Where our data comes from

Ours is one paragraph:

LookFirst earns rebates when you switch to some products. Rebates pay our bills - they never influence rankings, placement, or what's shown. Rankings are decided by real product value, nothing else. Every product the market publishes is on this site; filters are visible and one click shows everything.

LookFirst does not compare every provider or product in the market. We cover what providers publish under the frameworks below; a provider or product outside them is not on this site.

LookFirst is built on Australia's open data framework - the same legally mandated product data every bank and energy retailer must publish.

Every day, LookFirst collects this data directly from each provider and the Australian Energy Regulator's public service. Nothing is retyped, estimated or supplied by marketing teams - what you see is what the provider published, with a timestamp to prove it.

Two honest caveats: providers occasionally publish errors or stale data, so always confirm with them before applying. And mobile/internet comparisons currently draw on a smaller published dataset, because the telco sector hasn't yet joined the scheme.

LookFirst is independent. We're not accredited under, endorsed by, or affiliated with the Consumer Data Right program or the Australian Government - we simply build on the public data it makes available.

The providers in these comparisons

Every comparison view draws from the providers below - the same live sets the lists rank, with the freshest data-holder update we hold for each. LookFirst does not compare every provider or product in the market. Every number on this page has a source and a timestamp.

Of the 229 banking providers with products here, 100 are banks and mutuals, 129 are non-bank lenders. The type is set per lender from its ABN against a list we keep by hand; the loan, card and buy now pay later lists let you filter on it, and mark a non-bank lender beside its name. Neither type ranks above the other.

Non-bank lenders began publishing product data under the Consumer Data Right on 13 July 2026. Some of their products are voluntary to publish (consumer leases, reverse mortgages, margin loans, novated, fleet and other non-standard vehicle finance, and any product with under 1,000 customers), some lenders hold exemptions from the ACCC, and lenders below the size threshold are not obliged to publish at all, so some lenders and products are not here.

When products tie

Two products showing the same sorted figure are ordered by a fixed, published chain - never by chance and never by anything commercial:

• Home and personal loans tied on the sorted figure order by comparison rate, then ongoing fee, then alphabetically.
• Credit cards tied on the sorted figure order by annual fee, then purchase rate, then alphabetically.
• Savings accounts tied on the sorted figure order by base rate (highest first), then fee, then alphabetically.
• Term deposits tied on the sorted figure order by highest rate, then alphabetically.
• Energy plans tied on the sorted figure order by usage rate, then daily supply charge, then alphabetically.

On the card missions, one step comes first: where products tie, those with fuller published data rank first - at the same fee, a card that states its interest-free days outranks one that doesn't. Only whether a figure is published counts, never its value.

Each card mission opens ordered by the figure its first column shows, marked with an arrow in the header - never by a number the page doesn't display:

• Pay in full: lowest annual fee first. Interest never accrues for a full payer, so the fee is the whole cost.
• Carry a balance: lowest estimated yearly cost first - the "per year on ~$2,000 carried" column, annual fee plus interest at that reference balance. A card whose published maximum limit is below $2,000 cannot carry it and is listed last, unranked.
• Moving debt: longest transfer window first. These customers shop on the 0% window; the transfer fee and revert rate are beside it, sortable.
• Rewards: lowest annual fee first - the price of the points.
• Show everything: lowest purchase rate first - the neutral order for a view with no mission.

The same tie chain applies throughout, and cards whose ranking figure isn't published sort last in both directions, never first.

LookFirst's data and methodology are maintained by William Cole, 25+ years in financial services across banking, wealth management, financial advice, risk and compliance.

Why we don't show points values

Card listings name each rewards program but never show earn rates, sign-up bonus points, or points-per-dollar figures. Earn rates are published as tiered prose rather than a single number, and bonus offers appear in the open data for fewer than half of rewards cards, as conditional campaigns with spend hurdles and withdrawal rights a bare number conceals - a figure only some providers publish, hedged in ways a column can't carry, would make cards compare on marketing rather than on published fact.

How we compare prices

When you see "12% below the DMO reference price", we're comparing against a government benchmark. The Default Market Offer (DMO) is the benchmark electricity price set by the Australian Energy Regulator for NSW, south-east Queensland and South Australia. In Victoria it's the Victorian Default Offer (VDO), set by the Essential Services Commission. Both reset every 1 July.

To compare fairly, we price each plan's full published tariff at the regulator's typical household usage for your network area, GST included on both sides. The percentage tells you how our estimate of that plan compares with the benchmark at the same usage.

Some plans show no percentage: either no reference price applies (gas has none anywhere in Australia, and some areas have no benchmark), or the plan's tariff can't be fully modelled - for example, dynamic wholesale pricing, or published demand charges we don't estimate. We say so on the plan rather than guess.

Where a retailer publishes several versions of one plan - the same name for the same customers, the newer usually carrying this year's prices - only the latest is shown. Offers a walk-up household cannot take up - available only through a named switching service, or only to members of a club, program or card scheme - are hidden by default and counted at the end of the list; the "Include specialty plans" switch beside the filters restores them, each labelled with its condition.