Utility Tracking

The "where did $300 of electric come from this month" question — answered by utility-company apps for billing-side, CT clamps and smart plugs for circuit / device-side. For circuit-level energy monitoring (the smart-home flavor) see Energy & Power Monitoring; for HVAC specifically see IoT HVAC; for solar / EV / battery see EV & Solar; for the broader bill side see Bill Tracking & Household Finance; for the smart-home hub above all of this see Smart Home Hubs.

Utility-company apps (the default for billing data)

• ★ Your electric / gas / water company app — free; the authoritative source for usage + bills. Almost every US utility has one (PG&E, Con Ed, Duke, ComEd, Pepco, Xcel, AEP, etc.). Quality varies wildly; usage download in CSV is common.
• Green Button Connect — free standard; download my data initiative. Supported by most large US utilities. Useful for pulling usage into a self-host dashboard.
• Apple Wallet bill receipts — free; not a tracker, but useful if your utility supports Apple Wallet for bills.

Whole-home / circuit-level (DIY meters)

The 2026 sweet spot — link to Energy & Power Monitoring for the full coverage. Headlines:

• ★ Shelly Pro 3EM, IoTaWatt, Emporia Vue Gen 2 — circuit-level CT-based meters publishing to MQTT / HA. Local. Cheap. Accurate.
• Sense — paid hardware; closed cloud; don't pick for HA-first homes.

Per-device (smart plugs)

• Shelly Plus Plug, ESPHome + PZEM, Tasmota plugs, Aqara Zigbee plugs, Kasa / TP-Link — see Energy & Power Monitoring.

Water

• Flume, Phyn — paid hardware; whole-home water metering (clamp on the main).
• StreamLabs — paid; ultrasonic clamp.
• Moen Flo — paid; valve + flow + leak shutoff.
• City water-meter access — many municipal water utilities expose monthly usage via their portal.

Gas

• Most utility apps — monthly resolution; that's typically all you get.
• DIY — gas meters are harder than electric to monitor; some have pulse outputs the geek crowd reads with ESPHome.

Internet / cellular bill tracking

• The ISP's app — Comcast, Spectrum, Verizon, T-Mobile etc.
• Bill consolidator — see Bill Tracking & Household Finance.
• Apple / Google Fi cellular bill — apps; usage breakdown by line.

Trash / recycling / municipal

• See Trash & Recycling.

Self-host dashboards (when one app isn't enough)

• ★ Home Assistant Energy Dashboard — free; the 2026 default for unified electric + gas + water + solar in one view. Pulls from MQTT, Shelly, IoTaWatt, smart-plug entities. See Smart Home Hubs.
• Grafana + InfluxDB / Postgres — for the geek who wants every bill modeled. See Energy & Power Monitoring.
• Notion / Sheets — bill amount + usage by month; the simplest answer.

Tariffs / time-of-use / agile pricing

• Octopus Agile (UK) — half-hourly pricing; HA integrations exist.
• Time-of-use plans (US) — most large utilities offer them; verify peak/off-peak hours match your usage.
• EV-specific plans — some utilities offer ultra-cheap overnight rates for EV charging. See EV & Solar.

License / pricing

• Utility apps: free.
• Green Button Connect: free standard.
• Sense, Flume, Phyn, StreamLabs, Moen Flo: paid hardware + sometimes cloud subscription.
• Shelly, Emporia Vue, IoTaWatt, ESPHome devices: paid hardware; no required subscription.
• Home Assistant: OSS, free.

Pick this if…

• Default bill tracking: your utility company's app.
• Default whole-home circuit-level monitoring (no cloud): Shelly Pro 3EM or IoTaWatt + Home Assistant Energy.
• Per-device (the dryer is the new culprit): Shelly Plug or a Tasmota plug.
• Water-leak peace of mind: Moen Flo or Flume.
• All-in-one dashboard: HA Energy.
• Multi-utility consolidation in finance: Rocket Money or Monarch (see Bill Tracking & Household Finance).