Whether you pay your bill at the beginning or the end of the month doesn't really matter - it all blends together after the first payment anyway.
So what does prepaid offer that postpaid doesn't and visa versa? And which one is right for you?
At a glance
Prepaid
- Pay before you use the service
- Can pick a different recharge amount at any time
- Doesn't require a credit check or have age requirements
- More flexible options ranging from 1 day recharges to 365 days
- No bill shock
Postpaid
- Pay after the service has been used
- Some plans come with additional perks and benefits
- Can bundle in a phone with some providers
- Paid monthly
- Many come with capped speed data if you use your monthly allowance
Here are how the cheapest prepaid and postpaid SIM plans in our database compare:
How to only pay $99 per year for your phone bill
It's simple, just look at long-expiry prepaid plans.
365-day prepaid plans are a cheap, and convinient way to pay for your whole year's phone bill at once. These recharges have a 365-day expiry, and start from as little as $99 per annum, or 27c per day.
Every postpaid plan on the other hand is paid monthly, so calculating how much you'll spend over the course of a year just takes some simple math.
Many cheap providers these days have deals lasting for the first six months. This means you'll save plenty at the beginning, but will need to do a bit more of an equation to figure out your yearly spend.
Here are how the cheapest 365-prepaid expiry plans compare to the most popular SIM-only plans on site.
So what is the difference?
Or is prepaid better than postpaid?
Neither type of SIM plan is better (or worse) than the other - they're just different.
The main differences (apart from when you pay), are the flexibility of prepaid, the added bonuses on postpaid, and that you'll ALWAYS need to BYO phone on prepaid when you can get a phone on a plan with postpaid.
For people with ever shifting data needs, prepaid can be an excellent option. It allows you to top up before the end of the month or to change your data limit every time you need to. No paperwork required. These SIMs also come with a hard stop of sorts. If you run out of data then you run out. Either top up or live on WiFi for the rest of the month - bye bye bill shock.
Postpaid however can come with additional perks like cheap movie tickets, or bonus streaming subscriptions. It really does depend on the provider, but these plans tend to be less bare-boned than some from prepaid providers.
A couple of years ago "monthly" prepaid plans came with a 28-day expiry, so you'd need to top up 13 times every year. A lot of the time, this caveat made them worse value even though they looked cheaper on paper. Now, some prepaid providers are opting for a calendar month billing cycle making these type of plans even closer to postpaid. Just be sure to double-check.
