Circles.Life Plan <br>Review and Comparison

Circles.Life Plan
Review and Comparison

  • Powered by the Optus network
  • Brilliant value on data
  • Refer-a-friend credit and bonus data for 6 months
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Frequently Asked Questions About Circles.Life

How do I order a Circles.Life SIM?

You can order a SIM online by choosing the plan you like and filling in the order information. If you live in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane and Perth you could receive your physical SIM card within 4 hours. Other areas may take up to 7 days (but likely much faster).

Can I use my Circles.Life plan for overseas calls?

Circles.Life doesn’t include international calls as standard, but you can add an overseas add-on for $8 per month which gives you over 300 minutes of call time to 25 countries.

If you want to use your phone while travelling overseas, you can activate a 1GB CirclesRoam Day Pass via your app. The Day Pass costs $15 per day to use in eligible countries. You can also use the PAYG International Roaming service that allows you to make calls, send texts and use data services while overseas.

What’s The Big Freeze?

In 2022, Circles.Life announced a freeze on all its prices as cost-of-living increased (and other telcos bumped prices up). Circles.Life has a history of fair pricing, including an ‘equitable plan’ that offers a discount to women equal to the gender pay gap.

How do I activate my SIM?

You’ll get activation instructions with your SIM pack, or by text or email if you opt for an eSIM. On the activation web page you’ll need to log in with your date of birth and the Circles.Life order number. If you’re happy to get a new number, your plan will activate within minutes. Bringing an existing number over takes between 4 and 48 hours.

Does Circles.Life include data rollover?

Only the largest data plan includes data rollover at this stage. You can bank up to 500GB.

What is Bill Shock Protection?

If you run out of data you’ll be allocated 3GB to save you from unexpected data charges. When Bill Shock Protection kicks in, you can choose to activate an ongoing extra 10GB for $10, a one-time 3GB boost for $10, or do nothing and pay $0.01/MB until your plan resets.

What's good

  • Generous data at competitive prices
  • Award-winning plans and customer service
  • No lock-in contracts + eSIM enabled

What's bad

  • No 5G in Australia yet
  • Only one plan has data banking
  • No international calls included

Circles.Life Review and Comparison

Circles.Life launched in Australia in 2019 and has earned multiple awards for its value for money, customer service and ethical stances.

It delivers some of the cheapest data deals you’ll find and throws in enormous amounts of bonus data and discounts on top. These extras often last up to a year, which saves you time comparing plans every month for a another deal.

Let’s look at what you’ll get with a Circles.Life phone plan.

Value-for-money data plans

Circles.Life has some of the best data plans we’ve seen. You can get plans as low as 6BG up to 100GB per month, but that’s not including the extras on top. Circles.Life consistently releases bonus data packages as large as 440GB to use over 12 months.

There are no lock-in contracts and you can upgrade or downgrade your plan via the app whenever you like. Just note you can only change your plan once per calendar month.

30-Day Satisfaction Guarantee

When you sign up as a new customer for an eligible Circles.Life plan, you have the option to request a refund of the base plan within the first 30 days if you’re unhappy with the plan or service.

There is also a Best Value Promise, which means if you find a plan with a better price/data ratio, you could receive a price or data match, or $25 credit.

Network and coverage

Circles.Life uses the Optus network, which provides coverage to 98.5% of the population. At this stage you can only access 4G in Australia.

Excellent customer service

One point of difference that comes up continually in Circles.Life reviews is its customer service. Even though you can’t contact a service centre on the phone, you can chat with support via the app within 30 seconds (which is arguably a better option than waiting on hold).

You can also leave a voicemail on the toll free number or send an email to customer support.

Using the Circles.Life app

One of Circles.Life’s outstanding features is its customer-friendly app, which is hailed as one of the most intuitive telco apps out there. You can switch on international minutes and extra data, track your usage and manage your bills, as well as change your plan up or down if you need to.

The app is also where you’ll find your unique refer-a-friend code that earns you monthly credit and bonus data, and where you can start a live chat with customer support.

Extras bonuses

  • VoLTE/VoWIFI.
    Circles.Life offers VoLTE, which allows you to make voice calls using the LTE/4G mobile network. It also includes VoWIFI, which uses WiFi to make calls when the network signal isn’t strong enough. These are features not available with all telcos, but you’ll need a compatible device.
  • Referral discounts.
    If you refer a friend to Circles.Life you’ll both get $5 bill credit and a 5GB bonus data add-on each month for 6 months when your friend activates their SIM card.
  • Bonus data and discounts.
    Circles.Life is one to keep an eye on because it continually releases almost-unbeatable extras and discounts that make its price-to-data ratio one of the best on the market. 
  • Ethical beliefs.
    In 2022 when cost-of-living pressures were pushing the cost of phone plans up, Circles.Life froze its prices. It has also launched its ‘equitable plan’ initiative that offers a discount to women equal to the gender pay gap.

What’s not perfect?

No international minutes included.
You can add a CirclesRoam Day Pass using your app that gives you 1GB of data per day for $15 for 20 eligible countries.

You can also use the PAYG International Roaming service that allows you to make calls, send texts and use data services while overseas. However, that’s an expensive service and there are better roaming options out there.

For instance, if you have a plan with a decent amount of data, you can use apps like WeChat, WhatsApp or Facebook Messenger to call anywhere overseas without needing to pay for any additional minutes.

Plans are set to auto-renew.
You’ll need to switch auto-renew off in the app if there’s a chance you want to cancel.

No 5G access in Australia.
5G has been available in Singapore for some time so it’s expected to roll out here in the future. Circles.Life does access the entire Optus network, which means you’ll get the same coverage as if you signed up directly with Optus.

Limits on guarantees.
If you’ve used more than 5GB of data you won’t be eligible for the 30-day satisfaction guarantee.

Who might like Circles.Life?

No matter which plan you choose, you’ll get good value for money when it comes to data. Even its smallest plan has 5GB per month for just $6.

While it may not be the cheapest option for making overseas calls, it does have a lot of perks for people using it for everyday use in Australia: great data, big discounts, wide coverage and unlimited calls and texts.

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