The best family mobile phone plans for sharing the love (and data)

Yes, but every provider’s definition of a family plan is different. There are family plans where you get multiple SIMs with shared inclusions for a single cost (e.g. ALDI Mobile and Optus) then there are “family” plans, which are just your standard data sharing options repackaged as a family offer. So while we're talking bona fide family plans here, we'll also touch on the next best thing offered by alternative providers. And if you're looking for the best phone plans for kids, specifically, you can read more about that here.

Before we take a closer look at your options, here's a breakdown of the top five most popular plans with at least 20GB of data that allow data-sharing.

Currently, only ALDI Mobile and Optus offer unique family plan arrangements where you can bundle multiple devices and phone numbers under a single plan with shared usage and costs.

As one of our most highly recommended Telstra MVNOs (Mobile Virtual Network Operator), ALDI Mobile gets a head-start by offering outstanding prepaid value on the Telstra wholesale network. It also so happens to be one of the only providers offering true family plan discounts.

There are three family plans offered by ALDI Mobile at $45 for 40GB and two users, $80 for 80GB and four users and $110 for 120GB and six users. If you do the math, those deals are very decent.

The $45 Family Plan works out at $22.50 for 20GB per month per user, the $80 Family Plan works out at $20 for 20GB per user and the $110 plan works out at $18.33 for 20GB per user.

Each plan includes a total data pool that each user/SIM card shares. So if one family member has a stronger appetite for data than the others, it will be deducted from the overall family data pool (rather than an excess charge or top-up fee). For example, on the $80 plan, if two users only use roughly 8GB per month, that leaves 64GB for the other two (32GB each).

The account owner can also set individual usage limits if one member of the family is using more than their fair share of data.

Take a look at the most popular individual phone plans from ALDI Mobile to compare them against the family value plans.

Optus offers a single family plan for four users at $149 per month ($37.25 each). It comes with 200GB of shared data (50GB each, evenly divided), unlimited talk and text to standard Australian numbers and includes access to the McAfee Safe Family app (which usually costs $8.99 per month). The closest comparable plan from Optus is the $45 Optus Choice plan, which offers 20GB per month. Not only is the Family Plan cheaper per user, but each user also gets over double the amount of monthly data than they would on the standalone Optus Choice plan.

Optus also offers a few other perks and options for families. Optus Pause is a feature available through the MyOptus app that lets you pause connectivity to select devices on your network (which sounds like a good option for family movie night) and when it’s time to add another SIM to your litter, you can simply add another Kids mobile SIM for an additional $29 per month.

Here’s a quick summary of the most popular individual Optus plans for comparison:

When there’s a will there’s a way and in the case of providers that don’t offer family mobile plans, the way is through data sharing. Telstra, Vodafone, Woolworths Mobile and Belong might not offer traditional family mobile plans but they do offer data sharing across devices on the same account.

Telstra’s current range of Upfront SIM plans all offer data sharing. Essentially, that means you can sign up for a big data plan and multiple cheaper plans to access one combined pool of data. For example, say one family member signs up for the 80GB $65 Medium Upfront plan and two others sign up for the 40GB $55 Upfront plan. That gives you 160GB to share with the family for $175 per month in total. It’s not cheap but Telstra still charges a premium for its market-leading network coverage (which is even more valuable now that Telstra’s 5G rollout has begun).

For Australia’s premium budget telco Vodafone, the data-sharing system is almost the same as Telstra’s with one key difference: Vodafone offers discounts for multiple services on one account.

For example, four $40 SIM plans on the same account results in a total of 120GB (320GB with the promo running at the time of writing) to share across each device. But thanks to Vodafone’s Bundle and Save system, each of the four plans would be discounted by 15%, costing $34 per month each ($136 in total). $136 for 320GB is incredible value.

Vodafone’s Bundle and Save discounts are available on all phone plans above $30 per month. Here’s every Bundle and Save discount through Vodafone:

• 2 plans: 5% off each plan
• 3 plans: 10% off each plan
• 4 plans: 15% off each plan
• 5 or more plans: 20% off each plan

Here’s a list of the most popular Bundle and Save Vodafone plans where data sharing is available (currently, that means postpaid plans only).

Just like its parent telco Telstra, Belong also offers data sharing (or, as it calls it, data gifting) to all their SIM only customers.

Even better, they allow unlimited data banking - and that includes gifted data. So, theoretically, if one person in the family didn't use much data at all, they could either send it to another family member or keep it for a rainy day.

Data can be gifted to anyone on the Belong network (not just those on eligible plans), and any data received can be banked for later use.

Here's a breakdown of Belong's most popular plans, all of which offer data gifting.

Lastly, there’s Woolworths Mobile. Yet another Telstra MVNO, Woolies doesn’t offer family plans or bundles per se but it does offer great value on the Telstra wholesale network and data gifting on all plans of up to 50% of your included data. However, data can only be gifted in 1GB increments and cannot be regifted. Still, anything unused will rollover into your 300GB data bank for future use, which is a bonus.

Woolworths Mobile also offers 10% off your grocery shop (up to $500) once per month. That’s a potential saving of $50 per month depending on the size of your monthly shop.

Outside of these perks, Woolworths Mobile has some great early-bird discounts on the latest Samsung Galaxy smartphones if you’re ever in the market for a new device.

Woolworths Mobile's overall value make it a constant front-runner in our recommendations for the best mobile phone plans every month.

Here’s a glance at the most popular Woolworths Mobile plans this month: