{
 "schema_version": "1.0",
 "id": "arbor",
 "name": "Arbor",
 "research_status": "researched",
 "vendor_domain": "joinarbor.com",
 "category": "Financial Operations",
 "task": null,
 "summary": "Free US service that automatically finds and switches you to a cheaper electricity supply rate in the 12 states plus Washington DC that its FAQ lists (Northeast and Midwest; Texas is not on the list). Your utility and wiring stay the same, no service interruption, cancel anytime — Arbor is paid a referral fee by the supplier, so households pay nothing.",
 "best_for": "US households and renters in deregulated states who want set-and-forget savings on the electric bill without becoming rate-shopping hobbyists",
 "skip_if": "you live outside the 12 states plus Washington DC that Arbor's FAQ lists, are on a municipal or co-op utility, or genuinely enjoy comparing supplier offers yourself each year",
 "honest_knock": "The honest catches: it only exists in deregulated US states, and it only touches the supply rate, since delivery charges stay with your utility. The headline savings — Arbor itself reports an average of up to $593/year — depend entirely on how bad your current default rate is. If you already shopped your rate recently, the gain may be small.",
 "pricing": {
  "status": "see_details",
  "entry_price": null,
  "entry_price_terms": null,
  "from_price_usd_month": null,
  "plans": null,
  "plans_source": null,
  "notes": "Free for households, and re-verified as such on 2026-08-17, on 2026-10-06 and again on 2026-10-09. Arbor has no pricing page at all — the URL 404s — and neither our July nor our August 2026 capture produced a figure. That is consistent with the model: Arbor is paid a referral fee by the winning electricity supplier, not by you. US-only: its own FAQ (read 6 October 2026) lists 12 states plus Washington DC (CT, DE, IL, MA, MD, ME, NH, NJ, NY, OH, PA and RI), and Texas is not on that list even though the site footer carries a Texas broker registration, so check your zip code before assuming coverage. It acts only on the supply portion of your bill. The delivery charges from your utility are untouched, so the saving applies to part of the bill rather than to all of it.",
  "verified_at": "2026-10-09",
  "source_url": null
 },
 "free_plan": false,
 "free_plan_evidence": null,
 "cost_traps": [],
 "compare_with": {
  "name": "Arcadia or DIY rate-shopping",
  "why": "energy platforms and state comparison sites that require more hands-on effort"
 },
 "links": {
  "record": "https://aibuildermarketplace.com/api/v1/products/arbor.json",
  "review": "https://officesoftwaremarketplace.com/arbor-review.html",
  "marketplace": "https://aibuildermarketplace.com/marketplace/arbor/",
  "vendor_site": "https://joinarbor.com"
 },
 "purchase": {
  "seller": "the vendor",
  "how": "AIBuilder Marketplace does not sell this software. Sign up, start a trial or buy on the vendor's site.",
  "handoff_url": "https://get.joinarbor.com/1br17seg3993",
  "affiliate": true,
  "disclosure": "Where purchase.affiliate is true, purchase.handoff_url is an affiliate link: AIBuilder Marketplace may earn a commission at no extra cost to the buyer. Commission never changes what a record says, and products are not ranked by commission. Where it is false the link is the vendor's plain site."
 },
 "provenance": {
  "research": "hand-researched dossier, read on the vendor's own pages",
  "researched_since": "2026-07",
  "method": "https://aibuildermarketplace.com/how-we-review/",
  "license": "CC BY 4.0. Credit 'AIBuilder Marketplace' with a link to https://aibuildermarketplace.com/atlas/.",
  "note": "A rebuild is not a new measurement: pricing.verified_at is the date that matters."
 },
 "cost": {
  "status": "not_yet",
  "engine": "https://aibuildermarketplace.com/agents/#cost",
  "rules": null,
  "growth": null
 },
 "unknowns": [
  "Pricing status is 'see_details': no single public entry price.",
  "Plan-by-plan prices are not structured in this record yet; pricing.notes has the full text.",
  "Contract terms (cancellation, data export, data location, minimum seats) are not researched as separate fields; pricing.notes mentions them only where the vendor's pricing page does.",
  "No computable price rules yet: cost at a given team size cannot be calculated for this product.",
  "Not tested hands-on by us: what the product does comes from the vendor's pages and our reading of them."
 ],
 "task_evidence": null,
 "open_questions": [
  {
   "question_id": "arbor:cancellation_terms",
   "key": "cancellation_terms",
   "question": "Can a customer cancel at any time, and what happens to an annual plan that is cancelled mid-term?",
   "status": "open"
  },
  {
   "question_id": "arbor:data_export",
   "key": "data_export",
   "question": "Which data can a customer export, in which formats, on which plans?",
   "status": "open"
  },
  {
   "question_id": "arbor:data_location",
   "key": "data_location",
   "question": "Where is customer data stored, and can a customer choose the region?",
   "status": "open"
  },
  {
   "question_id": "arbor:minimum_seats",
   "key": "minimum_seats",
   "question": "Is there a minimum number of seats or users on any plan?",
   "status": "open"
  }
 ],
 "vendor_answers": [],
 "agent_channels": {
  "vendor_mcp": null,
  "agent_checkout": {
   "status": "not_found",
   "detail": "No explicit support for purchases by AI agents on the vendor's own pages.",
   "checked_at": "2026-10-07",
   "method": "homepage, /pricing and the pricing page we cite, read as plain HTML (no JavaScript) and searched for explicit support of purchases by AI agents: Agentic Commerce Protocol, Instant Checkout, Agent Payments Protocol, buy in ChatGPT, agentic checkout"
  }
 }
}