Best family mobile plans in Australia

Family mobile plans in Australia take different forms. Some let you combine a small number of bills under a single account. Others use data sharing, where multiple plans share a single pool of data with potentially up to 20 friends and family members, depending on the plan.

And even if a telco doesn’t specifically label its offerings as 'family' mobile plans, you still might be able to gift data to other users, as long as they’re with the same mobile provider. This can still be useful for parents who'd prefer more manual control over how much data their children have access to at any point in time.

There are a couple of ways telcos define a family mobile plan. The most common (and probably what most people are after) is a plan that includes data sharing. The second is pretty much a standard mobile bundling discount with the word 'family' used in its branding – the more plans bundled on one account, the bigger the saving.

Another option is data gifting. While not aimed at families, this lets you manually dish out data to other mobile plans with the same provider. It's kind of like data sharing, except with more hands-on control of who gets how much data and when. Data gifting is never referred to as a 'family' plan, but it shares similarities with data sharing so we've included a quick overview further on.

Of the 30+ mobile providers in our database, only four offer family plans with data sharing. Three offer bundle discounts that increase based on the number of mobile plans – though two of these also require you have your NBN plan with that provider. Four other telcos let you gift gigabytes to other users, as long as they’re with the same telco. You generally do this from your own personal data bank that stores your unused data from previous months.

Data sharing is when multiple plans all share a single data pool and this is probably what most people think of when they're looking for family mobile plans. 

Sometimes the setup is simple – all plans cost the same and add the same amount of data to the pool. Other times there's a main, more-expensive plan with lots of data, and each added plan is comparatively cheap and might only add a small amount extra, if anything. And sometimes it's a mix of those two options.

You can use the links below to jump to a more detailed summary for each of the four mobile providers from our database that offer plans with data sharing:

• Optus (postpaid)
• Vodafone (postpaid)
• Telstra (postpaid)
• ALDI Mobile (prepaid)

But first, here's a look at the cheapest mobile plan from each that's eligible for data sharing.

Mobile bundling discounts aren't common, and only one provider in our database markets this as a 'family' mobile plan. Unlike a more common mobile and internet bundle, where you receive a discount for having a single mobile and internet plan with the one provider, some bundles increase your discount the more mobile plans you have on the same account. Sometimes this involves an internet plan, sometimes not.

This isn't only handy for families because of the discount, but because it simplifies your admin by wrapping your mobile plan costs into the bill each month (and even your home internet bill, depending on the bundle), while decreasing that bill at the same time.

The two providers in our database that offer multi-plan bundle discounts are Yomojo and Superloop. You can jump to a more detailed description of what each offers using these jump links:

• Yomojo (prepaid mobile only)
• Superloop (NBN + prepaid mobile)

Here's a quick comparison of cheapest eligible mobile plan from each:

Plans with data gifting aren't specifically aimed at families, but might appeal to your needs. Rather than everyone dipping into the one big data pool, each plan has its own separate data allowance and you can manually gift some of your data to someone else on the same provider.

This could give parents more direct control and oversight over just how much data their kids are using because you know exactly how many GBs you've had to top them up each month. But it has the downside of requiring you manually share that data, which adds to your personal life admin and requires your kids notify you when they're getting low because you won't have oversight into how close they are to their limit without asking them.

The the four telcos from our comparison engine that offer data gifting are Belong (postpaid), Woolworths' Everyday Mobile (postpaid and prepaid), More Telecom (postpaid), and Tangerine Telecom (postpaid).

Given these plans aren't specifically aimed at families, we won't go into depth on each provider and what it offers. But if you're interested, here’s a quick look at the cheapest mobile plan from each of these providers:

If you're considering an Optus family plan, you have a few options – and you might need to break out the calculator when figuring out which is best for you.

We'll cover each option in more detail below, but the quick summary is you can pretty much share data between any mobile plan that has a name starting with "Optus Plus" or "Optus Choice Plus". There's also the "Optus Plus Family Plan" and "Kids Mobile Plans" that can be added to the mix. There's no limit to how many plans you can add to an account's data pool, but there is a limit of four Kids Plans for each account.

Whatever you pick, you can avoid unexpected excess data fees. If your little ones are prone to going overboard and drying up the data pool, Optus will simply slow your mobile connections, instead of automatically charging you overage fees. Granted, it will slow you to a painful 1.5Mbps, at which point you might decide buying a data top up is worth your while. But at least you'll avoid any nasty bill shock.

All these plans also get you access to Optus SubHub. This is a platform that lets you link multiple eligible subscription services together, combining them into one bill and netting you a 10% discount if you add three or more (or a 5% discount if you only add two services). This can be a good way to knock some extra dollars off your recurring costs, but does come with two caveats.

The first is that Optus' mobile plans are more expensive than some cheaper alternatives from smaller providers – enough so that any savings some SubHub mightn't cover the difference. The second is that, while telco-provided services like these are useful, it does make it harder to change telcos if you ever want to switch providers.

The Optus Plus Family Plan is $165 per month for a huge 320GB, which can be shared between up to four SIMs. The plan is the same cost and has the same data no matter how many SIMs you get with it, so it's only worth considering if you'll use all four SIMs or if your family's mobile data needs are unusually high (the average mobile service in Australia uses less than 20GB per month). Optus family plans have the same features as standalone Optus SIM-only plans, including no excess data charges, but a family plan also comes with a free McAfee Safe Family App subscription (usually $8.99/mth) – whether you actually want to make use of this is up to you.

A more flexible option is to simply grab multiple Optus Choice Plus plans (SIM only or with phone repayments). Much like the Family Plan, these plans share data with other Choice Plus plans on the same account.

Each plan adds its data to a central pool, sharing it with the rest. This gives you a bit more customisation with regards to how much data you have in your pool, and is probably better if you need less than four active mobile services.

You can also add Choice Plus plans to the Family Plan's data pool. And you can add Kids Plus plans to a Choice Plus plan.

You can add a $29 Optus Kids Mobile Plan a Plus Family plan, Choice Plus plan, or a combination of the two. Kids Mobile Plans don't add any data to your data pool, but do include unlimited talk and text and can use your account's shared data pool.

Vodafone offers a mix of data sharing and bundle discounts. The telco lets users combine up to 10 eligible SIM-only, tablet, or mobile plans under a single account. The data from these combined Vodafone SIM-only plans is automatically shared into a single pool, making this a good option for family mobile plans. If you’re worried about any data hogs on your makeshift family plan, the account owner can control who has access to the collective pool via the My Vodafone user portal. 

Plan eligibility includes Vodafone's Small, Medium, and Large postpaid plans, which can be SIM-only or paired with a phone repayment plan, and which include the telco's excellent $5 International Roaming.

Excluded plans include all Vodafone prepaid plans, as well as "Ultra+", "Vodafone Infinite", "Vodafone Infinite Data",  "Vodafone BYOD", "Plus", "Team", and "Promo" plans.

Bundling Vodafone mobile plans under a single account also introduces discounts of up to $125 per month if you go all-out and add 10 plans to the one account. The discounts look like this:

• $5 discount per month for the second plan added to your account
• An extra $15 discount per plan after that, up to a maximum of 10 plans on the one account

If you're in the market for a Telstra family plan, you have two options: straight-up data sharing, and mobile plan bundling. However, the telco's mobile bundling isn't about discounts. Instead, you have the option of adding a special cheaper plan (called the Mobile Bundle Plan) to an account that already has a more expensive one.

All Telstra Upfront plans (SIM-only or with a phone repayment plan) share their data with other Upfront plans on the same account. Each plan adds its data to a single pool, which they all dip into and can use equally.

While this approach has the advantage of tailoring your family plan to your needs, Telstra's cheapest Upfront plan has a whopping 50GB of data, so you might find you don't need nearly as much data as you end up paying for. And if everyone already has more than they need, there's not much benefit in data pooling.

If you have one of the two most-expensive plans – the Essential or Premium plan – you can add a cheaper Mobile Bundle Plan to your account. Each Mobile Bundle Plan adds $57 to your monthly bill and only 25GB of data to your shared pool. This is cheaper than Telstra's Upfront Basic plan, but $57 for 25GB is more than double what you might pay a smaller provider for a regular plan with the same amount. And given the Essential plan has 180GB and the Premium plan has an enormous 300GB, it's still very possible you'll be paying top dollar for way more data than you need.

There aren’t any notable family-specific perks outside of data sharing, but you effectively have all of the inclusions of Telstra Upfront plans, including no excess data fees (capped at 1.5Mbps speeds after the data cap) and access to the Telstra Rewards program.

ALDI Mobile's Family Plans are helpfully labelled as such, and are separate products to its normal mobile plans.

An ALDI Mobile family plan comes in three varieties. Each is a prepaid plan and has a different maximum number of services it can support. The data inclusions are shared across all family members, but the other inclusions are specific to each service. E.g. two devices share 50GB, but each gets 4,000 (unshared) MMS.

• $55 Family Plan: 50GB of shared data for up to two services, unlimited calls and SMS, unlimited international calls and text to 20 countries, plus 200 minutes of shared calls and 100 shared SMS to 30 destinations
• $95 Family Plan: 100GB of shared data for up to four services, unlimited calls and SMS, unlimited international calls and text to 20 countries, plus 400 minutes of shared calls and 200 shared SMS to 30 destinations
• $125 Family Plan: 150GB of shared data for up to six services, unlimited calls and SMS, unlimited international calls and text to 20 countries, plus 600 minutes of calls and 300 SOS to an additional 30 destinations

All ALDI Mobile family plans operate over the Telstra Wholesale network and are 5G enabled (capped at 150Mbps) with 30-day expiries. They also have unlimited data rollover (just recharge within 24 hours of expiry) as well as unlimited standard talk and text to 20 selected destinations.

Yomojo family mobile plans are another way for prepaid users to save money by putting multiple plans under a single account. Note: while the telco offers both prepaid and postpaid plans, these bundle discounts are only available with prepaid plans.

The second prepaid SIM you add to an active account gets you a 5% discount, after which each additional SIM gets you 2.5% off, up to a maximum of 15% for six SIMs. All Yomojo's standard prepaid plans are eligible, which means you get all of the basic plan inclusions like eSIM.

Important note: Unlike other "family"-branded mobile plans, the data of Yomojo's family bundle plans isn’t pooled – each plan can only access its individual data allocation. All of the telco's prepaid plans operate over the Optus 4G network, which you might be spurprised to hear provides similar population coverage to Telstra 4G. However, no Optus 5G is included. 

Superloop broadband customers can get discounts off their monthly bill for each additional service they add to their account, including mobile plans. You must be a Superloop broadband customer to be eligible for this discount.

The more active services you add, the bigger the discount. It's a $5 per month saving for the first, increasing by $2.50 for each one after that, up to a maximum of $15 off for five. This doesn't only apply to Superloop's mobile plans, either. Home phone and mobile broadband (data-only) plans also add to the discounts. This is similar to how Yomojo's family mobile plans are structured – the most notable difference being you need to have your home internet through the same provider as your mobile plans.

All Superloop's mobile plans are eligible for the discount. They also all include unlimited talk and text to 15 countries, which is unusually generous for cheaper plans.

Superloop operates over the Telstra Wholesale network, which has 4G population coverage somewhere between Optus and the full Telstra network, but a smaller 5G footprint than either. The cheapest mobile plan only has 4G access, but the rest have 5G, with download speed caps of 150Mbps or 250Mbps, depending on the plan. 

Just what exactly defines the best family mobile plans will vary based on your needs. While you're the best judge, there are some commonalities to keep an eye out for:

• Fixed or combined data pool for sharing
• Data gifting
• Bundle discounts
• Similar call/text and other inclusions compared to standalone mobile plan equivalents
• Speed caps vs. overage fees
• Data banking/rollover

Now we'll take you through how some bigger providers handle their family plans, looking at what you might expect to get if you sign up.