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When Is the Best Time to Switch Gas Marketer in Georgia?

Illustration: a small blank calendar beside a thick year-book marked with a flame.

The standard advice is to switch gas supplier in the shoulder months, spring or early autumn, when demand is low. We have 88 months of Georgia PSC filings, so rather than repeat that, we checked it.

It mostly is not true here.

What we looked at

For every month the PSC has published since January 2019, we took the cheapest standard 12-month fixed rate on the chart, then asked whether particular calendar months are reliably cheaper than others. All of it is in history.csv if you want to redo this yourself.

The year matters far more than the month

This is the finding that should change what you do.

So a single bad year moved rates roughly two and a half times as much as the average difference between calendar months. Choosing the right month is a rounding error next to choosing the right year, and nobody can time the right year.

The seasonal effect that does exist points the other way

Ranking each calendar month within its own year, so that a cheap year cannot flatter a month, the months with the best average record are February and January. The worst is November.

That is close to the reverse of the shoulder-month advice. It is also a weak signal: there are only six to eight observations per calendar month, and the within-year cheapest month has landed in April, May, January, February, December, January and January across 2019 to 2025. There is no month you can count on.

The one pattern with any consistency is that November is usually a poor month to be shopping, which is unfortunate, because November is when a cold bill first arrives and people start looking.

So when should you switch?

When your contract ends. That is the real answer, and it has nothing to do with the season.

The end of a fixed term is the only moment when moving is free: no early termination fee, and no better-than-market rate that you are giving up. It is also the moment of maximum risk, because most Georgia fixed plans roll onto the marketer’s standard variable rate if you do nothing, and that rate is not capped.

If you are mid-contract, the arithmetic is simple and it is not seasonal. Compare the early termination fee against the annual saving from moving. A $150 fee to save $60 a year is a bad trade; the same fee to save $200 a year pays for itself in nine months. Our tables show the filed termination fee beside every plan for this comparison.

If you are on a variable plan with no fee, there is nothing to wait for. You can move at the next cycle, and waiting for a seasonal dip that the data does not support just leaves you on a rate you already decided was too high.

One date to remember either way

Georgia switches on a monthly cycle: enroll by the 19th and the new marketer takes over on the 1st of the next month. Miss it and you wait a further month. That deadline is far more likely to cost you a month than any seasonal timing. The full process is in our guide on how to switch.

Check this yourself

Every month behind these numbers is published. The rate history shows the cheapest and median fixed rate for each month with a link to that month’s PSC chart, each month has its own page, and the whole archive is one download on the data page. If your reading of it differs from ours, we would like to know.

The Georgia Public Service Commission does not rank or endorse marketers.

Common questions

Are Georgia gas rates cheaper in summer?
Not reliably. Across the 88 months we have published since 2019, the cheapest 12-month fixed rate in summer months is not consistently below the winter ones. January and February have the slightly better record, which is the opposite of the usual advice, and the effect is small enough that it should not decide when you act.
Should I wait for a better rate before switching?
Only if you are paying an early termination fee to leave, or your current rate is already competitive. Rates have moved by more within a single year than the average gap between calendar months, so waiting for a seasonal dip means betting on the market rather than the calendar.
When should I actually switch, then?
When your current contract ends, because that is when switching is free. The end of a fixed term is the one moment you can move with no termination fee and no rate you are giving up, and most plans roll onto an uncapped variable rate at that point if you do nothing.
How much do Georgia gas rates vary?
A lot, but by year rather than by season. The cheapest 12-month fixed rate on the PSC charts has ranged from $0.338 to $0.999 per therm since January 2019. Within 2022 alone it moved by $0.44, which is more than twice the spread between the best and worst calendar months averaged across all years.

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