How APS Saver Choice Plus Pricing Works in 2026
APS Saver Choice Plus is a three-tier time-of-use plan available to Arizona Public Service residential customers. The plan splits each day into three rate windows: a high peak window from 4-7pm Monday through Friday, a medium off-peak window covering most other hours, and a low super off-peak window from 10am-3pm every day. The point of the plan is to give households who can shift usage away from the peak window a meaningfully lower bill — and to charge households who run dishwashers, EVs, and pool pumps during the 4-7pm window more for the privilege.
The summer peak rate ($0.3439/kWh) is roughly 2.8 times the off-peak rate ($0.1235/kWh), so every kWh you move out of peak saves about $0.22. The super off-peak window is even cheaper at $0.0935/kWh year-round. For homes with rooftop solar, the super off-peak window happens to overlap with the brightest production hours, which is the entire reason Saver Choice Plus exists — APS wants customers to consume their own solar in the middle of the day when it's easiest to value at the cheap super off-peak price.
How This Calculator Works
The calculator takes three inputs and applies the published 2026 APS rates to compute an energy charge:
- Monthly kWh. Pull this from a recent APS bill. Arizona homes range from about 800 kWh/month for a small efficient home in winter to 3,000+ kWh/month for a large home with central AC during a Phoenix summer. The default of 1,500 kWh/month is a fair midpoint for a 3-bedroom home.
- Season. APS has different summer and winter rate tables. Summer runs May through October — that's when you'll see the highest peak rate and the biggest difference between peak and off-peak. Winter rates apply November through April. The "Annual Average" option blends both for an estimate of what you'd pay across a full calendar year.
- Usage profile. This is the trickiest input because you can't see your hour-by-hour breakdown without using the APS customer portal. We provide four presets that cover most homes — Typical, Heavy AC, Work From Home, and Evening Focused — each with a different split of usage across the three time windows. Pick the one closest to your household, or compare a few profiles to see how much it matters.
The calculator multiplies your monthly kWh by each preset's share to get the kWh in each tier, then multiplies each by the corresponding APS rate. If you have rooftop solar and toggle that switch, the calculator subtracts the export credit ($0.0760/kWh) for the kWh you push back to the grid each month under APS net billing. The result is a clean energy charge estimate. Real APS bills also include a basic service charge, environmental adjustments (PSA, EFCA), regulatory fees, and taxes, which typically add $15-30/month — so add roughly $20 to the estimate for an all-in number.
What Changes Your Bill the Most
For most APS Saver Choice Plus customers, the single biggest lever is the share of monthly kWh that lands in the 4-7pm peak window. The math is simple: the peak rate is roughly 2.8x the off-peak rate in summer, so even small shifts compound. Concrete examples for a 1,500 kWh/month home:
- Run laundry and the dishwasher after 7pm or before 4pm. A typical load uses 1.5-2.5 kWh and most homes run 4-6 loads per week. Moving these out of peak saves $7-14/month.
- Pre-cool the house before 4pm. Drop the thermostat to 73°F at 3pm, then let it coast back to 78°F by 7pm. Your AC compressor barely runs during the most expensive hours. Worth $15-30/month in summer for many homes.
- Charge EVs overnight. A Tesla pulling 30 kWh per session costs roughly $4 to charge at off-peak rates and $10 at peak rates. The cumulative annual difference is $700+ for a daily-driven EV.
- Run pool pumps in the super off-peak window (10am-3pm). A 1.5 hp pump pulling 1.1 kW for 6 hours/day in summer costs $6 in the super off-peak window vs $19 if it ran during peak. Both are dramatically cheaper than a flat-rate plan.
For homes with rooftop solar, the play changes. The super off-peak window aligns with peak solar production, so self-consumption is the goal — every kWh your solar covers in that window means you avoid the off-peak grid rate, while exports to the grid only earn the lower $0.0760/kWh export credit. Net billing math means self-consumed solar is worth roughly 4-5x more per kWh than exported solar.
Where This Calculator Gets the Rates
All rates come from the published 2026 APS residential Saver Choice Plus tariff. Specifically: peak summer $0.3439/kWh, peak winter $0.2145/kWh, off-peak summer $0.1235/kWh, off-peak winter $0.1035/kWh, super off-peak (year-round) $0.0935/kWh, and the net billing export rate $0.0760/kWh. For the official rate documents and any updates after 2026, see the APS rate schedule pages directly. We update this calculator whenever APS files a new rate case or the ACC approves a change.