I’m Joe Lawrence. I co-founded Smarta Switch Australia with Chloe Hartley, here in Brisbane, this year. This is the post explaining what we are, why we exist, and what we’ll actually do for your business.
If you’ve got two minutes, this is the short version. If you’re a Brisbane business owner who’s never read a single page on a broker’s website all the way through, I get it. Skip to “what we’ll do for you” further down. We answer the phone too: 0435 642 592.
The family bit, briefly
Smarta Switch is not a startup. It’s a ten-year-old British family business that just happens to be opening its Australian door this year.
My dad Joedy started the original Smarta Switch in Plymouth, Devon in 2015. The whole reason was that nobody was actually advocating for the small pubs and cafes getting overcharged on their energy contracts. He built a brokerage that did three things differently from the rest of the UK industry:
- Independent: no exclusive deals with any retailer.
- Transparent commission: every quote disclosed the dollar (or pound) amount the broker earned.
- Locally accountable: a real Plymouth phone number, answered by a real person.
It worked. Today the UK business looks after hundreds of pubs, cafes, restaurants and independent shops, and in 2025 alone it saved its client base over ÂŁ348,000, roughly AUD $670,000, on their energy contracts.
I grew up around it. I was old enough to understand what a standing charge was before I could legally drink. Last year I spent twelve months looking at the Australian commercial energy market and concluded what Dad had concluded about the UK in 2015: same trust problem, same structural overcharging, same gap in the market for a broker who actually picks up the phone.
So here we are.
What Smarta Switch Australia actually is
A Brisbane-based independent commercial energy broker. We work across South East Queensland, Brisbane, Gold Coast, Sunshine Coast, Toowoomba, Ipswich, Logan, Moreton Bay, Redlands, covering both electricity and gas.
Smarta Switch Australia Pty Ltd · ACN 698 525 601 · registered with ASIC 28 May 2026 · trading from 14 Bridge Street, Chelmer QLD 4068.
We carry $1 million in professional indemnity insurance and $5 million in public liability, not because we expect to need it, but because anyone signing contract advice on your behalf should be properly insured.
Two co-founders, both contactable directly:
- Joe Lawrence (me), 0435 642 592, joe@smartaswitch.com.au
- Chloe Hartley, chloe@smartaswitch.com.au, operations, onboarding, contract paperwork, the Letter of Authority workflow
No call centre. No 1300 number. No outsourced sales team in another timezone. My mobile is on every contract.
The promise, what makes Smarta different
There are four things you can hold us to, in writing, on every deal we put in front of you.
1. You pay nothing. Ever.
We’re paid by the energy retailer when a customer switches contract through us. The commission is built into the contract pricing the same way it is when you contract direct with the retailer, retailers price in customer-acquisition cost either way. The full dollar amount we earn on your specific deal is disclosed before you sign anything. Ask any time.
If we look at your bill and your current contract is already at market, we say so and walk away. No switch, no commission for us. Fine by us. We’ve done this many times. We’re not interested in chasing every job. The full breakdown of how this works (with sample dollar figures per contract size) lives at /pricing/commission-explained/.
2. We show every offer, not just the recommended one.
Every comparison sheet you get from us shows all the retailer offers we received side-by-side. Not a curated “best three”. All of them, with rates, supply charges, demand pricing, contract terms and exit clauses laid out. You see what we see.
3. We won’t sign anything on your behalf.
The Letter of Authority gives us permission to talk to retailers and pull your meter data. It doesn’t give us permission to sign supply contracts. Every contract decision is yours alone, with your signature. The LoA legal text is published here, read it cold before signing anything.
4. We diary your renewal.
Two months before your new contract expires, we trigger the rebid. Energy markets move. The deal that was sharp 24 months ago is rarely the sharpest deal available in month 23. We rebid the panel ahead of expiry so you never auto-roll onto a default rate.
What we’ll do for you, in plain English
Three steps. Two minutes of your time. About six weeks end-to-end.
- You upload your last bill at /upload-bill/, or email it to hello@smartaswitch.com.au, or hand me a photo on the phone. Doesn’t matter. We need the NMI (the long number on the front of the bill), your tariff, and 12 months of usage history.
- We shop the panel. Eight retailers for SME sites under ~100 MWh/year (Origin Business, AGL Business, Momentum Energy, EnergyAustralia, Powershop, Alinta Business, Shell Energy SME). Four retailers for C&I sites above 100 MWh/year (SmartestEnergy Australia, Shell Energy C&I, AGL C&I, Origin Enterprise). We send the comparison sheet within 24 hours, with the recommended option and the reason.
- You sign. We switch. You sign the retailer’s contract, not Smarta’s. Ten business days of cooling-off under NERR. The switch happens at your next meter read. Same Energex wires, same poles, new name on the invoice.
That’s it. There’s no second product, no upsell, no subscription.
Who we work with
We’ve designed the matrix to cover ten common commercial industries in SEQ:
- Cafes and restaurants (the demand-charge surprise capital of the SME world)
- Pubs and venues (gas + electricity bundled wins)
- Gyms and fitness (split-window TOU savings)
- Mechanics and trades (compressor demand profiles)
- Warehouses (often C&I-eligible)
- Salons and retail (small-but-precise rebids)
- Manufacturing (almost always C&I tender)
- Medical clinics (imaging-equipment demand spikes)
If your business doesn’t fit one of those, fine. We’ve built the matrix because we needed somewhere to put suburb + industry context. The reality is we’ll quote any commercial energy contract in the SEQ contestable market.
If you’re above ~1 GWh/year aggregate (multi-site portfolios, big single-site industrial), the multi-site contracts guide explains the tender process we run.
If you’ve got solar on the roof: the switching with solar guide covers feed-in tariffs and how we negotiate them.
If you don’t know what a demand charge is, but suspect your bill has one: read demand charges explained first. It’s the one bill component most likely to be quietly overcharged.
Why Brisbane
A fair question. The UK business is in Plymouth, different country, different market, different climate, different everything.
A few reasons.
I’ve been in Brisbane long enough to know it’s home. Chloe is born-and-bred Australian. The Brisbane commercial energy market in 2026 has the same trust problem the UK had in 2015, businesses don’t know who’s working for them, the comparison sites are barely comparisons, and the brokers who do exist mostly don’t pick up the phone. We’ve watched Dad fix this exact problem in the UK. Bringing the same playbook to Brisbane is just doing the same thing twice, once was hard, twice is easier.
Brisbane and SEQ also happen to be one of the most contestable commercial energy markets in Australia. Eight retailers with real SME panels and four C&I retailers running tender pricing means there’s a real comparison to do. Not every state has that. Joe + Chloe in Brisbane covers the geography that actually has competition.
What we’re not
A few things we want to be clear about up front, because every broker should.
- Not a residential energy broker. SEQ commercial sites only. If you want to switch your home electricity, the AER’s Energy Made Easy site does residential comparisons for free.
- Not a comparison-only site. We execute the switch end-to-end, Letter of Authority, meter data pull, contract drafting, customer transfer admin, the lot.
- Not a fixed-fee broker. Commission from the retailer. Zero cost to you, on any deal, even if you decide not to switch.
- Not a tied agent. We have no exclusive arrangement with any retailer. The panel is intentionally broad so that no two clients get the same recommendation by default.
- Not a national brand. Family business. Two founders. Direct mobile on every contract.
What to do next
Pick one:
- Upload your last bill at /upload-bill/, comparison sheet back within 24 hours.
- Ring me direct at 0435 642 592. Mon-Fri, 7am-7pm Brisbane time. Genuinely answered by me.
- Read How it works if you want the full eight-step walkthrough before talking to anyone.
- Read the Letter of Authority if you want to know exactly what you’d be signing before signing anything.
- Try the savings calculator if you want a rough number without uploading anything.
That’s the launch. Welcome to Smarta Switch Australia.
Joe Lawrence, Co-founder, Smarta Switch Australia
0435 642 592 · joe@smartaswitch.com.au
Smarta Switch Australia Pty Ltd · ACN 698 525 601 · ABN 95 698 525 601 · 14 Bridge Street, Chelmer QLD 4068 · $1M professional indemnity + $5M public liability insurance.