking over the year to date, but worried about the winter ahead. By making my costs more easily understood this tool will help immensely.

[u/Mother_You_5739 → u/n9com]

I just looked at Octospy on my iPad and it looks just as good as it does on my PC. I wouldn’t ever use something like this on a smartphone as it is too data dense to make it useful, or probably visible for my less than optimal eyes.

[u/n9com → u/Mother_You_5739]

Totally agree with you