If you have run into both "ComEd Real-Time Pricing" and "ComEd Hourly Pricing" and wondered which one you are looking at, the short answer is that they are the same program under two names. Sorting that out is most of what this page is for.
What is ComEd Real-Time Pricing?
Real-Time Pricing is a residential supply rate where you pay the actual hourly wholesale market price for your energy, which changes every hour, instead of a single flat rate. ComEd passes the market price through without a markup. Because the price is set in real time by the regional grid market, the rate you pay reflects what electricity actually costs in each hour rather than a blended yearly average.
Is real-time pricing the same as ComEd Hourly Pricing?
Yes. Residential Real-Time Pricing, or RRTP, is the formal regulatory name for the program ComEd markets to customers as Hourly Pricing. You will see the "Real-Time Pricing" and "RRTP" wording in official and regulatory documents, and "Hourly Pricing" in ComEd's own consumer materials, but they refer to the same thing: paying the hourly market price for your electricity. There is not a separate program to choose between.
How ComEd real-time rates work
You are billed on the real-time hourly price, which the market sets as the hour happens, so an hour's final price is not known until it has passed. ComEd also publishes a day-ahead price so you can plan flexible usage in advance, and starting in June 2026 the program carries a separate summer capacity charge tied to your usage during peak hours. The full mechanics, including which price you actually pay and how the capacity charge is set, are covered in how ComEd Hourly Pricing prices work.
Would real-time pricing save you money?
That is not a general question, because the rate changes hour to hour and the answer depends entirely on when your home uses power. A home whose usage lands in cheaper hours can pay less than the flat rate, and one that runs heavy load during expensive summer afternoons can pay more. The honest way to settle it is to reconstruct what you would have paid on the real-time rate over the last year against your own usage, which is covered in is ComEd Hourly Pricing worth it. We are building an independent, no-commission tool to run exactly that reconstruction on your own ComEd data.
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