Compare Electricity Rates in McAllen, TX
Shop electricity rates in McAllen starting at [Lowest Rate Short Code] per kWh.
Most McAllen homes sit in the deregulated Texas market and choose their own retail electricity provider, while AEP Texas Central keeps the wires, the meter and the outage response no matter who you buy from. Some addresses in and around the city are served by Magic Valley Electric Cooperative instead, and co-op members do not shop the competitive market. Enter your full address, not just a ZIP code, to see which applies to you. This page compares the plans available today, shows what a typical McAllen home actually pays, and explains which plan type fits which household.
Best-Value Electricity Plans and Rates in McAllen
Power Wizard has rates in McAllen ranging from [Lowest Rate Short Code] to [Highest Rate Short Code] per kWh. Our electricity experts pick one plan for each of the three ways McAllen homes actually use power.
Renders as — snapshot, September 13 2026
Best overall in McAllen
Fixed rate, 12 months, no usage threshold to hit.
View planBest for high usage
Bill-credit plan for homes consistently above 2,000 kWh.
View planBest for low usage
No minimum-usage fee, suited to apartments and smaller homes.
View plan[VERIFY — cards 2 and 3 need 500 kWh and 2,000 kWh effective rates, which the marketplace feed does not currently expose. Rates shown are illustrative only. Either relabel both cards to what 1,000 kWh data supports, or record the two labels as working assumptions.]
Two live defects this replaces. Read on September 13, the third card was Simply Select 9 at 12.7¢ sitting above a table whose first eight rows were all cheaper, starting at 7.3¢. And the first two cards were in the wrong order: card 1 was 7.3¢ while card 2 was 7.1¢, the cheaper plan in the second slot under a layout that reads as a ranking. The cards and the table must be drawn from one query at one timestamp, and the ordering rule must match the labels.
McAllen Electricity Rate Comparison ([Month/Year])
Rates change often and vary by provider, plan, usage and ZIP code. Some plans carry usage tiers, base fees or bill credits that change what you actually pay, so the advertised rate is only part of the picture. The Electricity Facts Label is where each plan's full cost structure is set out, and the figures below are based on average usage patterns rather than your own.
Renders as — snapshot, September 13 2026
| Provider | Plan | Term | Rate / kWh | Est. energy cost |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| APG&E | SimpleSaver 12 | 12 mo | 7.3¢ | $73.00 |
| Energy Texas | The Lone Saver Plus 12 | 12 mo | 7.4¢ | $73.70 |
| Rhythm Energy | Rhythm Max Saver 12 | 12 mo | 7.4¢ | $73.70 |
| Gexa Energy | Gexa Saver Plus 12 | 12 mo | 7.4¢ | $74.00 |
| Companion Energy | Companion Savings + Benefits 12 | 12 mo | 7.4¢ | $74.00 |
| Express Energy | Flash Value 12 | 12 mo | 8.8¢ | $88.00 |
| 4Change Energy | Maxx Saver Value 12 | 12 mo | 8.8¢ | $88.00 |
Gexa Energy and Frontier Utilities are both NextEra-owned, and only one appears on a city page: Gexa Energy is the one that appears. The live McAllen page currently carries both, in three separate tables — Frontier Saver Plus 12 two rows from Gexa Saver Plus 12 here, Frontier Budget Saver 12 in the fixed-rate table, and Frontier Free Weekends Preferred 12 directly above Gexa Free 3 Day Weekends Preferred 12 in the time-of-use table. The roster logic enforces the rule rather than leaving it to writer discretion.
The rate above covers the electricity itself. AEP Texas Central charges separately to deliver it: [Base Charge Short Code] a month plus [Energy Charge Short Code] per kWh, which every McAllen home pays on any plan. At 1,000 kWh that adds about $61 a month.
Why this sentence is required, in this page's own numbers. The bill column is energy-only. It shows $73.00 for the 7.3¢ plan. The same page publishes AEP Texas Central's delivery charges of $3.24 a month plus $0.0576 per kWh, which is $60.84 at 1,000 kWh, so the real bill is about $134. And the same page's own average block puts a 1,000 kWh McAllen bill at $138.46. A reader comparing $73.00 against $138.46 concludes the cheapest plan halves their bill. It does not. Relabeling the column and adding the sentence above makes the basis explicit.
McAllen Electricity Market Update, [Month/Year]
The move tracks demand on the ERCOT grid, where the Rio Grande Valley's cooling load runs later into the autumn than anywhere else in deregulated Texas. What to do this month. If your contract ends before December, lock a fixed rate now rather than waiting. If it runs past February, the window worth waiting for is late November into January, when Valley demand finally falls.
Live defect this section fixes. The page currently renders the literal string “Rate trend data is being collected. Please check back in a few days.” as body copy, under a heading called “Current Electricity Rates in McAllen, TX.” An error message is shipping as published content. Either the placeholder resolves or the section suppresses; it must never print its own failure.
Key Takeaways About Electricity Rates in McAllen
- As of [Month/Year], the lowest McAllen rates on our marketplace start at [Lowest Rate Short Code] on the energy portion.
- A typical McAllen home pays $000 a month, at an average all-in rate of [Average Short Code Number].
- AEP Texas Central delivers power to every home in deregulated McAllen regardless of which provider you choose, and its delivery charges are the same on every plan.
- Some addresses in and around McAllen are served by Magic Valley Electric Cooperative, whose members do not shop the deregulated market. Enter your full address, not just your ZIP code, to confirm which applies to you.
- The Valley's cooling season runs longer than anywhere else in deregulated Texas, so the month you shop matters more here than it does further north.
- Consider contract length, customer service and renewable options alongside price.
What Should You Pay for Electricity in McAllen?
A typical McAllen home uses about 0000 kWh a month and pays around $000 at today's average all-in rate of [Average Short Code Number] per kWh. Rates here start at [Lowest Rate Short Code], so anything in the lower half of that range is a good rate in McAllen right now.
That is 0% against the Texas average of $0000 a year, and 0% against the national average of $000.
Two numbers make up any McAllen bill, and only one of them is on the plan you choose. The energy rate is what the retail provider sells you. AEP Texas Central's base charge and per-kWh delivery fee are added on top, are identical across every provider here, and are what turn a 7¢ headline rate into a bill closer to the average above. Compare your current bill against the all-in figure rather than against the headline rate.
Why this section exists. The People Also Ask block on mcallen electricity rates asks “What is a good kilowatt per hour rate in Texas?” It is asked statewide because no page answers it locally. All nine competitor pages measured for this brief publish a lowest rate and an average rate; not one tells a reader what a household like theirs should expect to pay. This is also the passage most likely to be pulled into the AI Overview this page is currently locked out of.
[The home-size sub-table is deliberately not used. Only the middle row is sourceable today, and the apartment row's placeholder returns a Texas-wide figure. A statewide number inside a McAllen table labels state data as local, which is exactly the failure the caveat exists to prevent. The opening sentence alone already answers the question.]
What is McAllen's Average Electricity Rate?
Providers display rates at three standard usage levels so plans can be compared consistently.
Renders as — snapshot, September 13 2026
| Monthly usage | Average Marketplace Rate |
|---|---|
| 500 kWh | 17.5¢ |
| 1,000 kWh | 13.8¢ |
| 2,000 kWh | 14.6¢ |
The 2,000 kWh figure sitting above the 1,000 kWh figure is not an error. Bill-credit plans cluster their thresholds around 1,000 kWh, which pulls that tier down relative to the others.
Two live fixes here. Always “Average Marketplace Rate”, never “Average Rate”: Power Wizard averages the plans in its own marketplace rather than the entire Texas market, and the label should say so. And the page currently publishes two different averages — its opening bullet says 13.9¢ at 1,000 kWh while the table below says 13.8¢. Both are hand-placed. Bind both to the placeholder so they cannot disagree.
Types of Electricity Plans You'll See in McAllen
No two homes in McAllen use electricity in the same way. A one-bedroom apartment near La Plaza Mall does not have the same energy habits as a family home out in North McAllen along the Nolana corridor. Understanding the plan types helps you find one that fits your lifestyle rather than someone else's.
Two things go here. The live page's plan-type comparison table, with its hand-typed “Price Stability,” “Contract Length” and “Risk Level” columns, is removed: none of it has a source, and its “Risk Level: High” row for variable plans conflicts with the approved framing of those plans as short-term flexibility. And the intro no longer places a reader in Sharyland, which mostly lies inside Mission and has its own Power Wizard city page.
Fixed-Rate Plans
A fixed-rate plan locks your price per kWh for the whole contract term, so a long McAllen cooling season changes how much you use but not what you pay per unit. Unlike a bill-credit plan, there is no monthly usage target to hit.
Best for: most households, renters, and anyone who wants a predictable rate without tracking usage.
Not a good fit if: you consistently use 2,000 kWh or more, where a bill-credit plan usually delivers a lower effective rate.
Time-of-Use Plans
These plans give you free electricity during a set window, and the plan name tells you which one: nights, weekends, or three-day weekends. The free hours are paid for by a higher rate the rest of the time, so the plan only works if you can move real usage into the window.
Best for: households that can run laundry, the dishwasher and EV charging inside the free window.
Not a good fit if: someone is home using power through the day, where the higher daytime rate outweighs the free hours.
Bill and Usage Credit Plans
These plans apply a credit to your bill in any month your usage clears the plan's threshold, which the Electricity Facts Label states. Clear it and the effective rate is among the lowest available anywhere on this page. Miss it and you pay the full rate with no credit at all.
Best for: homes that cleared the threshold in at least 10 of the last 12 months.
Not a good fit if: your usage drops in the mild months, since one missed month can erase several months of savings.
This block matters more on McAllen than its position suggests: several of the cheapest plans in the page's own table are bill-credit products, and the live page sells them at the top without ever explaining the mechanism that makes them cheap or the condition that makes them expensive.
No-Deposit and Prepaid Plans
You pay into a balance before you use the electricity, with no deposit and no credit check. Service continues as long as that balance holds.
Best for: renters, movers and anyone who would rather not put down a deposit or have their credit checked to get connected.
Not a good fit if: you want to set the bill up and forget it, since a balance that runs out can disconnect service with little notice.
Renewable and Green Energy Plans
Every plan below is matched with 100% renewable generation. Your home draws the same electricity from the same grid either way; the provider buys renewable credits to match what you use. The ranked companies table above shows which providers offer green plans in McAllen.
Best for: shoppers who want their usage matched with renewable generation and still want a locked rate.
Not a good fit if: you expect renewable matching to lower your bill, which it does not.
One extra sentence, and only here. McAllen's green cluster is roughly 400 searches a month and every term in it is company-framed rather than plan-framed: green energy companies mcallen, renewable energy companies mcallen, clean energy companies mcallen, green energy suppliers mcallen. Readers are asking who sells green power here. The live page answers with a single 21-word sentence and no provider framing at all, so the pointer to the ranked table is doing real work.
Solar Buyback Plans
If you have rooftop solar, these plans credit you for the electricity you export back to the grid. The pairing that determines your annual bill is the import rate set against the export credit, and the Electricity Facts Label states both.
Best for: homeowners whose system regularly produces more than the home consumes.
Not a good fit if: you lease your panels, or your system was sized to offset only part of your usage.
Variable-Rate Plans
A variable-rate plan has no locked rate. Your price per kWh moves with the wholesale market every month, so it can sit below a fixed rate through a mild Valley winter and climb sharply through a long McAllen summer. We almost never recommend one.
Best for: a short bridge between contracts, for shoppers who can absorb a high bill if the market moves against them.
Not a good fit if: you need a predictable bill, or you would be exposed through a summer, when demand and prices peak together.
Seven plan types, each with the plan-type name as a real h3 so it is anchorable and extractable, and a Best for / Not a good fit if pair in place of the live page's thin blurbs. No provider or plan is named in any blurb — the tables name them, so a hand-typed plan can never contradict the live table beneath it.
McAllen's Best Electricity Companies Ranked
McAllen's deregulated electricity market lets most households here pick from a field of competing retail providers, or light companies as most people in the Valley call them. These five are ordered by who they suit, not by score.
| Electricity company | Good fit for | Rating |
|---|---|---|
| APG&E | Shoppers who want the lowest straightforward fixed rate in McAllen with no usage threshold to hit | 4.8 |
| Gexa Energy | Shoppers who want 100% renewable matching at the cheapest green rate on the McAllen marketplace | 5.0 |
| Rhythm Energy | Households that want renewable-matched power plus self-service tools for tracking usage | 4.8 |
| 4Change Energy | Higher-usage homes comfortable hitting a monthly usage target in exchange for a lower effective rate | 4.9 |
| BKV Energy | Shoppers who want simple fixed pricing with no bill-credit mechanics to track | 4.8 |
Also serving McAllen: Atlantex Power, Companion Energy, Energy Texas, Express Energy, Octopus Energy, Payless Power and Veteran Energy. Compare all Texas providers.
Enter your full address to compare the plans actually available where you live.
Ratings are based on Power Wizard's internal scoring methodology and customer experience benchmarks. Company features and availability vary within McAllen.
Why this section is the biggest change on the page. The provider and company cluster is worth roughly 1,970 searches a month in McAllen at KD 0, with CPCs between $6.00 and $18.00, and the live page has no ranked provider section at all. Within that cluster sits a finding worth naming: light companies mcallen and its variants carry 540 searches a month, the head term has the highest CPC of any McAllen keyword at $18.00, and Search Console records the Spanish query compañias de luz mcallen reaching this page at position 76.7. The phrase “light company” appears zero times on the live page and zero times on any competitor page measured here. It is used twice on the recommended page, here and in one FAQ, and nowhere else.
Rules this table follows. Five rows maximum, built from the live McAllen roster at ZIP 78504 rather than a master provider list. Ordered by fit, because the composite scores are not doing the work a ranking implies. One rating source, one decimal place — the live rate table renders Gexa Energy as “5” where every other provider carries a decimal. No row is labeled “Best overall”, which belongs to the first featured plan card. And this section absorbs the live page's “Deregulation in Action” H2, whose framing of residents choosing a provider “instead of being locked into Magic Valley Electric Co-op” describes a cooperative serving more than 105,000 Valley members as a trap.
How to Switch Electricity Providers in McAllen
- Enter your full address. A single McAllen ZIP can span both AEP Texas Central and Magic Valley Electric Cooperative territory, so a ZIP-only check cannot establish whether you can shop.
- Filter by term, provider, renewable content and plan type.
- Read the Electricity Facts Label for the plan you are considering.
- Sign up online or by phone. Your new provider handles the switch, usually with no interruption to service.
You can shop around and switch providers at the end of your contract. Early termination fees may apply if you leave early. ETFs do not apply if you are moving, even if your contract has not been fulfilled, and they do not apply to anyone in the last two weeks of their electricity contract.
What to Weigh Before You Choose a Plan in McAllen
- Know your actual usage. The right plan for your McAllen home starts with knowing how much power you use. Your past bills carry the figure, and it matters more than the rate you sign.
- Contracts and cancellation fees. Many plans carry a term with an early termination fee. Decide whether you are buying flexibility or rate stability before you commit, and read the term length on the EFL.
- Customer service. A low rate is worth less if support is poor, from billing questions to plan changes. Power Wizard publishes customer service scores alongside each provider so you can see what to expect.
- The fine print. Base fees and minimum-usage charges can raise a bill well above what the advertised rate suggests. Review the Electricity Facts Label before enrolling.
Three bullets are deliberately not reinstated. Plan type, deposit requirements and green energy options are all now handled in the plan-type blocks above, closer to the decision. The live list also carries a typo, “you may need to pay a depost,” which the rewrite removes rather than patches.
McAllen Electricity Provider vs. Utility
Your provider sells you the plan. Your utility delivers the power, and it is assigned by address rather than chosen. In McAllen that utility is AEP Texas Central, and switching retail providers does not change it. Addresses served by Magic Valley Electric Cooperative sit outside the deregulated market and are billed by the cooperative rather than by a retail provider.
- Monthly base charge: [Base Charge Short Code]
- Per-kWh delivery fee: [Energy Charge Short Code]
[The live page hard-codes these charges at $3.24 and $0.0576. The values are currently correct; the hard-coding is the defect, because they are revised several times a year. These two placeholders also take a different utility identifier from every other placeholder on this page, and a page carrying the wrong one drops its delivery charges silently while reading correctly everywhere else. Check they render before publishing.]
Reporting a Power Outage in McAllen
Your retail electricity provider cannot restore your service. Outages are AEP Texas Central's responsibility, whoever you buy your plan from.
Call: 1-866-223-8508
Outage map: outagemap.aeptexas.com
AEP Texas crews cover the wider Rio Grande Valley service area, so restoration times during a widespread storm reflect conditions across the region rather than McAllen alone.
The live page gives two different outage numbers. Its utility section says 877-373-4858 and its FAQ says 1-866-223-8508. Only the second is the number AEP Texas publishes on its own outage reporting page, read September 13, 2026. Both references should come from one source. AEP Texas also publishes no text-to-report short code — Oncor's “text OUT to 66267” is Oncor-only and must not be carried onto this page. No live outage count in the copy either: it is wrong within the hour, and it is utility-level data rather than city-level.
Electricity Plans for McAllen Businesses
Businesses from downtown McAllen to the Nolana Avenue corridor and the offices along Expressway 83 buy electricity on the same deregulated market as households, with plans built for commercial load profiles: fixed-rate, market-indexed and renewable options, plus dedicated account management and consolidated billing across sites. McAllen's commercial demand has two distinctive drivers. McAllen Foreign Trade Zone No. 12 runs an industrial park of more than 700 acres near South Military Highway and added a further 1,500 acres north of Monte Cristo Road in 2026, and healthcare employs more than 31,000 people in the city. Cross-border trade with Reynosa and a large medical sector shape load here in a way a generic paragraph would miss. Compare business electricity plans.
McAllen Electricity FAQs
What is a good electricity rate in McAllen right now?
Anything in the lower half of the range between [Lowest Rate Short Code] and the McAllen average all-in rate of [Average Short Code Number] is a good rate right now. Every plan also carries AEP Texas Central delivery charges on top, so a very low energy rate is a smaller saving than it first looks.
Which light companies serve McAllen?
AEP Texas Central delivers power to McAllen addresses in the deregulated market and cannot be changed. Retail providers, what most people here call light companies, compete to sell the electricity itself, and the ranked table above lists the ones available in McAllen. Some addresses in and around the city are served by Magic Valley Electric Cooperative instead, whose members are not part of the deregulated market and do not choose a retail provider. Enter your full address to confirm which applies to you.
What are the cheapest electricity rates in McAllen?
The cheapest plan currently available is [Lowest Plan Short Code], with rates across the marketplace running from [Lowest Rate Short Code] to [Highest Rate Short Code] per kWh. The cheapest plans are usually bill-credit plans, which only beat a fixed rate if your usage clears the plan's threshold every month.
Is 15 cents per kWh a good rate in McAllen?
No. Fifteen cents sits above the McAllen 1,000 kWh [Average Short Code Number] and well above the lowest rates currently on the marketplace. Compare it against the typical monthly bill above before accepting a renewal at that level.
Why is my McAllen electricity bill suddenly so high?
The most common cause is a contract that ended and rolled onto a variable rate, which is also the most expensive. The other two are usage rising with cooling demand through a long Valley summer, and a change to AEP Texas Central's regulated delivery charges, which every McAllen home pays on any plan. Check your current rate against the benchmark above to see which applies to you.
Can I get electricity in McAllen with bad credit or no deposit?
Yes. Prepaid and no-deposit plans connect service with no credit check and no deposit. The trade-off is honest: the rate is usually higher than a comparable fixed plan, and service can be disconnected with little notice if the balance runs out.
Can I switch electric companies at any time in McAllen?
Yes, you can switch at any time in McAllen. Switching before your current contract ends may incur an early termination fee, so check your plan's Electricity Facts Label. ETFs do not apply if you are moving, and they do not apply in the last two weeks of your contract.
What if I move, can I take my plan with me?
You may be able to transfer your plan to your new home, depending on your provider and its service area. Early termination fees do not apply if you are moving, even if your contract has not been fulfilled.
How does McAllen's weather impact my energy bill?
McAllen has the longest cooling season in deregulated Texas, with air conditioning load running from March into October and only a short mild window either side of the new year. Cooling demand rather than winter risk is what drives the annual bill here, and hard freezes are rare, which is the opposite of the picture on the North Texas pages.
Three PAA questions are deliberately left unanswered: “Who has the cheapest electricity per kWh in Texas?”, “Who has the cheapest electricity per kWh?” and “Which is cheaper, Reliant or TXU?”. The first two are statewide and belong to the Texas hub page. And one live FAQ answer is corrected: the green-energy answer names “Chariot Energy, and CleanSky Energy” as McAllen green providers, with a stray comma, and neither appears in the live green plan table on the same page, which lists Gexa Energy, Rhythm Energy, Energy Texas and Octopus Energy. The hand-typed names come out.
Electricity Rates in Cities Near McAllen
Three corrections. The live heading reads “Find Rates and Plans in Cities within AEP Texas,” which is a utility-territory list rather than a nearby-cities list, and that is what causes the other two problems. McAllen appears in its own list, and of the 23 links several are nowhere near: Abilene, San Angelo, Andrews and Alpine are 400 miles or more away, and Rockwall is a Dallas–Fort Worth city that is not on AEP Texas at all. Brownsville is also linked, and Power Wizard's own deregulation map states in its prose that Brownsville is a regulated city served by Magic Valley Electric Co-op whose residents cannot switch providers, even though the same map's city table lists it. The thirteen links above are the closest deregulated Texas cities with live Power Wizard pages, ordered by distance, each confirmed to resolve on September 13, 2026.