The best Prepaid plans available (June 2022)

It’s great to see telcos competing in the Prepaid space because it means you can pair a handset—iPhone 13, Google Pixel 6 or whatever other available phone you fancy—with a great value plan. Buying a Prepaid plan means you’re in control of how much you spend each month, with no contract, and a bill that comes upfront so you don’t have to worry about potential bill shock at the end of the month.

The run of category shake-ups continues this month, particularly with the appearance of the competitive pricing of Catch Connect Prepaid plans in our database. We’ve got new category winners for best Prepaid value, cheap and cheapest categories.

Scroll on for the full breakdown of all our winners.

The competition in this category gets tighter each month, but while Prepaid mobile plans that cost more tend to offer more data, we try to cap costs at $50 and stick to Prepaid monthly plans (28 days, 30 days or an actual month). This is the part where we usually introduce Gomo as the incumbent winner, but that’s changed this month with great value from Lycamobile.

The Lycamobile Unlimited Plan XL may operate on a 28-day recharge cycle, which means you tend to pay for at least one more recharge per year, but it’s packing plenty of dollars-to-data value for $50. It used to have 80GB of data but that’s recently been upped to 100GB, plus 20GB of bonus data for new and existing customers who recharge before 30 June 2022. This Lycamobile plan also includes unlimited calls to 53 selected countries.

For comparison, check out the daily updating list below for popular Prepaid mobile plans with at least 50GB of data.

We keep this category maxed out at $20 a month, which is usually taken out by an incumbent Woolworths Mobile plan. That wasn’t the case last month with the Coles Prepaid $20 for 30 Days plan swooping in to steal the crown, but both household grocery names have been usurped by Catch Connect this month.

The Catch Connect 30 Day Plan – 18GB almost says it all in the plan name, except for the $15 recharge fee you pay every 30 days. Get in fast (as in, before 7 June 2022) to nab an initial $12 cost for the first 30 days. There aren’t really any perks outside of this, but $15 typical pricing for 18GB of data is a good Prepaid price to pay on the Optus 4G network.

Below is a daily updating list of popular Prepaid mobile plans that don’t cost more than $20 per recharge.

The big battle for the top spot in this category has been between Gomo and Woolworths Mobile in recent times. While Optus nabbed the top spot recently, this category is back to Woolworths Mobile again this month, albeit with the better-value Pre-paid Mobile $40 Recharge.

Prepaid plans don’t tend to be as perky as their SIM Only counterparts, which is why we love seeing the many inclusions of this Woolworths Mobile winner on top of the $40-per-30-day price. For starters, that 52GB of data is served on the widespread Telstra wholesale network. This plan also comes with unlimited talk and text to 22 selected countries, 500GB of data rollover (up from 300GB), plus you can gift data to eligible Woolworths Mobile customers. Our favourite perk, though, is 10% off a Woolies grocery shop once a month.

For comparison, below is a daily updating list of popular Prepaid plans with at least 30GB of data.

Further down the page you’ll find a little box that outlines why we treat 30GB as a decent amount of monthly data for those with data-heavy Prepaid needs. While you can opt for the Gomo $35 Mobile Plan if 60GB is enough for your monthly Prepaid data needs or the Felix $35 Subscription for unlimited data (albeit capped at 20Mbps), we fancy the extra data that comes from Lycamobile’s Unlimited XL Plan.

Admittedly, it is a 28-day plan (compared to Gomo’s 30-day recharge cycle and Felix’s monthly subscription), but this Lycamobile winner operates on the Telstra wholesale network, which has greater reach than the Optus network that Gomo operates on and Felix on the Vodafone network. You also get 100GB of data every 28 days with the Lycamobile winner (up from 80GB), 20GB of bonus data (until 30 June 2022), plus unlimited calls to 53 selected countries.

For comparison, below is a daily updating list of popular Prepaid plans with at least 30GB of data.

There are odd times when Kogan Mobile doesn’t win this category, and the long-expiry-loving telco usually takes the top spot with its Kogan Mobile Extra Large – 365 Day Flex Plan. And while Optus temporarily dethroned Kogan not so long ago, that’s not the case this month as the Kogan Mobile Extra Large – 365 Day Flex Plan is back.

Paying $300 gets you 500GB of data with the Kogan Mobile Extra Large – 365 Day Plan, which normally costs $529.90 (admittedly, it was $180 recently). That works out to more than 41GB of data to use each month. While it used to be quite light on perks, this long-expiry plan now includes visual voicemail, Qantas Frequent Flyer Points, plus a 12-month Kogan First subscription.

For comparison, below is a daily updating list of popular long-expiry Prepaid mobile plans.

It’s okay to stick with last month’s winner, the Gomo $15 Mobile Plan, if you’d like more data and better overall value. But this category is all about getting a decent amount of data for as low a cost as possible, which is why the Catch Connect 30 Day Plan – 4GB takes out the top spot this month.

Don’t expect much in the way of perks at this price point, and certainly not from the Catch Connect winner. That said, you get 4GB of Optus 4G network data every 30 days for a $10 recharge fee. This is very competitive pricing for a cheap Prepaid plan and, impressively, $5 below our $15 cap for this category.

For comparison, check out the list of popular Prepaid plans below that come with at least 1GB of data and don’t cost more than $15 per recharge.

Prepaid mobile plans may not be as perk-packed as SIM Only alternatives, but there are still a handful of telcos that offer unlimited international calls. The cheapest is the Coles Prepaid $20 for 30 Days plan, which offers unlimited international calls to 15 countries.

The old incumbent winner of this category was the Amaysim $40 Unlimited Plan, but we fancy the Lebara $49.90 Extra Large Plan again this month, which comes with unlimited talk and text to 60 selected countries, plus 300 minutes to 16 selected dialling destinations and 50 minutes to a further 10 countries. International inclusions aside, this winning Lebara plan also comes with 80GB of data to use every 30 days.

Below is a daily updating list of some of the most popular Prepaid plans from the Prepaid telcos in our database that offer unlimited calls on plans with at least 10GB of data (Gomo, Coles Mobile, Lebara, ALDI Mobile, Exetel, Amaysim, Boost Mobile and Optus).

Last month, Prepaid users on the Telstra network had shuffled away from Boost Mobile, but the Boost $30 Prepaid plan is back to reclaim its undisputed popularity at the start of this month. That $30 recharge price happens every 28 days for 20GB of data, though you also net 20GB of bonus data on the first recharge. You can also roll over data from one recharge to the next (though not in perpetuity), plus this Boost Prepaid plan comes with great international call inclusions.

Optus Prepaid has recaptured the attention of purchasers for another month after Amaysim snatched the popularity crown not so long ago. At first glance, $30 per 28-day recharge for 10GB of data doesn’t seem like a flash deal. But this Optus Prepaid Epic Data – $30 Recharge plan is likely popular because of the bonus data.

For the first three recharges, you nab a bonus 30GB of data for 40GB in total to use. Unused data can also be banked up to 200GB, so those unused megabytes today can help you out in data-intensive months down the track. The remaining days can also be rolled over (up to 84), plus this plan includes standard talk and text to 15 selected countries.

Kogan temporarily dethroned TPG last month, but the latter telco is back with a big popularity lead at the start of the month. The TPG 12GB Mobile Plan is one we consider each month for our best budget category. It has an actual monthly renewal cycle (instead of 28 or 30 days) and comes with 12GB of data for $20 a month, though new customers can currently nab $10 monthly pricing for the first six months.

When choosing a Prepaid plan, it’s important to note the differences between plans (recharges), subscriptions and starter packs. Prepaid plans are the best indicator of ongoing value, especially when compared to starter packs. Subscriptions, on the other hand, are a convenient auto-recharging option that can offer SIM Only-like value.

Pick a plan duration that works for you. If you need data in a pinch, you can opt for plans with fewer than 28 days. Most Prepaid plans in our comparison engine, though, hang around that monthly point: either 28 days, 30 days or an actual month. Monthly plans are the easiest way to determine ongoing costs, and you’ll want to factor in an extra recharge per year for an ongoing 28-day Prepaid plan.

Cost and data are the main indicators of value, but also keep an eye out for the network. The Telstra network is the largest, followed closely by the Telstra wholesale network and then Optus, with Vodafone not far behind. Quality coverage should result in a better Prepaid experience, from call reliability to download and upload speeds. Finally, it’s worth factoring in any perks, such as international calls, but perks like this aren’t essential if you don’t intend on using them.

At the start of each month, we compare all relevant Prepaid recharges and subscriptions to pick new winners or confirm the continued reign of incumbent victors. Most of our categories involve monthly plans, which offer either 28 days, 30 days or a full month. When determining first-year value in our comparisons, we count 30-day recharges 12 times and 28-day plans 13 times.

We compare ongoing recharge pricing with included data, making sure to treat short-lived bonus data as a perk rather than an indicator of long-term value. To stop costs from blowing out, we cap the spend of our best value ($50), best cheap ($20), best big-data ($50) and best cheapest ($15) picks at specific max prices to find a balance between cost and data.

For the long-expiry category, we evaluate all of the plans in our comparison engine that have durations of 180 days up to a year. With this category and others, we also consider the network that the plan is offered on in the context of its pricing. Finally, for the international-calls category, we choose the plan that offers the greatest number of countries albeit at a reasonable price.

Below are the answers to some of the more pressing Prepaid plan questions.

Take a look at the most popular Prepaid plans in Australia according to WhistleOut’s comparison engine.