Master, direct or submetered: how your apartment’s electricity is billed

Your unit has its own utility meter, and the utility bills you for what it records. The account is in your name, and you pay the utility directly. Hallways and parking lot lights often run on a separate meter in the owner’s name.

One utility meter measures the whole building, so the owner gets one bill and is the utility’s customer. The cost of that electricity then reaches residents in one of two ways.

• It’s included in your rent. You don’t get a separate electric bill, and your rent covers the cost.
• It’s billed back to each unit. The property bills you for your share, either from a submeter on your unit or with a formula called RUBS.

The building still has one master meter, and the owner adds a smaller meter, called a submeter, to each unit. New York’s utility regulator describes submetering as a way for property owners to “sell electricity service to occupants.”^⁠[3] You pay for what your submeter records, on a bill from the property or a billing company.

That means every submetered building is master-metered, but not every master-metered building is submetered.

Submetering measures your unit’s usage, and RUBS doesn’t. A submeter counts your kilowatt-hours (kWh), the unit electricity use is measured in, and your charge follows that count.

RUBS, short for ratio utility billing system, splits the building’s bill with a formula instead. The formula often uses your unit’s square footage or the number of people living there. Both arrive as a utility charge from the property, so they’re easy to mix up.

The biggest difference is who the utility’s customer is. When it’s you, the account, the bill and your usage data are in your name. When it’s the property owner, they sit with the building’s account instead.

Supplier choice and community solar both work through a utility account. Where it’s offered, anyone with a utility account can choose the company that supplies their power.^⁠[4] In New Jersey, community solar works the same way: “one electric meter denotes one subscriber.”^⁠[5]

Your bill is the quickest clue, and your lease usually spells it out too. Look at who the bill comes from and whether it shows a meter reading for your unit.

If you’re direct-metered, you get a bill from the utility with your name, your account number and your meter’s kWh. Your usage drives both the supply charge (the electricity itself) and the delivery charge.

Utility Co.Jane DoeAccount 12-3456-7890-9

1. 1Supply charges512 kWh @ 9.033¢ / kWh$46.25
2. 2Delivery charges512 kWh @ 12.560¢ / kWh$64.31

Taxes & other charges$9.84

Electricity total$120.40

1. 1Your kWh × the supply rate
2. 2Your kWh × the delivery rate

If you’re submetered or on RUBS, the charge comes from the property or its billing company instead. The submetering vs. RUBS table above shows what each one looks like. If electricity is included in your rent, you won’t see a separate charge at all.

A smart meter doesn’t change your setup, because it’s the utility’s meter, not a billing method.

In 2022, US utilities had about 119 million smart meters, roughly 72% of all electric meters. They record your usage at least every hour and share it with you at least once a day.^⁠[6]

• Direct-metered: you can usually see hourly or daily use in your utility account, and many utilities let you download it with a “Green Button.”^⁠[7]
• Submetered: your usage comes from the property’s billing company, on your bill or its website.
• RUBS or included in rent: there’s no reading for your unit, because only the building is metered.

If your unit is direct-metered, you can connect your utility account, and we’ll look for programs and rates that can lower your bill. If you’re moving somewhere you pay the utility, we can set up service at move-in. In a master-metered building, the account belongs to the property, so there’s nothing for you to connect.