Guide · South East Queensland · reviewed July 2026
Your meter decides which plans you can actually sign up for. Some plans need a smart meter you may not have; some older plans are closed to the smart meter you do have. Most comparison sites don't check — so they'll happily show you a "best deal" you can't actually get.
It's one of the quietest ways a comparison can waste your time or, worse, mislead you: a plan looks cheapest, you ring up to switch, and you're told your meter isn't eligible. The saving was never real for you.
The old dial-or-digital meter that records only your total power used, read by someone visiting your property. It can support a single-rate (flat) plan — one price per unit — and that's it. It has no idea when you used power, so it can't run a time-of-use plan.
A digital meter that records how much you use in each interval through the day and is read remotely. That time detail is what makes time-of-use plans, free power windows, accurate solar export and remote reads possible. Almost every newer or more flexible plan assumes you have one.
Meter eligibility is filed in the plan data, but it's fiddly, so a lot of tools ignore it. The result is a ranking with plans you can't sign up for sitting in it — sometimes right at the top. Even the ones that don't outright block you can quietly mis-price: put a flat-meter household onto a time-of-use plan in the maths and the number is meaningless, because you couldn't take that plan anyway.
If a basic meter is holding you back, that's temporary. The Australian Energy Market Commission has ruled that every home and business in the National Electricity Market — Queensland included — will have a smart meter by 2030, rolled out progressively. The opt-out has been removed, so once your retailer arranges it you can't refuse; and you're not charged a fee when the retailer initiates the install. Taking a plan that needs a smart meter usually brings one forward at no direct cost.
It gives you more options, not a guaranteed saving. A time-of-use plan rewards a home that uses most of its power off-peak and can punish one that runs hard in the evening peak. The honest question isn't "smart or basic" — it's what your usage costs on each plan you're actually eligible for. That's the comparison worth doing.
BillCheck reads your meter type straight off your bill and applies the same asymmetric rule the real world uses:
So the plans in your ranking are the plans you can genuinely act on, priced on your real usage.
See the plans you can actually get →Related: The loyalty tax on your bill · Do you lose the 44c if you switch? · All questions
General information about electricity metering in South East Queensland as at July 2026, not personal advice. Meter classifications follow AEMO metering types; the smart meter rollout is an Australian Energy Market Commission rule. Confirm your own meter and eligibility with your retailer.