Economy 10 is an electricity tariff that gives you ten hours of cheaper units each day, split into three blocks rather than one long overnight stretch. It was built for homes that heat with electricity, and in the right house it can knock a useful amount off the bill. In the wrong one it quietly costs more, because the hours you are not on the cheap rate are charged at a premium. Whether it saves you money comes down to one thing: how much of your electricity you can shift into those ten hours.
The short answer. Economy 10 splits the day into about 14 peak hours and 10 off-peak hours. The off-peak units are cheap, often around half the peak price, but the peak units usually cost more than a standard single-rate tariff would. You come out ahead only if a large share of your usage, roughly 40 per cent or more, happens in the cheap windows. It suits homes with electric storage heating or electric hot water on a timer, and rarely suits a home that heats with gas.
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What Economy 10 actually is
Economy 10 is a time-of-use electricity tariff. Instead of charging the same price for every unit around the clock, it has two prices: a cheaper off-peak rate for ten hours a day and a dearer peak rate for the other fourteen. The ten cheap hours are the headline, and the name comes straight from them, just as Economy 7 is named for its seven cheap overnight hours.
The point of the extra hours is where they fall. Economy 7 gives you one block in the small hours, which is fine for charging storage heaters overnight but leaves you paying peak rates all day. Economy 10 spreads its ten hours across three blocks, typically a long one overnight, a shorter one in the afternoon and sometimes a short evening top-up. That afternoon block is the whole reason the tariff exists: it lets electric storage heaters and hot water take a cheap top-up partway through the day, so the heat does not have to last from dawn to dusk on a single overnight charge.
When the cheap hours fall
There is no single national set of Economy 10 hours. They vary by supplier and by region, and they are set by your local network rather than chosen by you, so two homes on paper on the same tariff can have different windows. A common pattern looks something like five hours overnight, three in the afternoon and two in the evening, but you should never assume. Your exact hours are the single most important thing to find out, because the whole tariff turns on using them.
Two practical warnings. First, the hours are usually fixed to the clock and many older meters run on GMT all year, so in summer the windows can effectively shift by an hour against the time on your phone. Second, suppliers do change the published windows occasionally. Check your hours when you join, write them on the fridge, and check again if your bills creep up. If you cannot find them, your supplier will tell you, and a smart or multi-rate meter display can show which rate is live right now.
How the meter and the rates work
Economy 10 needs a meter that can record your usage in separate peak and off-peak registers. Older setups use a two-rate meter with a timeswitch; smart meters handle it in software. When you read it yourself, you will see more than one register, which the how to read your energy meter guide walks through. On the bill, the off-peak units are totted up at the low rate and the peak units at the high rate, and you still pay a daily standing charge on top.
Here is the trap in the pricing. The off-peak rate is genuinely low, but the peak rate on a multi-rate tariff is normally higher than the flat rate you would pay on an ordinary single-rate deal. You are not getting cheap nights for free; you are paying for them with dearer days. The table shows illustrative figures to make the shape clear.
| Rate | Example unit price | When it applies |
|---|---|---|
| Off-peak (10 hours) | ~13p | Three blocks across the 24 hours |
| Peak (14 hours) | ~30p | The rest of the day |
| Single-rate tariff (for comparison) | ~26p | All day on a normal tariff |
Illustrative rates only, to show the pattern. Real Economy 10 prices vary by supplier and region and move with the Ofgem price cap. Your own rates are on your tariff sheet.
A worked example: when it pays and when it stings
Say a home uses 15 units of electricity a day. On a single-rate tariff at an example 26p, that is £3.90 a day before the standing charge. Now put it on Economy 10 at an example 13p off-peak and 30p peak.
If that home can get 60 per cent of its usage, 9 units, into the cheap hours, it pays 9 at 13p plus 6 at 30p, which is £1.17 plus £1.80, or £2.97 a day. That is a saving of about 93p a day, roughly £340 a year. Worth having.
Now flip it. If only 20 per cent, 3 units, lands in the cheap window, the sum is 3 at 13p plus 12 at 30p, which is 39p plus £3.60, or £3.99 a day. That is more than the single-rate tariff would cost, every single day. Same tariff, same house, opposite result, and the only thing that changed was how much load sat in the cheap hours. This is why Economy 10 is never a saving by itself; it saves money only if your usage pattern fits it. To price your own appliances into those hours, the appliance running cost calculator does the per-use sums.
Economy 10 or Economy 7?
Both are multi-rate tariffs; the difference is the shape of the cheap time. Economy 7 gives one longer overnight block and usually a slightly lower peak rate. Economy 10 gives three shorter blocks spread through the day and usually a slightly higher peak rate in exchange for the extra hours.
The deciding question is whether you need daytime cheap electricity. If your storage heaters and hot water can be fully charged overnight and coast through the day, Economy 7 is simpler and its lower peak rate helps. If your heat runs out by mid-afternoon and the house goes cold before evening, the Economy 10 afternoon boost is what stops you topping up at full price. For homes with modern high-retention storage heaters that hold heat well, Economy 7 is often enough; for older heaters or a long cold day, the Economy 10 top-up earns its keep. The Economy 7 and night rates guide covers the seven-hour version in full, and the wider time-of-use tariffs guide puts both in context.
Who Economy 10 suits (and who should avoid it)
Economy 10 pays off when a big slice of your electricity can move into the cheap hours. In practice that means a handful of households.
Homes with electric storage heaters are the classic fit, especially older ones that benefit from an afternoon charge. Homes that heat water with an immersion heater on a timer can heat the tank in the cheap windows and sit on it the rest of the day; the immersion heater cost guide shows what a tankful costs to heat. Some heat pump and electric heating homes can make it work if their controls line up with the windows.
It suits you badly if you heat and cook with gas and just use normal daytime electricity. Your lights, kettle, oven, telly and washing all happen in peak hours, so you would pay the premium peak rate on nearly everything and get almost nothing back from the cheap window. For most gas-heated homes a straightforward single-rate tariff is cheaper. EV drivers are a special case: a dedicated EV tariff with a cheap overnight block usually beats Economy 10, so compare before assuming.
How to get the most from the ten hours
If you are on Economy 10, the saving is entirely in your hands, and it comes down to moving load into the ten hours.
Set storage heaters to take their main charge overnight and their boost in the afternoon window, rather than leaving them on manual all day. Put the immersion heater on a timer that fires inside a cheap block, and lag the tank so the heat lasts; the hot water timer versus constant guide explains the trade-off. Run the washing machine, dishwasher and tumble dryer on delay timers so they start in a cheap window rather than at teatime. Charge anything with a battery, from an EV to power tools, off-peak. And treat the peak hours as expensive: a 3kW load for an hour in the peak window costs around 30p on the example rate, against 13p off-peak, so the same job done at the wrong time more than doubles in price. Knowing your exact hours and setting a few timers is most of the game.
Getting onto it, and the smart meter future
Economy 10 is less widely offered than it once was, and not every supplier sells it to new customers. If you have storage heating and the tariff suits you, ask your supplier what multi-rate options they offer and whether your meter supports it. Switching tariff can mean a meter change, which is usually free but worth confirming.
The broader direction of travel is smart meters and newer time-of-use tariffs, which can offer cheap windows, cheap days or even half-hourly pricing without the fixed clock blocks of the old Economy meters. A smart meter makes these far easier to run and read. If Economy 10 is not available or does not fit, a modern smart time-of-use tariff may do the same job with more flexibility. The underlying principle stays the same whichever you pick: a multi-rate tariff only saves money if you can shift your usage into the cheap hours, so work out your pattern first and let that decide.
Common questions
What is Economy 10?
Economy 10 is a multi-rate electricity tariff that gives you ten cheaper off-peak hours a day, split into roughly three blocks: a long one overnight, a shorter afternoon block and sometimes an evening top-up. The other fourteen hours are charged at a higher peak rate.
What hours is Economy 10?
There is no single national set of hours. They vary by supplier and region, but a common pattern is about five hours overnight, three in the afternoon and two in the evening. Check your exact windows with your supplier, and note that many older meters stay on GMT all year, so the times can shift by an hour in summer.
Is Economy 10 cheaper than Economy 7?
It depends on your home. Economy 10 gives three extra cheap hours spread through the day, which helps if your heat runs out by the afternoon, but its peak rate is usually a little higher. Economy 7 has one overnight block and a slightly lower peak rate, which suits homes whose storage heaters can coast through the day on an overnight charge.
Is Economy 10 worth it?
Only if you can move a large share of your electricity, roughly 40 per cent or more, into the cheap hours. That usually means electric storage heating or electric hot water on a timer. If you heat with gas and use normal daytime electricity, you would pay the higher peak rate on most of your usage, and a standard single-rate tariff is cheaper.