Choosing an electricity and gas supplier does not mean looking only at the price of the offer. When an unclear bill arrives, a contract needs to be changed or there is a problem with the supply, the quality of the service and the operator’s ability to assist the customer can also make a big difference.
In an increasingly competitive free market, where offers are numerous and economic conditions can change, it therefore becomes important to understand how reliable the different suppliers are. ARERA has introduced new rules in recent years precisely to make offers easier to compare and bills more understandable, while in 2026 the Authority underlined the need for further interventions on the transparency of relationships between customers and sellers.
The new survey by Altroconsumo now takes stock of the quality of the service, evaluating 22 electricity and gas suppliers, also collecting the experience of almost 7,000 customers. The general result is positive, but there is one aspect that continues to represent a weak point: problem management.
The best electricity and gas suppliers of 2026
The Altroconsumo ranking promotes the market overall, most of the 22 operators analyzed achieve good overall quality and four stand out by entering the excellent range.
At the top of the ranking we find:
These are the four suppliers that obtain an excellent overall rating according to the survey. At the other extreme, Hera Comm is the only operator to stop in the medium quality range.
The overall result is still better than in the past, above all thanks to two aspects that have an important weight in the evaluation: satisfaction with customer service and bill transparency.
The four operators who reached the excellent range stand out above all for three elements: customer service, bill transparency and completeness of information before signing the contract. However, none of the suppliers at the top of the ranking obtained an excellent rating in all the aspects analysed. And it is precisely in the management of problems that the greatest critical issues of the entire sector emerge.
On the customer care front, Octopus Energy achieves the highest score with 85 points out of 100. Followed by Fastweb Energia and NeN, which despite having a good overall rating, obtain 82 points for assistance.
The metric considers different aspects of the customer experience, from the ease with which the supplier can be contacted via telephone and online channels to the clarity of the information received and response times.
However, not all operators achieve an equally positive result. ACEA Energia, with 57 points, and Hera Comm, with 58, are the only two suppliers to stop in the medium range for this aspect.
!function(e,n,i,s){var d=”InfogramEmbeds”;var o=e.getElementsByTagName(n)(0);if(window(d)&&window(d).initialized)window(d).process&&window(d).process();else if(!e.getElementById(i)){var r=e.createElement(n);r.async=1,r.id=i,r.src=s,o.parentNode.insertBefore(r,o)}}(document,”script”,”infogram-async”,”https://e.infogram.com/js/dist/embed-loader-min.js”);
Bills are more transparent
It is precisely the transparency of the bill that obtains the best results in the survey. None of the suppliers analyzed falls below the good rating and half of the operators even reach the excellent range.
According to Altroconsumo, the result could also be linked to the changes introduced by ARERA from 1 July 2025, when the new bill format came into force, designed to make information on consumption, prices and supply conditions more immediate.
Compared to the previous survey, for example, Illumia, E.On, Estra and Poste Energia improved, moving from the good to the excellent range for bill transparency. A step forward is also recorded for Enel Energia, ACEA and Plenitude, which move from the medium range to the good one.
Contracts and information before signing
Another important element when choosing a supplier is what we often tend to look at least: the information available before signing the contract.
Altroconsumo verified the clarity and completeness of the pre-contractual documentation. The average score remains high, equal to 74 points, but compared to last year there has been a worsening.
In fact, suppliers with an excellent rating drop from 76% to 50%, while those in the medium range increase from 5% to 18%. Among the most critical cases are Fastweb Energia and NeN, which despite good overall quality obtain only 45 points for pre-contractual documentation.
What matters above all are some shortcomings or delays in updating information on commercial quality, social bonuses and the protections provided for contracts concluded by telephone or remotely.
When something goes wrong
It is the management of problems that represents the most critical note. In fact, no supplier reaches the optimal range in this parameter. The best results are those of NeN and Fastweb Energia, both with 75 points.
Altroconsumo first asked customers if they had had problems with their supplier in the last 12 months. 17% of respondents answered yes. The differences between operators are quite large: from 9% of Estra customers reporting difficulties to 23% of Hera Comm.
Among the most frequent problems are errors or delays in billing, difficulties in activating the supply and problems related to additional services. But in first place there is another issue: the lack of clear communications when the economic conditions of the contract change, reported by 8% of those interviewed. And above all, once the problem arises, satisfaction with the way it is managed is very low: seven out of ten customers say they are dissatisfied.
This is therefore precisely the aspect that should not be overlooked when evaluating a supplier. An offer may be convenient, but the quality of care also becomes important when something doesn’t go as it should.
How the Altroconsumo survey was conducted
To create the 2026 ranking, Altroconsumo examined 22 electricity and gas suppliers, selected from the main market operators, some very popular suppliers from other sectors and those with which the association has agreements for the change of supply through its comparator.
The overall quality assessment was constructed by combining customer experience and analysis of contractual documentation. In March 2026 Altroconsumo collected responses from 6,973 customer members of electricity and gas suppliers. Satisfaction with customer service accounts for 45% of the overall rating, satisfaction with bill transparency accounts for 25%, while the presence and management of problems accounts for 10%.
The remaining 20% derives from the analysis of the pre-contractual documentation, including the general supply conditions and the information made available on the operators’ websites before signing. The global Quality score, expressed in hundredths, is derived from these four components.
This year Altroconsumo has also changed the rating scale: the threshold for obtaining an excellent rating has gone from 75 to 80 points, while that for the good range has dropped from 65 to 60. Consequently, the scores of the 2026 edition are not directly comparable with those of the previous year without taking into account the change in scale.
The evaluation of assistance has also changed: until 2025 the telephone and online channels were analyzed separately, while in the 2026 edition they were combined into a single customer care parameter.
