Octopus will pay you a guaranteed minimum of £12 a month to let it schedule your home battery. That is the pitch of Charge Pack, its new battery add-on: Octopus runs your charging day-to-day, calls on your battery to support the grid around twice a week, and tops your account up to at least £12 every month. I have not signed a battery up to it. I have been through the product page, the FAQ and the sign-up conditions instead, because the deal is simple on the surface and has three strings attached underneath.
What Charge Pack actually is
Charge Pack is an add-on, not a tariff. You keep your existing import tariff and Octopus layers two things on top. First, it takes over your battery schedule for normal daily use: charging when your energy is cheapest, on your overnight rate or your spare solar, and running the house from the battery when the day rate kicks in. Second, it uses your battery for grid-support sessions. Octopus watches local market forecasts, and when the grid needs help it instructs your battery to charge or discharge, with up to 24 hours’ notice.
If you already run your own charge schedule, read that first paragraph again. Joining means Octopus’s scheduler replaces yours. That is the whole trade: money for control.
The deal: what Octopus pays you
| Term | What Octopus states |
|---|---|
| Guaranteed minimum | £12 a month, topped up at the end of each month |
| Grid-support sessions | Around 2 per week |
| Session notice | Up to 24 hours ahead |
| Session credits | Paid a few days after each session |
| Charging in a session | Compensated so it effectively costs your off-peak rate |
| Discharging in a session | Compensated at the gap between your day import rate and your export rate |
The £12 is a floor, not a payment rate. Session rewards vary, Octopus does not publish a per-session or per-kWh figure, and at the end of the month it tops you up to £12 if the sessions earned less. So the honest way to model it is £144 a year, guaranteed, plus an unpublished amount on top.
The compensation rules matter more than they look. If a session drains charge you would have used yourself, you would otherwise be buying that electricity back at your day rate. Octopus says it credits the difference between your day rate and your export rate so you are not out of pocket, and that participating “will never cost you anything”. That claim is about your bill. It says nothing about your battery, which I come back to below.
What you hand over
Three things, and none of them is negotiable at sign-up.
- The schedule. Octopus decides when your battery charges and discharges, every day, not just during sessions. Outside sessions it optimises for your tariff; during sessions it works for the grid.
- Session participation. There is no per-session opt-out. The FAQ is explicit: “you are automatically opted into all sessions when you sign up”. If a session lands at an awkward time, you cannot skip it. Leaving the scheme entirely, via a form or an email to Octopus, is the only exit.
- Third-party optimisers. Charge Pack is not stackable with services like Axle Energy. Octopus’s stated reason is that two providers fighting over one battery “creates a problem”. On Intelligent Octopus Go you cannot use a third-party battery service at all; Charge Pack is Octopus’s sanctioned alternative.
The tariff strings attached
Your import tariff must be Intelligent Octopus Go, Octopus Go, Flexible or Fixed. Your export tariff must be Outgoing Octopus, the flat 12p per kWh product. Agile import is not on the compatible list. Cosy Octopus is not supported yet; there is a waiting list. Octopus Flux and Intelligent Octopus Flux are separate standalone battery tariffs, not hosts for this add-on.
The export requirement is the one to price up. If you are currently exporting on a tariff that pays better than a flat 12p for your usage pattern, the switch to Outgoing Octopus is part of Charge Pack’s cost. Run your own numbers with our Outgoing Octopus export tariff guide before signing anything.
One piece of context makes Charge Pack more interesting than it first looks. Intelligent Octopus Flux, the tariff where Octopus fully manages your battery for you, was closed to new customers when I checked on 20 July 2026 (“this tariff is temporarily unavailable”). While that stays true, Charge Pack is the only Octopus product open to new joiners that hands your battery to Octopus’s scheduler.
Which batteries work with it
Nine brands are eligible now: AlphaESS, EcoFlow, Enphase, FoxESS, GivEnergy, HanchuESS, Huawei, Sigenergy and SolarEdge. Seven more are listed as coming soon: Tesla, Solax, LuxPower, Solis, Goodwe, Duracell and Hinen. You also need a working smart meter. Octopus does not state a minimum battery size.
Sunsynk and Deye owners will notice their inverters are on neither list. If that is you, nothing changes for now: keep running your own schedule and check the eligible list again in a few months, because it has visibly been growing.
Is £12 a month actually good money?
£144 a year for doing nothing sounds like free money, and for one type of owner it nearly is. If your battery currently sits on the installer’s default schedule, Charge Pack gives you tariff-aware charging plus a guaranteed £144 a year you were not earning before. For that owner I struggle to find a catch on the bill side.
If you already run a tight schedule yourself, the maths is less generous. A well-driven battery on Intelligent Octopus Go is already charging at the 8p overnight window and covering day-rate usage; Charge Pack does not obviously beat a good manual setup at that job, so the incremental gain is mostly the £144 floor plus whatever the sessions pay above it. Against that you give up Agile import strategies entirely, since Agile is not a supported import tariff. If you enjoy running the numbers yourself, our Agile battery strategy guide and cheap-rate charging calculator show what a self-managed setup earns.
The genuine unknown is battery wear. Grid sessions cycle your battery on top of daily use, and nothing Octopus publishes for Charge Pack addresses cycle counts, throughput, state-of-charge floors, or what happens if grid cycling collides with your manufacturer warranty. Some battery warranties are limited by total energy throughput, not just years. Before joining, read your warranty document for a throughput or cycle cap, and ask Octopus in writing whether Charge Pack cycling is covered. I could not find that answer anywhere official, which for a scheme built on extra cycling is a gap you should not fill with optimism.
Who should join, and who should wait
Join if you are on, or happy to be on, one of the four supported import tariffs plus Outgoing Octopus, your battery brand is on the eligible list, and you were never going to micro-manage the schedule yourself. You collect the floor, the sessions pay what they pay, and Octopus does the thinking.
Wait if any of these is true: you are on Flux or Intelligent Octopus Flux (a purpose-built battery tariff you would have to leave), you run an Agile import strategy, your export tariff beats a flat 12p, your warranty has a throughput cap and Octopus has not answered the wear question, or you use a third-party optimiser you would have to drop. None of these is a small print detail; each one changes the arithmetic.
Charge Pack questions worth asking before you sign
Can you skip individual grid sessions?
No. Octopus states you are automatically opted into all sessions when you sign up. The only way out of a session is out of the scheme: you leave Charge Pack entirely using its opt-out form or by emailing Octopus.
Does Charge Pack work with Agile Octopus?
Agile is not on the published list of compatible import tariffs, which names only Intelligent Octopus Go, Octopus Go, Flexible and Fixed. Octopus has not published an explicit ban, but as of July 2026 you cannot treat Agile as supported.
Does Charge Pack cover battery wear or warranty risk?
Octopus does not address this anywhere in the Charge Pack material: no cycle figures, no throughput estimate, no warranty indemnity. The “never lose out” promise covers tariff costs, not battery degradation. Check your own warranty for throughput limits and get Octopus’s answer in writing before joining.
Is Charge Pack the same as Octopus Power Pack?
No. Power Pack is Octopus’s vehicle-to-grid product for EVs, currently limited to a V2G-enabled BYD Dolphin with a Zaptec Pro charger. Charge Pack is for stationary home batteries. The names are close; the products are not.
Your next move
Price the whole package, not the headline. Compare your current export rate against Outgoing Octopus’s flat 12p, compare your current battery schedule against handing it over, and put the £144 floor on the other side of the scales. If you want the reference points first, start with Go vs Intelligent Octopus Go and Flux vs Agile for a home battery, then decide whether Octopus’s scheduler or yours earns your battery more.
