Iberdrola vs Octopus Energy in Spain (2026)

Affiliate disclosure: HolaSwitch is funded by commissions from the Spanish energy providers we partner with. Iberdrola and Octopus are not among them. We don't sell either one and neither appears in our comparison results — which is exactly why we can weigh them up here without a thumb on the scale.

Picture two very different animals wearing the same uniform.

Iberdrola is a utility the size of a small nation. Thirty-odd million customers, a tower in Bilbao, offices in towns you've never heard of, and a history that predates the euro. Octopus is a British software company that happens to sell electricity, arrived in Spain around 2021, and built its whole pitch on an app and a phone that gets answered.

They both put electrons down the same wires. What you're really choosing between is a giant that has been here forever and a challenger betting it can win on price and service instead of size.

No savings guarantee lives in this article. Only your bill knows the answer, and we'll get to how you pull it out.

What each one sells

Both run on the residential 2.0TD access tariff (up to 15 kW), and both offer the same core tariff shapes. What wraps around those shapes is the difference.

And the practical differences, which is where most people actually decide:

Fixed or time-of-use: the fork that actually moves your bill

Forget brands for a paragraph. This decision matters more than which logo is on the app.

Spanish homes split the day into three windows. Valle, the cheapest, runs midnight to 8am on weekdays plus all day Saturday, Sunday and national holidays. Punta, the dearest, covers 10am to 2pm and 6pm to 10pm on weekdays. Llano mops up the hours in between.

A fixed plan (Octopus Relax or Iberdrola Plan Online) charges one rate around the clock. You stop watching the clock entirely — good for a home where someone's always in, the AC runs when it's hot, and nobody's rearranging their life around a tariff.

A time-of-use plan (Octopus 3 or Iberdrola 3 Periodos) rewards discipline. Run the washing machine at midnight. Charge the car overnight. Push the heavy stuff into the weekend and the low valle rate does real work. Cook dinner at 7pm every night and ignore the windows, and you'll hand the saving straight back in punta charges.

One test settles it: can you genuinely shove a chunk of your usage into nights and weekends? Yes — go time-of-use. No — go fixed. Can't tell? That's what a bill check is for. Our guide to indexed and time-of-use contracts in Spain walks through the trade-offs in more detail.

The power term, and where the Octopus myth breaks

Your bill has two engines: the energy you burn (€/kWh) and the power you reserve (€/kW/day, the término de potencia). That second one is a fixed daily toll for the capacity you've contracted, charged whether you use a single watt or leave the house dark for a month.

Octopus built a reputation on brutally low off-peak power charges. That reputation is now half true, so here's the correction.

The low-valle advantage survives on the other two plans. Octopus 3, and especially Octopus Flexi, carry much cheaper valle power terms, which is where a mostly-empty holiday home can genuinely shave the standing charge. Iberdrola's 3 Periodos plays a similar game: a low valle power rate, a higher punta one.

Why obsess over a daily toll? Because for a second home that sits dark eight months a year, the power term isn't a footnote — it can be the biggest line on the bill, often 35 to 50% of a low-consumption invoice. The lever that moves it isn't the headline €/kWh. It's right-sizing your contracted kW and picking a plan whose power structure doesn't punish an empty house. Most homes are over-contracted, and fixing your potencia contratada beats chasing a fraction of a cent on energy.

Indexed: Octopus offers it, Iberdrola doesn't (not really)

Octopus Flexi is a true free-market indexed tariff. The price tracks the OMIE wholesale pool hour by hour, so when the wind blows hard and prices crater, you feel it that day.

Iberdrola, as a free-market brand, has no equivalent. The only indexed pricing under the Iberdrola group is PVPC, the government-regulated hourly price, and you don't buy it from Iberdrola the retailer — you get it from Curenergía, its regulated arm. PVPC is also the sole doorway to the bono social discount if you qualify.

Indexed asks something of you, though: it trades certainty for market exposure. It works well if you can watch prices and shift heavy use into the cheap hours, and it's uncomfortable if you just want to know what June will cost before it lands. Flexi and PVPC suit an engaged, price-watching customer. If you want a number you can predict — a second home you run remotely, say — fixed or three-period is the calmer choice.

The part the spreadsheet misses: customer service

Here's where the comparison stops being about cents.

Two things decide how a supplier feels day to day: how fast they answer, and whether you can reach them the way you prefer. Iberdrola's answer has always been reach and presence — a network of physical offices across the country, phone lines, an app. If you'd rather sort a problem face to face, almost nobody matches that footprint. The trade-off shows up in the reviews, where legacy phone support draws complaints about slow resolution.

Octopus bet the opposite way, staking everything on responsive digital service. Its Spanish operation pulls a steady stream of reviews praising fast, personal support, often naming the agent who fixed the problem. On Trustpilot, Octopus Energy España sits at a near-perfect score across more than twenty thousand reviews, while Iberdrola sits around 4.2 across roughly thirteen thousand. Different samples and histories, but the gap is hard to ignore — check both live, since scores move.

One factor matters only to some readers: language. If your Spanish isn't fluent, Octopus's English-language support is a real advantage, and a chunk of its glowing reviews come from international residents who switched from Iberdrola for exactly that reason. Iberdrola has an English website toggle and some English phone support, though customers report it's inconsistent and you may have to ask for it. Comfortable in Spanish? Treat this as a wash and judge on speed alone.

Either way, service isn't a footnote. A few euros a month saved can vanish against one afternoon lost to a billing dispute that drags.

Coverage and the bits that decide it for you

Islands. Iberdrola serves every Spanish territory. Octopus covers the mainland, the Balearics and the Canaries, but Ceuta and Melilla are out.

Bono social and PVPC. Only the five regulated comercializadoras de referencia (Iberdrola, Endesa, Naturgy, EDP, Repsol) can put you on PVPC and the bono social. Octopus can't. If you qualify for the social discount, that's an Iberdrola-group point, full stop.

Your distributor doesn't change. This trips up almost everyone. The company that owns the wires and fixes a power cut — your distribuidora — is set by your address, not your supplier. Switch from Iberdrola to Octopus and the same distributor still turns up when the lights go out. Across much of eastern and central Spain that distributor is i-DE, Iberdrola's own grid arm; elsewhere it's Endesa's E-Distribución, Naturgy's UFD, or another regional operator, no matter who prints your bill. Choosing a supplier is choosing who sends the invoice, nothing more — which kills most of the fear around switching supplier.

What real customers say

Strip out the star ratings and read the texture.

Octopus. Switching from Iberdrola was easy, the app is clean, support answers fast and by name, and bills often came down after the move. The recurring gripe is that it's still relatively new here, so the odd complex grid issue takes longer to untangle than at a supplier with decades of local muscle.

Iberdrola. The score splits by how you interact with it. Digital-first users report smooth sailing and value the app and the long-tenure loyalty perks. The complaints cluster around rate changes arriving without much warning, add-on maintenance services appearing on bills, and — worth knowing before any sales call — a documented pattern of customers being nudged off the regulated PVPC onto pricier free-market plans. The physical branch network is a genuine asset for anyone who'd rather sort things face to face.

No winner here. Octopus draws warmer sentiment across the board, and international residents are especially loud about it. Iberdrola carries the weight and reach of an incumbent, complaints and all.

So which is cheaper?

There's no universal answer, and anyone who gives you one is selling something.

On fixed 24h energy the two trade blows within a cent or two, and whichever promotion is live that week usually decides it. On the power term it's a wash on the fixed plans and a real contest on the time-of-use ones. Iberdrola leans on bundles (gas, maintenance, solar) and long price locks; Octopus leans on flexibility, no lock-in, and the ability to hop between its own tariffs whenever your usage changes.

Your cheapest option is a function of four things: your kWh, your contracted power, how your usage splits across the day, and your postcode. A comparison table can't see any of those. Your bill can — and if you want the wider picture first, start with how to lower your electricity bill in Spain. For the other giant-versus-giant comparison, see Iberdrola vs Endesa.

How HolaSwitch settles it

We don't partner with Iberdrola or Octopus, so neither one sits in our comparison and there's nothing for us to sell you on this page. It's just the honest lay of the land.

When you want the personal version, upload your latest Spanish electricity bill. We read the numbers that actually decide this: your real consumption, your contracted potencia, your punta, llano and valle split. Then we show you — taxes and regulated charges included — how your current costs stack up against the plans we can actually switch you to. Not a typical household. Yours.

FAQ

Is Octopus cheaper than Iberdrola in Spain? It depends on your consumption profile, and the gap is usually small. Their fixed 24h energy rates trade within a cent or two, with live promotions often deciding it. Octopus can win on power charges for off-peak-heavy homes on its time-of-use plans, while Iberdrola counters with bundles and longer price locks. There's no guaranteed winner — it comes down to your bill.

Does Octopus Energy offer English-speaking customer service in Spain? Octopus Energy España is widely reported by English-speaking customers to provide responsive support in English, by phone and email, often from named agents. Octopus doesn't publish a formal English-language guarantee, but reader feedback on this point is consistent and strong. Iberdrola has an English website and some English phone support, though customers report it's inconsistent and you may need to ask explicitly.

Does Octopus cover the Canary Islands? Octopus covers mainland Spain, the Balearics and the Canary Islands (where IGIC applies instead of IVA), but not Ceuta or Melilla. Coverage in the Canaries can depend on your local distributor, so confirm your specific address at signup. Iberdrola serves every Spanish territory without exception.

Does Iberdrola have an indexed (wholesale) tariff? Not as a free-market plan. Octopus offers a true indexed tariff (Flexi) that tracks the OMIE wholesale market hour by hour. Iberdrola's only indexed-type option is the regulated PVPC tariff, sold through its regulated arm Curenergía rather than Iberdrola itself. PVPC is also the only route to the bono social discount.

Can I get the bono social discount with Octopus? No. The bono social is only available through the five regulated reference suppliers (Iberdrola, Endesa, Naturgy, EDP and Repsol) and only on the PVPC tariff. If you qualify and want it, that's an Iberdrola-group route, not an Octopus one.

Will switching from Iberdrola to Octopus cut off my power or need an engineer? No. Switching supplier in Spain is an administrative change over the existing grid. Nobody visits, nothing is installed, and your supply is never interrupted. Your distributor — the company that owns the cables and handles faults — stays exactly the same, because it's fixed by your address rather than your supplier.

Fixed or time-of-use: which plan type should I pick? Choose time-of-use (Octopus 3 or Iberdrola 3 Periodos) if you can run heavy appliances at night and at weekends. Choose fixed (Octopus Relax or Iberdrola Plan Online) if your usage is spread through the day and you want a predictable rate. If you're unsure, your bill's period split shows which one you already live like.

Is the electricity actually different between them? No. Both supply electricity certified as 100% renewable via CNMC guarantees of origin, over the identical grid. The physical power reaching your home is the same. What differs is price structure, service, coverage and contract terms — not the electrons.

Sources

Prices and review scores were accurate at the last review date and change often. Verify against the live pages before acting.

• Octopus Energy España reviews (Trustpilot)
• Iberdrola reviews (Trustpilot)
• Octopus Relax tariff and power term (official)
• CNMC price comparator