The job in one sentence

Strip away the jargon and a broker does one thing. They stand between your business and the energy suppliers so you don’t have to deal with all of them yourself. They take your usage, ask the suppliers they work with what they’d charge, work out which offer actually wins once the whole contract is counted, and handle the paperwork to move you. The ones worth having then keep half an eye on your renewal so the saving doesn’t quietly unwind three years later.

The letter of authority

Nothing happens until you’ve signed a letter of authority. It’s a short document, usually a single page, that lets the broker talk to suppliers about your account and pull the information they need. It isn’t a contract, it doesn’t commit you to switching, and you can withdraw it whenever you like.

Getting your numbers right

Every quote is only as good as the usage behind it. A broker pulls your annual consumption from a recent bill or from the industry data held against your meter point, your MPAN for electricity or MPRN for gas. If your bills have been running on estimated reads, that figure can be well out, and a quote built on a wrong number is just a wrong quote dressed up as a good one.

For a corner shop this is five minutes. For a site on a half-hourly meter, or a business running ten meters across five locations, getting the consumption data clean and complete is most of the actual work. It’s also where a careless broker quietly costs you, long before any rate gets agreed.

Approaching the market

This is where whole of market gets said a lot and meant rarely. Most brokers work from a panel of suppliers they hold agreements with. There’s nothing wrong with that, as long as you know how wide the panel is and whether the broker is nudged toward one supplier by a better commission.

The broker sends your details out and collects bespoke prices built around your usage, not the headline rates on a website. A panel of three suppliers and a panel of fifteen are very different things wearing the same phrase, so it’s fair to ask for the number.

Comparing the whole contract, not the headline rate

Here’s the part that separates a real comparison from a quick sort by price. The unit rate, pence per kWh, is the number everyone fixes on. It isn’t the whole bill. The standing charge you pay every day whether you trade or not, the length of the deal, capacity charges, and the small print around things like out-of-hours use all move the total.

Handling the switch

Once you’ve chosen, the broker processes it. They submit the new contract, line the start date up with the end of your current one, and deal with the close-down so you’re not double-billed or dropped onto expensive default rates in the gap. Your supply never stops. The gas and electricity arrive exactly as before. The only thing that changes is who you buy from and at what price.

There’s usually a short objection window, around fourteen days, where the old supplier can block a switch over an unpaid balance. A broker who’s run a few hundred of these knows how to stop that tripping you up. Start to finish a straightforward switch tends to take a few weeks, most of it spent waiting on dates rather than doing anything.

After you’ve signed

This is where brokers genuinely differ, and it’s the bit nobody asks about until it’s too late. Some take their commission at the point of switch and you never hear from them again. Others log your renewal date, keep an eye on the market through your contract, and get in touch a few months before your window opens so there’s time to act.

How brokers get paid

Most brokers don’t send you an invoice. They’re paid commission by the supplier, built into the rate you’re quoted. That’s why using one isn’t automatically more expensive than going direct, and it’s why a bit of openness about the number matters more than the word commission makes it sound.

Ask what’s baked into your rate. A straight answer is a good sign. Evasiveness on that question is worth noticing. We set out exactly how this works, across energy and water, on our how we make our money page.

What a broker can’t do

A broker doesn’t generate your energy or set wholesale prices. Those move with the market, and anyone promising to beat it every single time is overselling. They can’t guarantee a specific saving either. What a good one can do is show you more of the market than you’d see alone, weigh the whole contract rather than the headline, take the admin off your desk, and make sure the next renewal doesn’t catch you out.

That’s the honest shape of it. A fair bit of unglamorous work, done properly, and well worth paying for on the days you’d rather be running your business.