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, while others use data sharing, where multiple plans share a single pool of data – potentially up to 20 friends and family members, depending on the plan.

And even if a telco doesn’t offer formal '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 families who'd prefer more manual control over data allotments.

There are a couple of ways providers define a family mobile plan. The first and most common is a plan that involves data sharing. The second is pretty much a standard mobile bundling discount with the word "family" used in its branding – the more plans on one account, the bigger the saving.

Of the 30+ mobile providers in our database, only four offer family plans with data sharing, while three offer bundle discounts that increase based on the number of linked mobile plans – though two of these require you also have your NBN plan with that provider.

Four other telcos don’t offer family plans but do let you gift gigabytes to other users, as long as they’re with the same telco.

Data sharing is what most people think of when they're looking for family mobile plans. These plans let you add multiple plans to an account, then create a single data pool they all dip into. Sometimes the setup is simple – all plans cost the same and add the same amount to the pool. Other times there's a main, more-expensive plan with lots of data, and each added plan is relatively cheap and might only add a small amount to the pool, if anything.

The four mobile providers from our database that offer family mobile plans with data sharing are Optus (postpaid), Telstra (postpaid), Vodafone (postpaid), and ALDI Mobile (prepaid). To provide a quick comparison, here's a look at the cheapest mobile plan from each that's eligible for data sharing:

Mobile bundling discounts also aren't common, and only one provider in our database markets this as a "family" 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 is useful for families where all services are being paid for by the same bank account. It simplifies your admin by wrapping everything into the one internet and phone bill each month, while decreasing that bill at the same time.

The three providers in our database that offer multi-plan bundle discounts are Yomojo (prepaid mobile only), Exetel (NBN + prepaid mobile), and Superloop (NBN + prepaid mobile).

Once again, we'll go into more about these providers detail further on, but for now 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, instead of it automatically coming from a shared pool.

The the five 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).

Here’s a quick look at the cheapest eligible mobile plan from each of these providers:

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 as you read on:

• Fixed or combined data pool for sharing
• Ability to add multiple plans under the same account
• 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.

When it comes to Optus family plans, you have a few options – and you might need to break out the calculator when figuring out which is best for you. The quick summary is you can pretty much share data between any mobile plan that starts with "Optus Plus" or "Optus Choice Plus", but just what you opt to combine will be up to you.

The good news is, there's no limit to how many plans you can add to an account's data pool. There is a limit of four Kids Plus Plans for each account, however.

Whatever you pick, you can avoid unecpected excess data fees. If your little ones are prone to going overboard, Optus will simply slow your mobile connection, 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.

The Optus Plus Family Plan is $165 per month for 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 this plan is really only worth considering if you'll use all four SIMs or if your family's mobile data needs are high. 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 Parental Control subscription – whether you want that is up to you.

If you have more than four family members, you can add a $29 Optus Plus Kids Plan to the above setup (Optus also sometimes refers to this as the "Optus Kids" plan). This doesn't add any data to your data pool, but does include unlimited talk and text and can use the shared data from other eligible plans on your account.

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.

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 then pooled and shared, making this a good option for family mobile plans. Plan eligibility includes all Vodafone SIM-only plans, except for "Ultra+", "Vodafone Infinite", "Vodafone Infinite Data",  "Vodafone BYOD", "Plus", "Team", and "Promo Plans". You also can't data share with prepaid plans.

While this sounds like a lot of exclusions, the main takeaway is it applies to the Vodafone's most common plans: Small, Medium, and Large, which can also be paired with a phone repayment plan and include $5 International Roaming.

Bundling Vodafone mobile plans under a single account also introduces discounts: 5% for two plans, 10% for three, 15% for four, and 20% for five or more. 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. 

If you're in the market for a Telstra family plan, you have two options: straight-up data sharing, and mobile plan bundling. Though its bundling isn't about discounts to existing plans, rather you have the option of adding a cheaper 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 $52 to your monthly bill and only 25GB of data to your shared pool. This is cheaper than Telstra's Upfront Basic plan, but $52 for 25GB is about double what you might pay a smaller provider for 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.

• 50GB Family Plan: 50GB of shared data for up to two services, unlimited calls and SMS, 4,000 MMS, plus 200 minutes of shared calls and 100 shared SMS to 30 destinations
• 100GB Family Plan: 100GB of shared data for up to four services, unlimited calls and SMS, 6,000 MMS, plus 400 minutes of shared calls and 200 shared SMS to 30 destinations
• 150GB Family Plan: 150GB of shared data for up to six services, unlimited calls and SMS, 8,000 MMS, plus 600 minutes of shared calls and 300 shared SMS to 30 destinations

All ALDI Mobile family plans 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. The second SIM you add 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.

Note that data isn’t pooled, so each bundled plan will use its individual plan allocation. If you run out of data, Yomojo advises topping up via add-ons. 

For a family plan  alternative, consider going with a telco that offers data gifting. Belong, Everyday Mobile, More, and Tangerine all offer data gifting for their respective SIM-only customers. Everyday Mobile and Optus also offer data gifting for their prepaid users. Basically, data gifting allows you to gift data, typically in gigabyte increments, to users with the same telco.

Here’s how data gifting works for the mobile providers we track in our database:

• Belong: data gifting in 1GB increments up to five times per month (with at least 1.3GB in your data bank).
• Everyday Mobile: data gifting of up to 50% of your plan allocation (excluding data add-ons, bonus data, data bank and data gifted to you).
• More: data gifting in 1GB increments of up to 50% of your plan allocation.
• Optus: data donating up to 10GB (SIM-only) or 5GB (prepaid) per donation every 12 hours, with at least 5GB (SIM-only) or 2GB (SIM-only) remaining of your plan allocation.
• Tangerine: data gifting of up to 50% of your plan allocation.

Here’s a list of the cheapest SIM-only plans from the telcos in our comparison engine that offer data gifting.