Best Prepaid Plans March 2020

What are the best prepaid plans available this month?

OVO and amaysim continue to rule the Prepaid category, once again taking out the respective top spots for their Small Mobile Plan (everyday use) and $30 UNLIMITED Plan (high usage). Why? Because these telcos continue to offer fantastic value that makes their Prepaid plans impossible to ignore.

For everyday use, OVO’s Small Mobile Plan costs $19.95 for 10GB of recharge value, which isn’t just one of the cheapest Prepaid plans going around, it’s also one that includes a couple of great perks.

For those who love lots of data, amaysim’s bumped up its $30 UNLIMITED Plan to 35GB per recharge, with a neat dollar saving on your initial outlay. Alternatively, OVO pokes its head in here as a contender with its $29.95 Medium Mobile Plan and Woolworths Mobile’s Pre-paid Mobile $30 Recharge is also worth considering.

Best Prepaid phone plan for everyday use March 2020

Marching into the same everyday-use winner for March may feel regimental, but you can be at ease knowing that a lot goes into weighing up our monthly winner in this category, even when it’s the same telco reappearing. Sure, cost and data are our primary considerations, but we also factor in other bells and whistles.

Take our March winner, for instance. OVO’s Small Mobile Plan takes out the top spot for the fourth consecutive month because, when you’re looking for at least 10GB of data, it’s one of the cheapest. This OVO Prepaid plan operates on a 30-day recharge cycle, which saves you a recharge per year (compared to 28-day Prepaid plans) and translates to $239.40 cost for your first year.

It’s this combo of dollar savings and data that impresses at first glance, but two powerful perks keep making this plan irresistible. First, there’s an included Family Zone subscription for protecting one device, which is great for parents. Then there’s OVOPlay, which is an unmetered streaming service for video and radio that lets you earn data towards your next recharge the more you use it.

Best Prepaid plan on the Telstra network March 2020

There are a lot of familiar Prepaid plan faces this month, and this is absolutely true of our two returning recommendations for this category. ALDImobile’s $25 L Value Pack works on a 30-day recharge cycle and has 18GB of data ($300 first-year cost), but you can benefit from up to 30GB of data rollover between recharges to pay forward unused megabytes (or gigabytes). Plus, there’s also 100 minutes of calls for 35 selected countries and, impressively, also unlimited calls to 15 selected international dial destinations.

Alternatively, Boost Mobile’s $30 Prepaid plan costs a bit more overall but you get more data. It operates on a 28-day recharge cycle, which means you’re looking at a first-year cost of $390. That said, there’s a promotion running until 31 May that includes 14GB of bonus data on your first three recharges, which is made all the sweeter by unlimited data rollover (as long as you recharge before your plan’s expiry date). If that’s not enough perks, Boost also tosses in 100 minutes of calls and SMS to 35 countries, plus unlimited talk and text with 20 selected countries.

Cheapest Prepaid mobile plan March 2020

It’s great to have a highly competitive category that changes month to month. While OVO and amaysim have had recent appearances here, Woolworths Mobile is our top pick for cheapest Prepaid plan care of its Pre-paid Mobile $10 Recharge. It’ll set you back $120 for the year, and that cost grants you unlimited talk and text, plus 1GB of data on a 30-day recharge cycle.

Best Prepaid phone plan for high usage March 2020

Despite the fact that amaysim has been dominating this category for months, the telco has decided to make its already great $30 UNLIMITED Plan even sweeter. Last month, that $30 per 28-day recharge gave you 30GB of data; now for the same price, you get 5GB of bonus data, which means 35GB for the life of the plan.

If you buy into this Prepaid plan before the end of March, you can try it for $10, before it reverts to the $30 usual cost ($370 first-year cost with the special pricing). It’s not all about the data, either, because this amaysim Prepaid plan also includes unlimited international calls to 10 selected countries.

OVO may have lost out on the everyday top spot for March, but it’s a worthy contender for data lovers care of its Medium Mobile Plan. It’ll cost you $29.95 per 30 days for 30GB of data ($359.40 first-year cost), 100 international minutes for calling selected countries, plus there’s an included Family Zone subscription and OVOPlay, which gifts data the more you use it.

Speaking of perks, Woolworths Mobile’s Pre-paid Mobile $30 Recharge combines 30GB of data on a 30-day recharge cycle ($360 first-year cost), with data banking (up to 200GB), two-device Family Zone subscription, and a once-a-month 10% shopping discount at Woolies.

Best PAYG plan

Maybe you don’t need any data inclusions and would prefer to only pay for what you use. Or maybe you simply need to park a mobile phone number while you travel abroad. In these cases, you might be looking for an old-school Pay-As-You-Go (PAYG) plan.

These types of plans aren’t typically associated with great value. In place of inclusions, like a set data or call amount, they offer rates for calls, texts and data that are deducted from the amount you recharge with. For example, if you have a PAYG plan that charges 12c per minute and you recharge with $15, you will have 125 minutes to use (assuming you don’t use any text or data, which each come with their own charges).

The absolute lowest amount of money you can pay per month is $1 with TPG’s PAYG plan. It will cost you $30 upfront to set up the SIM but after that, you will have 50MB of data per month to use and will be charged 9.9c per minute (plus a 10c flagfall fee) for calls and 9.9c per message. That’s incredibly low usage but if you’re after a PAYG plan, that’s probably what you’re after.

How do I change prepaid plans?

Switching prepaid plans and providers is nowhere near as stressful as switching postpaid plans. The process will be different for every provider but, typically, all that’s required to switch prepaid “plans” is to select a different recharge type next top-up. Other providers will ask you to switch rate plans via an automated service over the phone, and some let you do it all from their app.

Switching providers is almost as simple, but not quite. If you want to switch providers and keep the same number, make sure you approach your new provider with the mobile number you would like to switch, the associated account number (if available), and your personal details for security purposes (e.g. name, date of birth, driver’s license number).

Where you might run into trouble is using one provider’s prepaid handset with another’s prepaid SIM. Unlike contract phone plans, prepaid phones tend to be network locked. Unlocking your prepaid handset will come with a small fee, which may vary depending on the make and model of your phone and the date of purchase.

What is the difference between prepaid and postpaid plans?

Postpaid plans are usually associated with contract terms and included handsets (though there are some decent month-to-month SIM plans available these days) whereas prepaid plans are low-commitment plans that give you more control over your spending.

With prepaid plans, you pay for the calls, text and data you think you will need before using them. Postpaid plans, on the other hand, calculate your usage at the end of your billing month and bill you for the calls, text and data used over that period (typically with excess fees if you go over your plan’s inclusions).

Both offer their own peace of mind; prepaid plans simply restrict your network access when you’ve burned through your data, whereas excess usage on a postpaid plan will result in additional charges on your bill at the end of the month. But prepaid plans come with the risk of getting cut off without notice, which can be dangerous if you forget to recharge, whereas postpaid plans will only cut you off if you fail to pay the last month’s bill after it’s due.

Which prepaid plans allow tethering?

You would be stretched to find a prepaid provider and plan that doesn’t allow for tethering these days. We reviewed every Australian prepaid provider and couldn’t find a single provider that didn’t offer tethering on its prepaid plans. The Optus website states that prepaid tethering is available on “most plans” but we checked with the customer service team who confirmed it was available on every prepaid plan.

So, here are the prepaid providers that allow tethering:

• ALDI Mobile
• amaysim
• Boost Mobile
• Coles
• Dodo
• Hello Mobile
• Hive Mobile
• Jeenee Mobile
• Kogan Mobile
• Lebara Mobile
• Lycamobile
• Optus
• OVO
• TeleChoice
• Telstra
• TPG
• Vodafone
• Woolworths

What is the best prepaid plan for international calls?

We’ve already mentioned amaysim’s stunning value on its prepaid options above but one added bonus you get on these plans is international call and text inclusions. On the highest recharge option, amaysim offers 300 standard international minutes to 22 countries every month (and unlimited standard international calls to another 10 countries). ALDI Mobile also offers unlimited calls to 15 countries and an extra 400 minutes to 35 more countries. Both outstanding, all-rounder prepaid plans but if international calls are your number one priority, look no further than Lebara

Lebara already offers top data-per-dollar value on its XXL Plan but it also offers unlimited calls to 56 selected countries and an additional $10 for calls to every other zone.

More prepaid plans

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