The best 365-day and long-expiry prepaid plans in Australia

There was a time when long-expiry plans featured the minimum inclusions and were used more for receiving calls than making them (or parking a phone number), whereas prepaid plans with 30-day recharge cycles included more overall value for calls and data.

When the weight of smartphone usage shifted from calls and text to data usage, people who comfortably got by on $150 to $200 per year began burning through that amount in a matter of days without knowing how they could use such much data. Nowadays, you can get a long-expiry prepaid plan with plenty of data to keep you afloat in a sea of software updates and cute cat videos.

Let’s take a look at the best long-expiry prepaid plans available in Australia.

If you’re after a long-life prepaid plan with a 365-day expiry duration, then Kogan Mobile currently offers the best choice for top data-per-dollar value. Kogan's Small Flex Plan gets you unlimited calls and text and 80GB of data (plus bonus data, for a limited time) to use over 365 days for the upfront cost of $120 (discounted from $179.90, for a limited time.

It's more than likely there will be a new promotion by the time your next recharge rolls around, otherwise switching providers is easy if you find you're no longer getting the same value.

The other small caveat is that Kogan runs on the Vodafone 4G network, which is the smallest of the three major mobile networks in Australia. Just make sure you've got ample Vodafone coverage before signing up.

If you don’t want to commit to the full 12 months, Lebara's Small 180-day plan is the best value choice with a decent 80GB of data for $120. Once again, this one shakes out at roughly 13GB per month and costs roughly $20 per month. The plan includes unlimited standard national calls and text, as well as unlimited calls and text to 21 selected countries and another 50 minutes to Zone 1 countries. Like the Kogan plan above, Lebara operates on the Vodafone 4G mobile network so be sure to check your coverage before signing up.

Here's a further list of 180-day long-expiry plans for comparison.

For the cheapest long-expiry prepaid plan, at the time of writing that crown was handed to the Woolworths $65 long-expiry recharge, which offers unlimited national calls and texts and 15GB of data for $65 over a 180-day recharge period. Obviously is you guzzle data like water on a hot day, 15GB of data won't suffice for six months, but if you hardly ever use the internet on your phone, this could be a real cost-effective option for you.

Plus, you get 10% off your Woollies groceries when you sign up to an eligible Woolworths mobile phone plan, so there's another reason your wallet will thank you.

If you're looking for a long-term mobile broadband solution, no provider is offering a better deal than ALDI Mobile at the moment. The Telstra-powered MVNO has three 365-day data-only SIM options at $95 for 30GB, $240 for 185GB and $365 for 365GB. As with most long-expiry plans, you obviously get a lot more value the more you spend per recharge but ALDI's $365 plan makes things even simpler. It's a dollar a day for 1GB of data per day over the year. Of course, you can use more than 1GB per day, you'll just burn through your 365GB faster.

ALDI Mobile's 365-day data plans can be used in a tablet or in a compatible USB modem or pocket WiFi device.

We've gone with Woolworths Mobile for our pick of the best long-expiry prepaid plans on the Telstra network for a few reasons. Firstly, it offers decent data-per-dollar value at $150 for 100GB every 365 days (plus unlimited standard national calls). The other reason we've rolled with Woolworths is its included grocery shopping discounts that you can claim every other month. If you spend $500 in one shop at Woolworths, you'll get 10% off, potentially saving yourself $50 per month. It's a great perk for big families where a $500 shop will be enough to get you through the weekend. Woolworths Mobile also offers early bird deals on Samsung Galaxy devices, which makes it one of our top picks for the best postpaid MVNOs on the Telstra network.

Here are a few more popular 365-day long-expiry prepaid options on the Telstra network.

Optus offers a huge variety of long-expiry prepaid options but the majority of them don’t actually include any data and instead charge per MB used (which is deducted from your recharge amount). This is an archaic pricing model but Optus does have options for long-expiry prepaid with included data. Here’s what’s on offer:

Long-expiry prepaid plans are, by their very nature, relatively straightforward and no-fuss. Their simplicity is a big reason that people opt for them. Still, there's a few things to keep an eye out for when choosing a long-expiry prepaid plan:

Didn't find what you were looking for? Let's recap by taking a look at the most popular long-expiry prepaid mobile plans currently available in Australia.