open natural gas

Frequently asked questions

Short answers. The long version, with the ranking formula and every disclosure, is on the methodology page.

How the Georgia gas market works

Who actually delivers my gas?
Atlanta Gas Light, whoever you buy from. Since Georgia opened its gas market in 1998, AGL has been a pipes-only company: it owns the pipelines and the meter, moves the gas to your house, and responds to leaks. Marketers do not run any pipes, and switching marketers never changes the gas, the meter or the crew that shows up. Smell gas? Call AGL at 877-427-4321, then 911 once you are safe.
Then what does a marketer do?
A marketer buys gas on the wholesale market, sets the price per therm and the monthly service charge you pay, sends your bill and answers the phone when you call. That is the whole product, which is why the rate, the service charge and the contract terms are the only things worth comparing.
Why can I choose at all?
The Natural Gas Competition and Deregulation Act of 1997. The General Assembly split the business in two: the pipes stayed a regulated monopoly (AGL) and the sale of gas was opened to competing marketers certificated by the Public Service Commission. Marketers set their own prices; the PSC does not fix them, but it does require every marketer to file its prices monthly and publishes them, which is where every number on this site comes from.
Is it the same gas?
Yes. Every marketer's gas arrives through the same AGL pipe, at the same pressure, from the same interstate system. A higher price buys a different contract, not different gas.
What is the base charge on my bill?
AGL's charge for delivering the gas, passed through on your marketer's bill. It covers the pipes, the meter reading and a capacity charge (AGL calls it DDDC) that is recalculated each August from your own home's usage during the prior winter's coldest days. It is the same whichever marketer you use, so the annual cost on this site adds it to every plan equally rather than letting it hide the real difference.
What is a therm, and how many do I use?
A therm is 100,000 BTU of heat, roughly 100 cubic feet of gas. Your meter measures the gas and AGL converts it to therms on the bill. The PSC's own comparison assumes 641 therms a year for a typical household, and so does this site; a small apartment with gas only for hot water uses far less, a large house with gas heat, range and dryer uses more. Your last twelve bills are the best guide.
How does switching work?
Sign up with the new marketer; it handles the switch with AGL. Enroll by the 19th of the month and the new marketer takes over on the first of the next month. Nothing at your house changes. The one cost to check is your current contract: a fixed-rate plan may carry an early termination fee, which is why the tables here show it beside every plan.
Can everyone in Georgia choose a marketer?
Only customers on Atlanta Gas Light's system, which covers most of the state including metro Atlanta, Savannah, Macon and Augusta. Georgia's other distribution company, Atmos Energy (Columbus, Gainesville and parts of west Georgia), has not opened its territory to competition, and municipal gas systems are not covered by the Act either.
What is the regulated provider?
A marketer the PSC designates (SCANA Energy's regulated division) to serve customers who cannot get a contract elsewhere: low-income households and customers marketers have refused for credit reasons. It has its own PSC-approved rates, shown on this site's Low income page. Seniors 65 and over with a household income at or below 200% of the federal poverty guideline can also apply for the senior discount on the AGL base charge.

Sources: the PSC on competition in Georgia, its guide to deregulation, marketer certification rules and senior discounts; Atlanta Gas Light on the base charge and emergencies.

About this site

Is this site paid by gas marketers?
No. No marketer pays to appear here, to rank higher, or to be linked, and none can. The site runs no ads. adPharos pays the hosting bill and publishes this disclosure.
Where do the numbers come from?
From the Georgia Public Service Commission's monthly Marketers Pricing Index, which publishes fixed, variable, senior and pre-pay charts as PDFs. An automated parser reads those PDFs and writes one JSON file per month, and the parsed values are published as rates.json. Every rate table on this site links to the exact PSC chart the rows came from, so any figure can be checked.
Why is the annual cost higher than rate × usage?
Because a gas bill is more than the gas. The estimate adds the marketer's monthly customer service charge twelve times, using the charge a new customer pays at sign-up where a marketer files a range, plus the Atlanta Gas Light annual base charge of $580.53 that every Georgia customer pays whoever they buy from. The same formula is used for every plan on every chart.
How often is it updated?
Monthly. The PSC posts each month's charts on its own page, and an automated job fetches, parses and republishes them. Every page states the month it is showing, and a banner appears across the site once the newest published month is more than 45 days old, so stale data announces itself.
Why isn't marketer X listed?
Three reasons. If a name is unrecognised the parser refuses the whole month rather than quietly dropping the row, so no marketer disappears silently. Marketers that stopped filing with the PSC are recorded in data/georgia/known_exits.json. Plans open only to a marketer's existing customers appear on that marketer's own page, not in the comparison tables.