Built by a Texan Who Was Tired of Getting Ripped Off.

The Problem I Couldn't Ignore

I was on a popular "Free Nights" electricity plan. The marketing made it sound like a no-brainer. Free electricity after 9pm? Sign me up.

Then I did something most people don't. I opened a spreadsheet and calculated my actual effective rate. The "free" nights were being subsidized by rates nearly double the market average during the day. I was paying more than a standard fixed-rate plan, and I'd been on it for over a year.

So I tried to find a better plan. And I hit the same wall every Texan hits: PowerToChoose.org shows hundreds of plans, all sorted by a single number. The rate at exactly 1,000 kWh. No mention of seasonal variation. No visibility into cancellation fees. No way to tell which plans had hidden "minimum usage" penalties.

The Engineering Solution

I'm a software engineer. When something doesn't work, I build a better version.

I wrote an algorithm that does what no comparison site does: it takes a realistic 12-month Texas usage curve, feeds it through every active fixed-rate plan in the database, and calculates the true annual cost, including all the fine print that other sites ignore.

Then I added a risk layer. The algorithm doesn't just find the cheapest plan. It finds the cheapest plan that won't trap you. High cancellation fees get penalized. Low-rated providers get filtered. Plans with deceptive bill credits get flagged.

The result? The system recommended a boring 12-month fixed-rate plan I would have scrolled past. I switched. My bill dropped by over $80 per month.

Why I Made It Public

That savings wasn't just a spreadsheet win. It was real money. Groceries. My kid's activities. An extra payment toward debt. I realized that millions of other Texans were stuck in the same trap, overpaying without knowing it because the comparison tools available to them are broken.

I founded Stewart Datawright Labs, LLC and launched GetCostWise with one rule: never take money from electricity providers. The moment you accept commissions, your recommendations become advertisements. I charge $4.99 because that keeps me accountable to you, not to the companies I'm ranking.