Energy brokers, exposed
Termina is the commission-free energy buying group. 10,000+ business locations buying as one, and we only win when you do.
The honest version
An energy broker compares energy plans across a few retailers and acts as a middleman to switch you to another plan. For a business, that's valuable work and a broker takes it off your plate. So far, so useful.
The question worth asking is not what a broker does. It is who pays them.
How do energy brokers get paid?
Most energy brokers are paid a commission by the retailer or metering provider that wins your contract, not you. The commission is either built into your kWh rate or hidden in "Metering" charges.
The reveal
Most brokers add a commission of about 1 to 3 cents to every kilowatt-hour, baked into your unit rate. Here is what that adds up to on a typical commercial account.
Of that 28.0c rate, about 2c is broker commission, baked in and never shown as its own line.
That hidden 2c is about $12,000 over a 3-year contract. $4,000 every year.
The unit rate is not the only place a commission can hide. It can also sit inside the "Metering" charge, a line almost no one checks. We check every one.
Illustrative, based on a typical broker commission of 1 to 3c per kWh.
Which one are you
That two cents does not do the same damage everywhere. Before anything else, work out which side of the market you sit on, because it changes both the size of the prize and how much of it an intermediary can quietly take.
Small market
Under roughly 100 MWh a year
Thresholds vary by state. Rates sit closer to published offers, the spread between retailers is narrower, and a two cent commission can swallow a large share of the total saving available. This is where a broker commission does the most damage relative to the prize. It is also where you can get a long way on your own: Energy Made Easy and Victorian Energy Compare are free, government-run, and cover small-market plans.
See business energy procurementLarge market
Above roughly 100 MWh a year
There is no published price. Contracts are individually negotiated, and the work genuinely requires someone: a tender across retailers, load shape analysis, network tariff selection, invoice validation. The question here is not whether to have help. It is whether your help is paid by you or by the retailer it recommends.
See commercial and industrial procurementAcross a group of sites, both effects compound. A commission of two cents per kilowatt-hour on twenty business locations is not twenty small costs. It is one large one, renewed quietly every time a contract rolls over. That is the case we were built to solve: business energy procurement for smaller sites, and commercial and industrial procurement where loads are negotiated individually.
It isn't you, at least not on the invoice. Most brokers earn a commission from the retailer they place you with, often for the life of your contract. That commission is built into the rate you pay, so the deal that pays the broker best can win, even when it isn't your lowest rate.
In Australia, the ACCC penalised an energy comparison service $8.5 million for steering people to plans limited by its commercial arrangements with retailers, not the customer's best deal.
We also read the fine print ourselves: across ten Australian brokers and advisers audited in August 2026, five describe their service as "free" or "no cost" while their own help pages and terms disclose retailer commissions or rate uplifts of up to 3%, baked into the rates they present. The homepage says free. The fine print says commission.
Five of the ten largest energy brokers in Australia describe their service as free or no cost. All five are paid out of the rates you end up paying. The words are on the front page. The mechanism is further down, and it is usually still there in writing if you look for it. Both columns below are their words, not ours.
Zembl
What they say
"free, and obligation-free, energy comparison service"
How they are paid
"We charge an uplift in the energy rates which is factored into the rates we present to you, (3% uplift)"
Choice Energy
What they say
"No costs for you to secure a new contract"
How they are paid
"commission is earned from the provider"
Leading Edge Energy
What they say
"100% free" service
How they are paid
Retailer-paid brokerage commission embedded in the agreed rates.
Utilizer
What they say
"We work for you, never the retailer"
How they are paid
"We charge a brokerage fee for our procurement services"
energybrokers.com.au
What they say
"we disclose all commissions upfront"
How they are paid
"No upfront fees, we're paid by the winning retailer"
EnergySorted
What they say
Subscription comparison service.
How they are paid
"$39/year" subscription, alerts only. You make the switch yourself.
Viridor
What they say
"Viridor are not brokers. We receive no money from suppliers"
How they are paid
"a fixed, one off fee and we do not take a share of savings secured"
Termina
What we say
We refuse retailer commissions.
How we are paid
A 50/50 share of the savings we find, and the split is printed on every quote.
Two of these are worth reading twice. Zembl states the uplift and the figure. Viridor refuses commissions outright and charges you a fee instead. Neither is hiding anything. The point is not that brokers are dishonest. It is that "free" and "no cost to you" are descriptions of who sends the invoice, not of what the arrangement costs you. The question worth asking any broker, including us, is not whether they take a commission. It is whether they still get paid when they do not find you a saving.
The obvious question
Fair question, and the whole point. We refuse retailer commissions. We are paid a share of what we actually save you, and nothing until we do. It is free to join the buying group, and we keep checking your rate for free until there is a saving to be had.
A broker isn't driven to lower your energy costs. We only make money when you pay less.
Real clients, real numbers
Laundry, multi-site
Blue Hippo
Saved on energy costs across the group.
Hospitality franchise
The Coffee Club
Cut from energy cost for every franchise location, the buying group working site by site.
Retail
Pharmacy Collective
Saved, with the energy admin taken off their plate entirely.
Backed by 10,000+ business locations buying energy as one.
The fair answer
Some are very good at the job. The problem was never competence. It is who signs their cheque.
An experienced energy broker knows the market, can read a contract properly, and will get a better outcome than an operator clicking through retailer websites late on a Friday. That is real work and it deserves to be paid for.
The difficulty starts with the direction of the incentive. When a broker is paid a commission by the retailer that wins your contract, their income and your energy cost move the same way. A higher rate can mean a larger commission. Even a broker acting in good faith is choosing between offers that pay them differently, and the offer that pays them best is rarely the one that costs you least.
So the fair answer is this. An energy broker is worth using when you know exactly how yours is paid, you have seen the number in writing, and it is not buried inside your unit rate. If you cannot get a straight answer to that one question, you are not buying advice. You are buying a sales channel.
Know what you are dealing with
Four different models sell themselves with the same three words: free, independent, and we compare the market. They are not the same thing, and the difference always comes back to who pays.
Energy retailer
Paid by
You, through your bill.
Shows you
Its own plans, and nothing else.
Energy broker
Paid by
The retailer that wins your contract, often for its full life.
Shows you
The retailers it holds agreements with, known as a panel.
Comparison site
Paid by
A referral fee or commission each time it hands you to a retailer.
Shows you
Plans from the retailers it has commercial arrangements with.
Buying group
Paid by
You, from a share of the saving, and only once there is one.
Shows you
The whole retailer market, with no stake in which one wins.
A retailer is not trying to hide what it is. The three intermediaries are harder to tell apart, because all of them can honestly say the service costs you nothing on the invoice. Ask who pays them, then ask what happens to that payment when your rate goes up.
Three different things get sold under the same search.
Goes to retailers, gets offers, and puts a contract in front of you. Most are paid by the retailer that wins, which means the incentive sits with the deal closing rather than with the deal being the cheapest one available.
Usually paid by you, by the hour or on a fixed engagement, and the output is advice. Energy Action invoices client-borne fees monthly under a master services agreement. Viridor charges a fixed one-off fee. That model removes the retailer conflict and replaces it with a different question, which is whether you pay the same whether or not the advice saves you anything.
Sells you visibility, not procurement. iQ LAB charges a monthly fee per meter and states plainly that it does not guarantee that any customer will achieve a particular saving. Useful if you have the people to act on the data. Less useful if what you actually wanted was a better rate.
Termina is none of the three. We tender your sites across the retailer market, we take no commission from the retailer that wins, and we are paid from a share of what we save you. If we find nothing, we are not paid. That is the whole difference, and it is the reason the split is printed on your quote rather than described on this page.
Use one well
If you are going to use an energy broker, use one well. These are the questions that change the answer, in the order worth asking them. Any broker worth engaging will answer all seven without hesitating.
1
How are you paid, and by whom?
You want a payer and a number, not a description. "The retailer looks after us" is not an answer.
2
What is your commission on this offer, in cents per kilowatt-hour?
The unit matters. A commission quoted as a percentage or a flat fee is far harder to weigh against the rate you are being sold.
3
Does your commission change depending on which retailer I sign with?
If it does, the recommendation is not neutral, however honest the intent behind it.
4
How many retailers did you approach, and how many can you actually contract with?
There is a difference between the market and a panel. Ask for both lists.
5
Is the commission paid once, or for the life of the contract?
Trail commission is the reason a three-year term can be worth more to a broker than a lower rate.
6
Will you show me the offers I did not choose?
Declining to show the losing offers is the clearest signal you are going to get.
7
What happens if the market falls after I sign?
A fixed contract signed at the top of a cycle is a cost, not a saving. Ask who is watching your rate afterwards, and how often.
Termina answers all seven the same way every time, because no retailer pays us. See exactly how we are paid.
The rules as they stand
Energy brokers are not licensed here the way a mortgage broker or a financial adviser is.
There is no licence to hold, no mandated disclosure of commission, and no duty to act in your best interest. Three things do apply, and it is worth knowing exactly how far each one reaches.
Misleading conduct is enforceable, and claims about savings or independence are the ones most often tested. In 2019 the Federal Court ordered an energy comparison service to pay $8.5 million after it told consumers it compared the market while limiting the plans it showed to its own commercial arrangements with retailers. The law reaches what an intermediary says. It does not require them to volunteer what they are paid.
Retail energy rules protect you in your dealings with a retailer. Brokers, consultants and other intermediaries sit largely outside that framework, which means the protections you may assume are in place around your contract often do not extend to the party that sold it to you.
There is an industry code covering energy brokers, consultants and retailers, and it does set disclosure expectations including on commission. It is voluntary. A broker who has signed it has told you something useful about themselves. A broker who has not signed faces no consequence for that.
The practical result is simple. In Australia, the only commission disclosure you are likely to get is the disclosure you ask for. That is exactly why the seven questions above matter more here than they might elsewhere.
Straight answers
Do I need an energy broker?
If you want someone to handle energy procurement across your sites, that job is worth doing. The real choice is the model: a broker paid by the retailer, or a buying group paid only when it saves you money.
Is Termina an energy broker?
No. A broker is paid a commission by the retailer. We refuse retailer commissions and are paid only from a share of what we save you. Same job, opposite incentive.
How much do energy brokers charge?
Usually nothing on the invoice, which is the point. The fee is a commission from the retailer, built into your unit rate, with industry estimates around 1 to 3 cents per kilowatt-hour for the life of the contract.
How do you make money if you are commission-free?
We take a share of the saving we deliver, and nothing until we deliver it. Free to join, free to stay checked. If we do not save you money, we do not get paid.
What if I already have an energy broker?
Most clients come to us from one. We can review your current rate for free and show you what a broker commission is costing you, with nothing to sign to find out.
What do energy brokers do?
An energy broker gathers your usage data, approaches a set of retailers, compares the offers that come back, and arranges the contract. On larger sites they may also handle tender documents, network tariff selection and invoice checking. The work is real. The question is who pays for it.
Who pays energy broker fees?
You do, but not on the invoice. In most cases the retailer that wins your contract pays the broker a commission, then recovers it through the rate it charges you. The money still comes out of your energy spend. It just never appears as a line called commission.
What are the disadvantages of using an energy broker?
Three stand out. The commission is usually invisible, so you cannot negotiate it. It is often paid for the life of the contract, which rewards longer terms rather than lower rates. And the retailers you get shown are limited to the panel the broker holds agreements with, not the whole market.
How do I find out if my rate includes a broker commission?
Ask your broker for the commission in cents per kilowatt-hour, in writing. If that is not forthcoming, the rate itself will tell you: compare your unit rate against what the same load is being contracted at elsewhere. The gap is where the commission sits. We will read a recent bill and show you the number for free.
Are energy brokers regulated in Australia?
Not specifically. There is no licence, no mandated commission disclosure and no best-interest duty. Australian Consumer Law still applies to what a broker claims, and there is a voluntary industry code that sets disclosure expectations, but signing it is optional.
How we know this
Termina is the trading name of Amission Renewables Pty Ltd, ABN 67 636 146 159. We run energy procurement for more than 10,000 business locations across Australia and New Zealand. That is where our view of what retailers actually charge comes from, and it is why we can tell you what a rate should look like rather than what a retailer says it should look like.
The commission range used on this page, one to three cents per kilowatt-hour, is drawn from published industry research and from regulator commentary on intermediary conduct. It is not a Termina measurement of any particular broker, and it is illustrative rather than a quote. Your own number depends on your rate, your load and the contract you signed. The only way to know it is to read your bill, which we will do for free.
Where this page describes how brokers are paid, we are describing the commission model as it commonly operates in Australia. Individual brokers differ, and some disclose their commission openly. The seven questions above are how you tell which kind you are dealing with.
The bottom line
Upload a recent bill. We will read your rate, show you the commission hiding in it, and tell you what buying with 10,000+ business locations would save you. Nothing to sign to find out.
On small business plans: if no better rate is found in 12 months, you get $100 off your next bill. Terms apply.