How these numbers are built, and where they can be wrong.
A reference is only worth citing if it shows its working. This page sets out what is counted, what is not, and every point where we could not get to a primary source.
Not sure, or want to check your own numbers? Just ask.
Ask about any bill, or put your postcode in. Free, nothing to fill in, and nothing you type leaves your browser.
Your postcode and your figures never leave this browser. If I cannot work out what you mean, those words are sent to be classified, and a bill photo goes only if you send one and confirm it. Nothing is stored either way. How that works.
Some broadband and mobile links are affiliate links and earn a commission if you buy through them. Everything else on the site, every regulator figure, every table, every verdict, is editorial and is not influenced by that. The deals table is sorted by true cost across the contract, never by commission, and it includes providers who pay us nothing. Where a provider pays us and a cheaper one does not, the cheaper one still goes above it.
Insurance is different and always will be. We publish the industry's own statistics and the FCA's rules, and nothing else. No quotes, no lead passing, no commission. Arranging insurance without FCA authorisation is a criminal offence under FSMA 2000, and passive publishing sits outside that only for as long as we take no step to help conclude a contract. We are not authorised, we are not seeking to arrange anything, and nothing here is regulated advice. If you want a quote, go to the provider or to an authorised broker.
The unavoidable annual bill
A total we publish for reference. It is deliberately not on the front page, because no real household pays exactly it.
This is a sum of eight separate national averages published by seven different bodies. It is not a survey of a real household and nobody pays precisely this. A household with no car does not pay the motor insurance line. A single person in Wandsworth pays less than half the council tax line. It is published because the total is the number no regulator produces, and because each component is sourced and dated so you can rebuild it with your own figures.
| Component | Annual | What it is |
|---|---|---|
| Council tax | £2,392 | Average Band D, England |
| Energy | £1,723 | Ofgem cap, dual fuel direct debit |
| Water | £639 | Average bill, England and Wales |
| Motor insurance | £566 | Average premium paid |
| Home insurance | £383 | Buildings and contents |
| Broadband | £373 | Ofcom average, £31.05 a month |
| Mobile | £216 | Ofcom average, £18 a month |
| TV licence | £180 | The same for every household |
| Total | £6,472 | Sum of the eight national averages above |
Where each headline comes from
| Tracker | Source | As at | What the figure is |
|---|---|---|---|
| Energy | Ofgem | 26 August 2026 | Ofgem price cap, 1 Oct to 31 Dec 2026 |
| Water and wastewater | Water UK | 1 April 2026 | Average household bill, England and Wales, 2026/27 |
| Broadband and mobile | Provider price lists | 1 April 2026 | Average broadband bill, Ofcom |
| Council tax | MHCLG | 1 April 2026 | Average Band D, England, 2026/27 |
| Rent and housing | ONS | 31 July 2026 | Average UK private rent, July 2026 |
| Rail fares | DfT | 2 March 2026 | Regulated rail fare rise in England, 2026 |
| NHS charges | DHSC | 1 April 2026 | NHS prescription charge in England, 2026/27 |
| Childcare | DfE | 1 April 2026 | Funded hours a week for eligible working parents, England |
| TV licence | gov.uk | 1 April 2026 | Standard colour TV licence, 2026/27 |
| Insurance | ABI | 30 June 2026 | Average motor premium paid, Q2 2026 |
What we are watching, and what has moved
Every morning the site reads the pages it takes its figures from and checks whether any of the numbers on them have changed. It watches the figures rather than the page, so a cookie banner moving does not count and a price moving does. Nothing here updates the site by itself. It puts the source and the difference in front of a person, because every figure on this site is still checked by someone before it is published.
Watching 21 sources. 7 changes are waiting to be checked against the site.
Scroll sideways to see every column
| Source | Feeds | Last read | Figures last moved | State |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cold Weather Payment
3 figures tracked |
energy, help | today | yesterday | Read cleanly |
| Concessionary rail travel
1 figures tracked |
rail-fares, help | today | not since we started | Read cleanly |
| Council Tax Reduction
1 figures tracked |
council-tax, help | today | not since we started | Read cleanly |
| Crisis and Resilience Fund
777 figures tracked |
help | today | not since we started | Read cleanly |
| Debt Relief Orders
5 figures tracked |
help | today | not since we started | Read cleanly |
| DWP benefit and pension rates
6 figures tracked |
help The rates themselves are inside a PDF attachment, so this watches the publication page. Its dates move when a new version of the document is attached, which is the moment to go and read it. |
today | not since we started | Read cleanly |
| Free and discounted TV licences
2 figures tracked |
tv-licence, help | today | not since we started | Read cleanly |
| Funded childcare eligibility
8 figures tracked |
childcare, help | today | not since we started | Read cleanly |
| NHS dental charges
7 figures tracked |
nhs-charges | today | not since we started | Read cleanly |
| NHS prescription charges
11 figures tracked |
nhs-charges, help | today | not since we started | Read cleanly |
| Ofcom broadband social tariffs
26 figures tracked |
broadband-and-mobile, help | today | not since we started | http 403 |
| Ofgem prepayment meter rules
0 figures tracked |
help | today | 3 days ago | Read cleanly |
| Ofgem price cap
3 figures tracked |
energy Ofgem renders the cap figure with JavaScript, which a fetch does not run, so this watches the period dates instead. Those change when a new cap is set, which is the signal that matters. |
today | not since we started | Read cleanly |
| Pension Age Winter Heating Payment
13 figures tracked |
help | today | 13 days ago | Read cleanly |
| Pension Credit rates
12 figures tracked |
help | today | not since we started | Read cleanly |
| Scottish Water household charges
0 figures tracked |
water, help Scottish Water refuses automated requests, so this will keep reporting that it cannot read the page. It is left in the list on purpose, because a source we cannot watch is a thing you should know about rather than a gap you cannot see. |
today | not since we started | http 403 |
| Tax Free Childcare
11 figures tracked |
childcare, help | today | not since we started | Read cleanly |
| TV licence fee
3 figures tracked |
tv-licence, help TV Licensing's own pages serve a shell to anything that is not a browser, so this watches the gov.uk page, which states the fee in plain HTML. |
today | 23 days ago | Read cleanly |
| Warm Home Discount
4 figures tracked |
energy, help | today | not since we started | Read cleanly |
| Water UK average bills
60 figures tracked |
water | today | not since we started | Read cleanly |
| Winter Fuel Payment amounts
8 figures tracked |
energy, help | today | not since we started | Read cleanly |
Why we publish the ones we have not dealt with
When a source moves, it sits in that list until somebody has checked it against the site. We show that rather than hide it. A reference site quietly going out of date is worse than one that tells you where it might be behind, and if this page ever shows a long list of unreviewed changes, that is information you should have.
The same data is in the API at /api/v1/watch, including which figures went and which appeared.
Our rules
Primary sources only. Every figure traces to the body that set it: Ofgem, Ofwat, Water UK, Ofcom, MHCLG, the ABI, the FCA, the Federal Register. Where we could only reach a secondary source, the page says so.
Derived figures are labelled. Some numbers are calculated from published tables rather than published directly. The energy standard credit and prepayment rates are an example. They are marked derived, and the method is stated.
We publish what we could not verify. Every tracker has a section saying where it might be wrong. The Welsh council tax average is missing because the Welsh Government website refused our requests, and we would rather leave a hole than repeat a figure we have not seen. The same goes for Scotland's 2026/27 average, which is not published at all.
We do not round for effect. Where a regulator's rounded levels disagree with its stated change, we use the official change and explain the discrepancy.
We correct in public. If something here is wrong, it gets fixed and the correction is noted on the change log entry. A reference that quietly edits its own history is not a reference.
Colour and severity
Coloured marks use four bands: calm, elevated, high and critical. The palette was tested for red and green colour blindness separation and for contrast against both the dark and light backgrounds. Every mark that should change what you do carries a number and a word beside it. The coloured stripe on a tracker card is decoration and repeats nothing you cannot read in the card text.
Never be surprised by a bill again.
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