Among the many Australian prepaid plans on the market, there are 4 that, for us, stand out. We’ve broken them down here and associated each with a type of user. You’ll see we’ve based our recommendations on people’s usage type – basically how frequently they use their phone and for what they use it. Quite genuinely, these are the prepaid plans that we recommend to our friends and family.
Best Prepaid SIM Only plan for high end / ‘safety’ conscious
In first place, the prepaid plan we recommend most to people : Amaysim’s Unlimited plan. There are many reasons you could use your phone a lot. It could be for business all the time, to manage a family and / or a hectic social life or. It could be you need an unlimited plan to cover all the calls and texts you need for each of those eventualities. It could also be that you’ve just had a bill shock in the past and you want to be sure you are not going to get another one. If any of these is you – well then you might want to take a look at Amaysim with their $44.90 plan.
Like Vaya ( below ) Amaysim resells the Optus network. As well as unlimited calls and SMS in Australia each month, Amaysim’s unlimited plan comes with a frankly massive amount of data : Amaysim’s plan has the largest data inclusion at any price point. It includes 4GB ( over 4000 MB ) of 3G data on the Optus network per month.
Best Prepaid SIM Only plan for the ‘average user’ : Vaya
In second place : We have Vaya’s $18.00 a month plan. The WhatPhone team have entered this one as the winner of best pre-paid phone plan for the average user. Like Amaysim, Vaya resells access to the Optus Network. Importantly, Vaya are one of the more modern MVNOs which resell Optus’ entire 4G network as part of the same price plan charge. For $18.00 a month you’ll get the $650 worth of credit ( that works out to round 10 standard two minute calls a day. )
Vaya’s $18 plan also comes with unlimited SMS and 1.5 GB of Australian data.
These inclusions would cover most users. If you’re a super high end user or you’re concerned that you might exceed your bill for some reason, you might like to consider the Amaysim plan, above.
Best Prepaid SIM Only plan for the ‘super user’ who likes a bargain : Optus $2 Days
In third place : We have something of an unusual winner. Before we get in to the types of people that Optus’ $2 days plan would appeal to, it’s best to describe what features constitute the plan.
$2 Days is unique in the Australian market. You only get charged when you use your phone on a particular day. As soon as your phone touches the Optus network on the day in question, you’ll be charged $2. Then, for that day, you’ll be able to ( for Australian numbers ) talk for an unlimited amount, send as many text messages as you’d like and use 500 MB of 4G data on the Optus network.
Read that again. You are only charged for days you use the service. If you don’t need to make a call, simply turn off your phone. And, 500 MB of data a day is more than 15 GB a month. $2 Days adds up to a lot of cost effectiveness for super high end usage.
Who are the companies involved – Vaya and Amaysim ?
Just who are Amaysim, Vaya ? I think we’re on safe ground here assuming you know who Optus is.
Both Amaysim and Vaya are MVNOs. A MVNO is an acronym for ‘Mobile Virtual Network Operator’. Vaya and Amaysim both resell the Optus network. They buy in bulk from Optus and pass the benefit of that big purchase on to you. Overall, MVNOs have the effect of making prepaid plans cheaper.
On the whole, Optus, Vodafone and Telstra all charge much more than the previous two for their prepaid plans than either Vaya or Amaysim do.
Vaya are a company you can trust
Let’s start with Vaya. Vaya use the Optus network and has a wide suite of plans available on their website. Based in Brisbane, Vaya have been around for years in Australia and currently support more than 70,000 customers with their price plans. Vaya acquired an equivalently sized company, Live Connected in mid 2013, bolstering their customer base ad contributing to the sort of scale it takes to be an effective telco.
Amaysim are even larger than Vaya
Next, there is Amaysim which also uses the Optus network. Amaysim has some of the best voice and data inclusion in the market in the $30-$40 price range.
Amaysim also have 500,000 customers ! They connected as many customers to their network as the Optus retail brand did in the same period. They have a $100 million turnover to prove it. Amsysim are backed by some of the biggest names in the telco world. Peter O’Connell, one of the men who set Optus itself up back in the day is one of the Directors of the company.
What if you try Vaya or Amaysim and hate their service ?
In truth, there is very little that can go wrong. If you take a SIM with any of these companies and end up not liking the service you can just cancel. It’s just a pre-paid service. If you do not end up liking what you are using, you can simply stop using it. Remember, there is no contract involved.
However, given the extensive and trustworthy reputations of both Vaya and Amaysim, it is unlikely you won’t be satisfied with your coverage or service. As an example, Amaysim are the current number 1 Roy Morgan telco for customer satisfaction. They took the crown from Virgin Mobile back in early 2014. Their rates are cheaper than Virgin Mobile and Virgin too use the Optus network.
Prepaid plans by user type :
Best prepaid plan for Business.
The $2 plan by Optus is a real gem when it comes to business users. There are some pre-paid phone plans which don’t get as much press as they should in the Australian phone market, and the Optus $2 Days plan is one of them.
For only two dollars a day you will get 500MB of 4G data. It also includes unlimited calls and texts ( in Australia. ) The construct of the plan is, as we’ve said, very different.
You are probably ahead of me on the maths. The $2 a day spend will, if you pay it every day of the month, give you 15.5GB of 4G data per month. That’s a huge amount of data, much more than almost anyone would ever need per month. Even people who tether their phones to their laptops and use them as a data modem will be get what they need with this plan. There is none better for data as far as we’re concerned.
The best Prepaid Plans with Unlimited Calls (Pre-paid)
It is important that phone companies are very careful about their usage of the word ‘unlimited’. It’s gotten them in trouble in the past. It’s been judged to be confusing and misleading by the authorities which regulate telcos. In a serious of scandals phone companies said ‘unlimited’ about plans which, in some way or other, were, were not unlimited. This has the made the word nearly impossible to get past a legal team unless it offers just what it says. As such, when Amaysim say they offer unlimited plans, you know they do.
Unlimited plans are often about peace of mind. Meaning that you will not be stressed every single time you text or chat, thinking, “How much is that now.”
These types of plans usually appeal to mainly, high end users like business men / woman and extremely socially active people, like mums and teenagers. The recommendation previously given still stands about unlimited pre-paid plans. Your best bet is with Amaysim’s $44.90. Remember though, Amaysim’s plan is 3G, not 4G. At the moment, 80% of people only have 3G phones so this isn’t a consideration.
Best prepaid plans for under $30
The majority of all pre-paid plans within Australia come in at under $30. Our view is that you should ignore them all from the tier 1 operators – Vodafone, Telstra and Virgin Mobile.
One competitor does come out ahead with the super low costs plans. Vaya. Clocking in at only $18 a month, Vaya is head and shoulders above rest when it comes to simply nothing more than the cost. Who else will give you $650 worth of value and 1.5GB of 4G data.
Why is Pre-paid so popular in Australia?
The rate of change of innovations in phones has changed, as we are sure you’ve noticed. These days, each new phone release benefits from incremental features, not as revolutionary as, say, the first iPhone was.
And that’s where pre-paid comes in. Pre-paid customers already have phones that work for them. And for not very much in a pre-paid recharge or renewal they get a phone that does about eighty percent of everything that the newest phones do. And for only slightly more each recharge they can get a phone that does about ninety five percent of everything even the most cutting edge phones do.
Once you acquire a brand new device, after that the only thing you will need is a plan. Contract plans that you get with a phone, often referred to as, “Post-paid plans,” from major companies usually start at 30 dollars per month and adding data is quite expensive, costing typically around $10 for every GB.
As you have previously seen in earlier examples the pre-paid plans, even when adding data, are nowhere near that expensive. Why? Because they have not included the cost of the phone in what they’ve sold you. They don’t have to charge you for it in their rates.
Currently pre-paid plans are, in most circumstances, the best way to get phone service in Australia. In the past only soccer mums bought pre-paid plans; how things have changed! The reason it was always mums is that they would then give their SIMs to their kids to be sure that they weren’t spending hundreds on phone service on the newest bill. And those mothers recognized the truth about pre-paid plans, the costs are extremely easy to predict. And that makes keeping your monetary tally very easy.
The best Australian planswill provided excellent rates and the wonderful flexibility of not being tangled up in the devious weave of a contract. You can bring your own device to the table, or change out to something you consider better at your leisure, there is not stress to buy the latest phone. And as always with pre-paid plans, since they are non-contractual, if you don’t like the service you are receiving you can just pack up and leave.
Who uses Pre-paid plans now?
Around half of all the phones you see in Australia have a prepaid SIM in them. The prepaid mobile market in Australia is a worth of $4bn. Prepaid voice SIMs make up in the region of 45% of all of the mobile services in Australia. Pre-paid plans are no longer just for angst-ridden teens.
The problem with having such a valuable market and broad range of plans is that it can be hard to pick the right one. That’s why we’ve made these recommendations. The bottom line is that pre-paid plans
offer the best flexibility and cost effectiveness of any kind of mobile plans in Australia.