Alectra Time-of-Use Rate Checker
Which rate period you are in right now, what it costs per kilowatt-hour, and when it changes next — on the clock Alectra bills by, for all three Ontario rate plans.
Today, hour by hour
The full schedule
| Period | When | Price |
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What the three plans cost you in a month
The prices above are the electricity itself. Which plan is cheapest depends entirely onwhen you use it, so pick the household that looks most like yours.
These are the electricity charges only — the part of the bill that changes when you switch plans. Delivery and regulatory charges are the same on all three, so they are left out rather than added identically to each. The Ontario Electricity Rebate takes23.5% off the pre-HST total of your whole bill, including these lines. Switching is free and takes effect on your next bill; you do it in My Alectra.
How Alectra's rate periods work
Alectra does not set these prices and does not mark them up. The Ontario Energy Board sets the Regulated Price Plan for the whole province, and every utility on it charges the same rates — which is why an Alectra bill in Mississauga carries the same 20.3¢ on-peak price as a Hydro One bill three hours north. What Alectra controls is the delivery charge, and that does not change with the plan you pick.
Set once a year, on 1 November
The prices on this page took effect 1 November 2025 and run to 31 October 2026. Time-of-Use is 20.3¢ on-peak, 15.7¢ mid-peak and 9.8¢ off-peak. Tiered is 12.0¢ up to the monthly threshold and 14.2¢ above it. Ultra-Low Overnight is 3.9¢ overnight, 9.8¢ on weekends, 15.7¢ mid-peak and 39.1¢ on-peak.
The OEB resets all three plans every 1 November, so the next change lands within weeks of this being written. If you are reading this after that date, the tool puts a warning above the rate panel rather than showing you a price that has expired — the hours stay correct either way, because they are fixed by season rather than by the price schedule.
The prices never move with the season. The hours do
This is the part that catches people. From 1 May to 31 October, Time-of-Use on-peak is the middle of the day — 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. — because that is when air conditioning runs. From 1 November to 30 April the blocks swap: on-peak becomes 7 to 11 a.m. and 5 to 7 p.m., the hours a heated house wakes up and comes home, and the middle of the day drops to mid-peak.
Off-peak is 7 p.m. to 7 a.m. on weekdays in both seasons, plus all day on weekends and statutory holidays. If a holiday falls on a weekend, the next weekday that is not itself a holiday is billed at holiday prices instead — which is why Boxing Day 2026 is billed on Monday 28 December.
Ultra-Low Overnight ignores the seasons entirely: 11 p.m. to 7 a.m. every day of the year at the overnight rate, 4 to 9 p.m. on weekdays at on-peak, and everything else mid-peak or, at weekends, off-peak.
The same 750 kWh, three different answers
Take a household using 750 kWh a month in summer, out of the house on weekdays and home in the evening. About 69% of that lands off-peak, 22% mid-peak and 10% on-peak, which prices out at $90.74 on Time-of-Use, $93.30 on Tiered and $129.20 on ULO. Time-of-Use wins, and ULO is a $38 a month mistake.
Now take the same 750 kWh from a household that charges an EV overnight and keeps the 4-to-9 window quiet. Fifty-nine per cent of the usage moves into the overnight window and the bill becomes $74.05 on ULO against $82.59 on Time-of-Use. That is the whole ULO proposition in one comparison — and it needs both halves. An EV owner who charges overnight but still cooks, washes and dries through the dinner hours pays 39.1¢ for those five hours and ends up worse off than on TOU.
A household home all day, or running air conditioning through the afternoon, does best on Tiered at this level of usage, because a flat 12.0¢ beats a day spent in the two expensive TOU bands. The catch is the threshold in the next note.
600 kWh in summer, 1,000 in winter
Tiered charges one price regardless of the hour, but only up to a monthly ceiling: 600 kWh from 1 May to 31 October and 1,000 kWh from 1 November to 30 April. Everything above the ceiling is billed at 14.2¢ rather than 12.0¢. Crossing it does not reprice the electricity you already used that month.
The summer ceiling is the tighter one, and in Mississauga it is air conditioning that breaches it — a detached house running central air hard through July and August will often push 700 to 900 kWh. A condo or a townhouse with moderate cooling usually stays under. Your last two August bills in My Alectra will tell you which you are.
Illustrative households, priced hour by hour
The four household patterns are illustrative shapes, not metered data. Each one is an hour-by-hour profile of when electricity gets used across a weekday and a weekend day; the tool spreads your monthly total across that shape and prices every hour against each plan's own clock, using 21.73 weekdays and 8.69 weekend days for an average month. The on-peak and off-peak percentages you see are an output of that, not something you have to estimate yourself.
Two simplifications worth knowing. The monthly model does not carve out the ten statutory holidays, which are billed off-peak and are worth roughly a dollar a month to a TOU household. And it prices a single average month rather than a real January or a real July — your own consumption swings far more than the difference between these plans does.
This is the electricity, not the bill
The figures here are the commodity charge only — the electricity itself. Your bill also carries a delivery charge, a regulatory charge and HST. Those are the same on all three plans, which is exactly why they are left out: adding an identical number to each would change the totals without changing the answer.
One thing that does apply to the whole bill is the Ontario Electricity Rebate, which takes 23.5% off the pre-HST total, including these lines. And switching plans is free, takes effect on your next bill, and is done in My Alectra — there is no penalty and no lock-in, which is what makes checking worth the five minutes.
For the full argument, four worked household types and the strategy behind each plan, read Alectra Rate Plans: TOU vs. Tiered vs. Ultra-Low Overnight.
Most Mississauga households are on Time-of-Use because it is the plan the smart meter was installed with, not because anyone compared. If you are home during the day, Tiered is usually cheaper. If you can move heavy loads past 11 p.m. and stay off the stove between 4 and 9, ULO is dramatically cheaper. If neither describes you, Time-of-Use is already the right answer — and the useful thing to know is simply which block you are in right now.
Sources & assumptions
- Ontario Energy Board — Regulated Price Plan prices, effective November 1, 2025 to October 31, 2026. Next scheduled change: November 1, 2026.
- Alectra Utilities — Time-of-Use Pricing: summer and winter period hours, and the list of holidays billed off-peak all day.
- Alectra Utilities — Ultra-Low Overnight Pricing: period hours, unchanged between summer and winter.
- Alectra Utilities — Ontario Electricity Rebate, 23.5% applied to the bill before HST, effective November 1, 2025.
- RPP prices are set by the OEB and passed through without markup, so they are identical at every Ontario utility on the plan. Delivery and regulatory charges are Alectra's and are excluded here.
- Household usage patterns are illustrative profiles, not metered data.
Figures reviewed September 2026. Rates change — check the linked source before relying on a number for a filing or a closing.