In this guide, we'll take you through the cheapest plans from our database of 28 providers and help clarify some of the trickier pricing questions shoppers can face. All the plans on this page are SIM-only or prepaid with a monthly payment schedule (which can be as short as 28 days for some prepaid options).
Are introductory discounts a trap?
Many, perhaps most mobile plans have some sort of introductory discount, usually limited to new customers or new services. These discounts are often as much as 50% off for the first six months, or six recharges, after which it jumps up to standard pricing.
So, if you had been enjoying a half-off intro period, at some point you'll suddenly be paying double what you were when you signed up. This can sound like a gotcha – and in some ways it is. But with a little effort, it can work to your advantage.
Postpaid SIM-only plans and prepaid plans don't have lock-in contracts, nor are there generally sign-up or exit fees. As a result, you can change providers regularly, hopping between intro discounts and never paying full price.
There are enough providers that you can do this for years, at which point you might have been absent long enough to be considered a "new" customer again by some brands.
Changing mobile providers a couple of times per year might sound like a hassle, but it can be hundreds of dollars saved for well less than an hour's work in total – especially if you just come back to this page when the time comes.
When plans have similar inclusions, the cheapest option isn’t always the best. One way to compare is on the value per GB. As a rule of thumb, anything at $1 or under per GB is good value.
Common plan features
Cheap mobile plans from smaller providers tend to be lighter on bells and whistles than the more-expensive options from big brands like Optus, Vodafone and Telstra. But there are still some extras you might care to keep an eye out for, such as data rollover/banking, international calls, overseas roaming, and a lack of overage fees for excess data usage. You might also want to decide if a prepaid or postpaid plan would be best for you.
Prepaid vs. postpaid
There's no strict rule that dictates if either prepaid or postpaid plans are cheaper than the other type. The main difference usually about how you want to pay your bills and what you'd prefer to happen if you go over your data limit.
Postpaid plans are kind of like a subscription service. If you miss a payment or two, you keep access to your plan but might be charged a late payment fee. You pay at the end of each billing cycle – hence "postpaid". To complicate things a bit, there are some plans that require payment at the start of the cycle, but which are in every other way identical. These are often referred to as "upfront" plans, but tend to be lumped into the postpaid category for the sake of simplicity.
Prepaid plans require an upfront payment for a set period of time, usually 28 days, 30 days, or a month (expiring on the same numbered date the following month). You can pay the bill manually, potentially letting your mobile access cut off between payments. But most providers also let you set up automatic recharges. If you go over your data limit, your internet simply gets cut off for the rest of that recharge period. You can choose to recharge early or, sometimes, purchase an add-on data pack. But even if your internet access is cut off, you don't lose access to your unlimited calls and texts.
For a deeper dive, you can check out our full guide to prepaid versus postpaid mobile plans. But you can also compare some of the cheapest prepaid and postpaid plans in our database below:
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Kogan Mobile
Small Monthly Plan
$23.00
Per 30 Day Renewal
|
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OnePass mobile
28 Day Plan - 22GB
$12.50
Per 28 Day Renewal
Link not supplied
|
|
Yomojo
Starter 29GB Plan
$24.90
Per 30 Day Renewal
Link not supplied
|
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Everyday Mobile
Pre-paid Mobile $25 Recharge
$25.00
Per 30 Day Renewal
Link not supplied
|
|
Superloop
SuperSim Saver 4G Plan
$25.00
Per 30 Day Renewal
|
|
Pivotel
25GB Mobile Swift Plan
$11.45/mth
Min. cost $11.45
|
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SpinTel
Editor's Pick
$23 Mobile Plan
$12.00/mth
Min. cost $12
|
|
Moose Mobile
Moose 23 SIM Only
$14.00/mth
Min. cost $14
Link not supplied
|
|
Swoop
30GB SIM Only 5G
$14.00/mth
Min. cost $14
|
|
Dodo
Small Mobile Plan
$25.00/mth
Min. cost $25
|
Data rollover and banking
Some telcos let you hold onto your unused data, known as both data rollover and data banking. Sometimes, it's only available for the next month or recharge cycle, after which it gets replaced by the next lot of unused data. More often, there's no time limit, but your provider will place a cap on just how much you can store up – e.g. 200GB. And some providers have totally unlimited banking.
If you leave your provider, you'll lose all your banked data. Many providers also make you forfeit your data bank if you downgrade your plan or swap between plan types (e.g. postpaid and prepaid, or monthly vs. long expiry). And banked data on prepaid plans is often forfeited if you leave any gap between recharges, so auto-recharge is usually the way to go.
International calls
Even with cheap mobile plans from smaller providers, there are plenty of options when it comes to phone plans with international calls. Each telco has its own list of countries or destinations that its international call inclusions work with. And some telcos have minutes-based inclusions, while others give you an amount of credit that can only be used for international calls or texts.
You can also find the occasional cheap plan with unlimited international calls and/or texts – just cross your fingers that your preferred call destinations are on the list.
Here's a quick look at cheap mobile plans with international calls:
|
Dodo
Small Mobile Plan
$25.00/mth
Min. cost $25
|
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Everyday Mobile
Pre-paid Mobile $25 Recharge
$25.00
Per 30 Day Renewal
Link not supplied
|
|
Superloop
SuperSim Saver 4G Plan
$25.00
Per 30 Day Renewal
|
|
iiNet
30GB Small Plan
$15.00
Per 1 Month Renewal
Link not supplied
|
|
TPG
Editor's Pick
30GB Small Plan
$15.00
Per 1 Month Renewal
Link not supplied
|
International roaming
Plans with international roaming are pretty rare to find from smaller providers – or, rather, affordable international roaming is rare to find. Many of the cheapest mobile plans out there use pay as you go (PAYG) roaming rates, which are prohibitively expensive and generally best avoided at all costs. If you've ever heard one of those "bill shock" stories, PAYG roaming was likely the culprit.
That said, you can occasionally find smaller telcos with decent roaming rates or, more likely, affordable roaming add-on packs.
"Endless" data
Some providers don't automatically charge you extra or cut off your internet access if you hit your data limit. Instead, your connection is significantly slowed to anywhere between 256kbps and 2.5Mbps, depending on your provider. Once your connection has been slowed like this, you can, in theory, download or upload as much as you want.
As such, this system is often referred to as "Endless" data, but you might also see "Infinite" thrown around, along with the term "unlimited" to describe the limitations on the slowed data.
If you're not confident in your (or someone whose bills you pay) ability to stick within your data allowance, this is a great way to avoid nasty shocks. For postpaid plans, it avoids unexpected overage fees. For prepaid plans, it means your internet access won't get cut off for the rest of the current recharge.
Endless data is particularly useful on cheap mobile plans because those are typically the options with the smallest data caps.
These are the cheapest mobile plans in our database with endless data, limited to one per provider:
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Dodo
Small Mobile Plan
$25.00/mth
Min. cost $25
|
|
felix mobile
felix 25GB Mobile Plan
$30.00
Per 1 Month Renewal
|
|
Aussie Broadband
Saver 5G SIM Plan
$30.00/mth
Min. cost $30
Link not supplied
|
|
Belong
25GB Mobile Plan
$34.00/mth
Min. cost $34
Link not supplied
|
|
Vodafone
$40 Prepaid Plus Recharge
$40.00
Per 28 Day Renewal
Link not supplied
|
|
Optus
$60 Optus Choice Plus Plan
$39.00/mth
Min. cost $39
|
|
Telstra
$74 Basic Upfront Mobile Plan
$74.00/mth
Min. cost $74
Link not supplied
|
But if you're after a mobile plan with truly unlimited data, the only telco in our database that offers it is felix mobile. You can read more about this plan and Endless data in our full guide to mobile plans with unlimited data.
Here are felix's mobile plans:
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#1
|
felix mobile
felix 25GB Mobile Plan
$30.00
Per 1 Month Renewal
|
|
#2
|
felix mobile
felix 50GB Mobile Plan
$35.00
Per 1 Month Renewal
|
|
#3
|
felix mobile
felix Unlimited Mobile Plan
$40.00
Per 1 Month Renewal
|
|
#4
|
felix mobile
felix Unlimited+ Mobile Plan
$50.00
Per 1 Month Renewal
|
Is it cheaper to BYO phone?
Barring special deals, it's usually much cheaper to buy a phone outright and then sign up to a cheap mobile plan from a smaller provider. But the savings happen over time.
Only Vodafone, Optus, and Telstra offer phones on repayment plans. While it can be nice to pay off your phone over time, you ultimately end up paying the same standard RRP for whatever phone you're after.
But you also need to pair that phone with a mobile plan, which is where you end up losing money. Plans from the big three providers tend to be much more expensive than alternatives from less popular brands. And if you're locked into a phone repayment for 12, 24, or (more likely) 36 months, that's a lot of time you'll be paying those higher rates.
Not only do the big three providers generally charge more per gigabyte, the smallest postpaid plans from Telstra has 50GB, while it's 60GB for Optus and 65GB for Vodafone. When you consider the average postpaid user in Australia goes through a bit less than 20GB per month (according to the most recent statistics from the ACCC), you're probably paying premium rates for a lot of data you'll never need or use.
Even if you'd like some extra data on the off chance you have an unexpectedly big month, almost all mobile providers offer some kind of data pack add-on. If you're only purchasing these every once in a while, it'll likely cost a lot less versus paying for a bigger plan than you need every single month – especially if said bigger plan is from one of the big three providers. And you shouldn't be caught unaware by overage fees because telcos are required to alert you via SMS when you've gone through 50%, 85% and 100% of your data allowance.
To summarise (barring special deals): the phone itself costs the same amount whether you buy it outright from a retailer or over time via a repayment plan from Optus, Vodafone or Telstra.
But if you choose the repayment plan option, you'll get locked into a mobile plan with one of the big three telcos for the whole 12-, 24-, or 36-month repayment term. And given you can get much cheaper plans from smaller providers, you'll ultimately save more money by taking the BYO route.
Or even more simply put: Phone = same price either way. Mobile plan = cheaper from smaller provider.
How we find the cheapest mobile plans
The plans on this page represent the cheapest mobile plans in our database of 28 providers, which is regularly checked and updated by our team of data experts. Our comparison tables update automatically, so you should always be able to see the most up-to-date information we have.
If you see a plan with a 'Link not supplied' label, it's because we don't have an active affiliate relationship with that provider. But we still include these plans to ensure our comparisons are as accurate as we can make them.
These are currently the cheapest NBN 50 plans in our database of 34 internet providers:
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#1
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amaysim
All Fixed Line nbn®
NBN50
$45/mth
Min. cost $45
|
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#2
|
Belong
All Fixed Line nbn®
NBN Standard Plus – Unlimited
$55/mth
Min. cost $55
|
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#3
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Dodo
All Fixed Line nbn®
Editor's Pick
nbn50 Unlimited Plan
$57.99/mth
Min. cost $57.99
|
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#4
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Moose NBN
All Fixed Line nbn®
nbn 50/20 Premium
$59.80/mth
Min. cost $59.80
Link not supplied
|
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#5
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Tangerine Telecom
All Fixed Line nbn®
Value Plus NBN 50/20
$64.90/mth
Min. cost $64.90
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Alex Angove-Plumb
Digital Content Editor
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