Agile Wholesale Calculator

Agile Wholesale Calculator

If you’ve ever looked at a wholesale electricity price in £/MWh and then tried to compare it to an Octopus Agile rate in p/kWh, you’ll know they don’t exactly line up directly.

Octopus Agile is based on wholesale electricity prices, but the final rate depends on your region, the time of day, VAT, and since 1 April 2026, an additional 3.5p/kWh reduction.

Use the calculator below to convert between wholesale and Agile pricing, or to sense-check how a given wholesale price might translate into an Agile rate.

If you want the full background on how wholesale electricity pricing works in the UK, see the guide to how wholesale electricity pricing works in the UK.

If you’re looking for full Agile breakdowns and live data, see:

• Octopus Agile tariff pricing explained
• Octopus Agile rates today

Use the Agile Wholesale Calculator

Agile Wholesale TL;DR

• Wholesale prices are shown in £/MWh
• Agile prices are shown in p/kWh
• You need to convert units and apply a formula to compare them
• The formula changes by region
• There is an extra uplift between 4pm and 7pm
• Since April 2026, Agile rates are 3.5p/kWh lower
• This calculator gives a good estimate, but exact matches require the correct half-hourly wholesale data

Not sure which region you’re in? See DNO region codes explained and how to find yours.

How Octopus Agile is derived from wholesale pricing

Octopus Agile is based on day-ahead wholesale electricity prices, but it is not a simple pass-through.

The calculation includes:

• a regional multiplier
• a 4pm to 7pm uplift
• a price cap
• VAT
• and since April 2026, a 3.5p/kWh reduction

The underlying structure used by Octopus can be summarised as:

• min(D x W + P, 95)

Where:

• D = regional multiplier
• W = wholesale price (p/kWh)
• P = peak-period uplift (4pm to 7pm only)

To get to the final Agile import rate, VAT is added and the 3.5p reduction is applied.

A practical version of the formula is:

• Agile = min((wholesale × multiplier) + peak adder, 95) × 1.05 – 3.5

Why your region changes the result

Agile pricing is not the same across the UK.

Each region has:

• a different multiplier
• a different 4pm to 7pm uplift

So the same wholesale price can produce different Agile rates depending on where you live.

If you want to see the regional values laid out clearly, this reference from Guy Lipman is useful:
Octopus Agile regional multipliers and peak adders explained

£/MWh vs p/kWh (why the numbers look different)

Wholesale electricity prices are usually quoted in £/MWh.

Agile prices are quoted in p/kWh.

That means the numbers will look very different before you even apply the formula.

The quick conversion is:

£/MWh / 10 = p/kWh

So:

• £50/MWh = 5p/kWh
• £100/MWh = 10p/kWh

The calculator handles this conversion automatically.

Why 4pm to 7pm matters so much

One of the key features of Agile pricing is the uplift applied between 4pm and 7pm.

This is why:

• daytime prices can be very low or even negative
• early evening prices are often much higher

If you’re comparing wholesale to Agile, you must account for whether the time falls in this window.

Worked example

Let’s take a simple Yorkshire example outside the 4pm to 7pm window.

Wholesale price: £50/MWh

Step 1: convert to p/kWh
£50 ÷ 10 = 5p/kWh

Step 2: apply multiplier (Yorkshire = 2.0)
5 × 2.0 = 10

Step 3: no peak uplift
= 10

Step 4: add VAT
10 × 1.05 = 10.5

Step 5: apply April 2026 reduction
10.5 − 3.5 = 7.0p/kWh

So £50/MWh wholesale roughly translates to 7.0p/kWh Agile in this case.

Why your numbers might not match exactly

This calculator shows the published relationship between wholesale and Agile pricing.

But real-world comparisons don’t always match perfectly.

The main reasons are:

• Agile uses half-hourly wholesale prices
• many sources show hourly averages
• some feeds use slightly different market data
• rounding and caps can affect results

If you’re comparing against external wholesale data, make sure you’re using the correct half-hourly values for the same period.

For a deeper explanation of how wholesale prices are formed and published, see
how wholesale electricity pricing works in the UK.