The 'Price to Compare' on Your Illinois Bill: What It Covers, What It Leaves Out, and Why It Isn't What You Pay

It's called the Price to Compare. For the summer period of June 1 through September 30, 2026, it's 11.326¢ per kWh for Ameren Illinois and 10.399¢ per kWh for ComEd. Both reset October 1.

There's a number on your electric bill that almost nobody can explain, and it's the one that decides whether every offer you get in the mail is a good deal or a bad one.

I get asked about this constantly — usually by someone holding a flyer from a supplier promising a lower rate, trying to figure out if the math works. The problem is that the Price to Compare is genuinely useful and genuinely easy to misread, and the misreading costs people real money.

What the number actually covers

The Price to Compare exists because Illinois lets you buy your electricity from a company other than your utility. To make that a fair fight, the state requires ComEd and Ameren to publish exactly what they charge for the electricity part of your service. That published figure is the Price to Compare.

It bundles two things: the electric supply charge and the transmission service charge. Supply is the electricity itself. Transmission is what it costs to move it across the high-voltage lines that cross the state.

ComEd's breaks down cleanly:

Ameren works the same way to reach 11.326¢ on the first 800 kWh each month, with 2.765¢ of that total being the transmission piece — a bigger transmission share than ComEd's, which is part of why downstate lands higher.

What it leaves out — and this is the expensive part

The Price to Compare does not include delivery charges. That's the cost of the poles, wires, transformers, and crews between the transmission system and your meter, and here's the part that trips everyone up: delivery stays with ComEd or Ameren no matter who supplies your electricity. You cannot shop it. You cannot escape it.

In Ameren territory, summer delivery runs about 7.8¢/kWh. ComEd's runs about 6.5¢. On top of that, both utilities charge fixed monthly amounts before you use a single kilowatt-hour — about $14.50 a month combined for an Ameren customer, roughly $19 for a ComEd customer.

Add it together and the real all-in cost of a kilowatt-hour this summer is roughly 17¢ for ComEd and 19¢ for Ameren before the fixed charges, not 10 or 11. (Those are estimates for a typical household; your own bill depends on usage.)

That's the trap. Somebody sees a supplier offering 9¢ against a 10.399¢ Price to Compare and reads it as a huge win. It's a 1.4¢ difference on the supply portion of a roughly 17¢ kilowatt-hour. On 1,000 kWh a month, that's about $14 — assuming the rate holds, which is a real assumption. It's not nothing. It's also not the story the flyer is telling.

If you want to see how the pieces stack for your own utility, we keep the full breakdowns current on our Ameren rates and ComEd rates pages, and there's a side-by-side comparison of the two territories if you're curious how downstate and Chicagoland actually differ.

The two utilities don't handle it identically

Worth knowing if you're tracking the number: ComEd's Price to Compare can move month to month. ComEd recalculates something called the Purchased Electricity Adjustment monthly, and that adjustment feeds the figure. Ameren expects its own adjustment to be close to zero and simply leaves it out of the published number.

So an Ameren customer can treat the Price to Compare as a fairly steady figure between seasonal resets. A ComEd customer should re-check it rather than assume June's number is still August's.

The transmission portion, for both, usually changes once a year in January.

Using it to judge a supplier offer

The rule is simple: compare supply rate to supply rate. Ignore delivery on both sides, because it doesn't change.

Then ask the three questions the rate itself won't answer:

1. How long does this rate last, and what does it turn into? This is where most of the damage happens. The ICC's 2026 retail market report found variable rates as high as 38¢/kWh in Ameren territory and 35.32¢ in ComEd's during the past year — more than three times the utility default.
2. Is there an early termination fee? It's set by your contract, not by the utility.
3. Does it beat the next Price to Compare? Both utilities reset October 1. Last October, Ameren's Price to Compare dropped from 12.18¢ to 8.402¢ and ComEd's edged down from 10.027¢ to 9.689¢. A September offer that looks good against 11.326¢ may look considerably worse against the October number.

The ICC publishes an annual report comparing what alternative-supply customers actually paid against the utility default. Its 2026 report says residential customers on alternative supply paid more than the Price to Compare in each of the last twelve years — about 1.82¢/kWh more in ComEd territory and 2.43¢/kWh more in Ameren's over the most recent twelve months. That doesn't make every offer bad. It does mean the burden of proof sits with the salesperson.

Using it to judge solar

This is where I have an obvious interest, so let me be straight about the comparison rather than the flattering version of it.

A solar lease is priced per kilowatt-hour, same as the Price to Compare, so lining the two up is fair. Lease rates in Illinois can run as low as $0.10 per kWh, and the rate schedule for the entire 25-year term is written into the contract before you sign — predictable, rather than a number that reprices every season on a schedule you don't control. Set that against a supply cost that has climbed steeply since 2021 and is expected to keep climbing, and the case makes itself.

But solar doesn't erase your delivery charges either. You stay on the grid, and the utility still bills you for the connection and the fixed monthly charge. What changes is the supply side — the portion the Price to Compare measures.

So the honest sentence is: a lease competes with the Price to Compare, not with your whole bill. Anyone telling you solar zeroes out your electric bill is either confused or selling badly. If you want the arithmetic on what a monthly payment actually looks like against a real Illinois bill, I walked through it in detail in this breakdown of lease costs per month, and our savings calculator will run your own numbers.

Where to find it on your bill

Look for the supply or electric supply section — usually the upper portion of the statement, separate from the delivery section further down. Your current supplier is named there. If it says ComEd or Ameren Illinois, you're on the default rate, and the Price to Compare is what you're paying. If it names any other company, that's who you're buying from, and the cents-per-kWh figure on that line is what you compare.

Both utilities also post the current figure publicly, and the state maintains it on Plug In Illinois.

One number, two minutes, and it settles most of the arguments people have about their electric bill.

Sources

• Plug In Illinois — Price to Compare, Ameren Illinois (summer 2026, effective June 1 – September 30, 2026)
• Plug In Illinois — Price to Compare, ComEd (summer 2026, effective June 1 – September 30, 2026)
• ICC — Historical Price to Compare table (monthly PTC history, through September 2026)
• ICC Office of Retail Market Development — 2026 Annual Report (July 2026, covering June 2025 – May 2026)
• ComEd — Guide to Residential Delivery Service Charges (April 2026 bills)
• Ameren Illinois — Residential Electric Rates (DS-1 delivery tariff, 2026)

All-in rate figures and any savings references are estimates for typical households, not a projection for any individual home.

Want someone to look at your actual bill instead of the averages? That's most of what I do. Call (618) 217-2001 or reach out here and we'll go through your supply rate, your usage, and whether solar makes sense for your roof — lease, cash, or Illinois Solar for All.