Octopus export tariffs compared: what each pays a home battery

The five Octopus export tariffs

Octopus publishes the unit rates for its export products on its public API, and the same rates apply in all 14 regions. On 14 October 2026, with Octopus’s own descriptions alongside:

Three things changed this year. Outgoing Octopus was cut from 15p to 12p on 1 March 2026, with Octopus saying wholesale costs had fallen in 2023 and been fairly stable since April 2024. Prime Outgoing launched in June 2026 (its API record is dated 23 June). Octopus’s API also shows 12-month fixed versions of Go, Cosy and Intelligent Go available from 14 October 2026.

What Agile Outgoing actually paid

Agile Outgoing is the one tariff whose rate we cannot read off a list, so we pulled every half-hourly price from the API for each region, 17,520 prices from 14 October 2025 to 13 October 2026. Octopus’s FAQ describes the rate as following the day-ahead wholesale price with a peak bonus between 4pm and 7pm, and says it is floored just above zero when wholesale prices go negative. Over the year:

The pattern is the same everywhere: cheap through the day, dear in the evening. Over a whole day Agile Outgoing averaged between 10.8p and 11.6p, below the flat 12p. Between 11am and 3pm, when a solar array exports most, it averaged about 9.0p in London, and only 13% of those half-hours beat 12p. But from 4pm to 7pm it averaged between 15.3p (North Scotland) and 19.5p (South East England), above the flat 12p on 332 to 361 evenings out of 365 and above Prime’s 16p on between 113 and 338.

The highest half-hour of the year was 43.2p in the South East and Eastern England, and the lowest region maximum was 39.5p in North Scotland.

What a battery would have earned exporting

A battery that sells 9 kWh a day (about what 10 kWh delivers after losses) needs five half-hours at the 3.68 kW limit that a normal G98 connection allows. Putting that 9 kWh into the best five half-hours of each day, the last year’s export revenue would have been:

These are revenue, not profit: they ignore what it cost to fill the battery, and they assume 9 kWh is available to export every day, which a solar-and-battery home using its own electricity often will not have. They show a ranking, not a promise. Agile Outgoing beat Prime by 1% in North Scotland and by 25% in the South East, but it is a variable tariff that moves with wholesale prices, and it needs a battery that can follow them. Prime and Outgoing are known quantities.

Prime against flat: the break-even

Prime pays 7p more than its off-peak rate for the evening window, and its off-peak rate is 3p below the flat 12p. If a fraction x of your export falls between 4pm and 7pm, Prime beats 12p when 16x + 9(1 minus x) is more than 12, which is when x is above 3 in 7, or 42.9%. That arithmetic is ours, not Octopus’s.

• A battery that exports only in the evening peak (x = 100%) earns 16p against 12p, 33% more on Prime.
• A solar array exporting mostly at midday (x close to 0) earns 9p against 12p, 25% less.
• A solar-and-battery home sits in between, depending on how the battery is set up. If the battery covers the evening peak in the home rather than exporting, x is small and flat 12p wins.

Flux export: the highest rate, with strings

Flux paid between 28.90p and 31.75p from 4pm to 7pm across the 14 regions on 28 October 2026, and about 11p for most of the rest of the day. Octopus’s export tariffs page says Flux needs solar and a home battery, and it pairs with Flux import, whose rates and 19 October rate and standing charge rises are on the Octopus Flux rates page. The export rate is only half of the tariff: charging the battery at the Flux night rate costs about 15p to 17p a kWh, and a normal G98 connection still caps export at about 3.68 kW, or 11 kWh in the three-hour window.

Which tariff for which home

Who can join, and what to check

• An Octopus account. Octopus’s Outgoing page says you must already be a customer; new customers join a standard tariff first, then apply.
• A suitable smart meter. One that provides half-hourly export data. Octopus says that includes almost all SMETS2 meters and most SMETS1 meters, and to contact it to confirm.
• An export MPAN. If your home does not have one, Octopus applies to the network operator. Its Outgoing page gives 1 to 4 weeks for that step, plus about 5 days to enrol; its FAQ gives 2 days to 2 weeks.
• A compatible import tariff. Only certain import tariffs pair with Outgoing, and Octopus’s table is an image, so check it.
• Feed-in Tariff homes. Octopus’s pages describe this differently: the Outgoing page says recent FiT recipients cannot switch yet, while its FAQ says FiT generation payments continue but FiT export payments stop. Ask before applying.
• The Smart Export Guarantee. Ofgem’s guidance says suppliers with at least 150,000 domestic customers must offer a SEG tariff, and asks applicants with solar and similar systems of 50 kW or less to show their installation and installer are suitably certified, which can be an MCS certificate or an equivalent. It also says that where an export meter records electricity from a battery charged from anything other than the eligible generator, the supplier is not obliged to make SEG payments for it, though it may choose to. Other suppliers’ SEG rates differ, so compare them as well as Octopus’s 4.1p.
• A home in Great Britain. Ofgem’s SEG page says installations must be located in Great Britain, and the Octopus export rates on this page are GB rates. In Northern Ireland export is supplier-set: Power NI pays 11.88p a kWh from 1 October 2026 to 30 September 2027, and micro-generation export has been settled on actual meter readings since October 2022. The guide to export payments in Northern Ireland has the detail.
• A connection that can export. A normal single-phase G98 connection limits export to about 3.68 kW; more needs a G99 application.

Using a battery for the evening instead of exporting

Everything above is what export pays. What export competes with is using the energy yourself. On 14 October 2026 Flexible Octopus charged between 25.4p and 29.4p a unit, depending on region and payment method, and Octopus Go’s day rate was between 28.0p and 30.7p, with a fixed Go product at 35.3p to 39.3p. A kWh from the battery that covers your own evening use saves that much, more than Prime’s 16p or Agile Outgoing’s evening average of 15p to 19.5p. So the order of preference for stored energy is: cover your own use first; export what is left. The best tariff for a home battery page sets out how the import side works.

If you are choosing a battery to earn on export, get at least two battery storage quotes and ask each installer what export limit the connection will be set to.