If you’re looking for savvy tips as we head into the new financial year, then you may want to consider moving over to a 365-day long expiry plan.
Also called a long expiry plan, these are prepaid plans with a recharge that expires after one year. Most plans come with unlimited calls and texts, with data really being the component that determines the cost of your plan.
You can think about a long expiry plan as bulk-buying your data to save, just like you might with some groceries.
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Work out how much data you actually need
Before we go further, there’s every chance you’re paying for a large amount of data you don’t need if you’re on a monthly mobile plan.
According to the latest ACCC estimates, the average prepaid mobile plan customer uses just 7.5GB per month and the average postpaid customer uses 15.9GB per month. However, the median amount of data telcos offer for both types of plans is much higher.
For example, the big three telcos’ cheapest postpaid plans all start at 50GB — well above the average. Now think about the last time your telco put up your monthly plan prices — they likely gave you a few extra gigabytes of data to soften the blow. But do you actually use it?
Let’s take a look at how the prices compare to paying month to month.
365-day long expiry plan vs monthly prepaid plans
Here are the three cheapest prepaid plans in WhistleOut’s database with at least 7.5GB of data:
The three cheapest plans are all from TPG. The first comes with 12GB per monthly recharge. The first six recharges cost $10 before it returns to $20 per month. The total price for 12 months $180.
For our comparison, we’ll look at the three cheapest 365-day long expiry plans in WhistleOut’s database with at least 100GB of data (we’ve taken our 7.5GB figure, multiplied it by 12 to get 90GB and rounded it up):
The cheapest plan here is from Catch Mobile. It comes with 120GB of data (or 12GB per month) for $109 on the first renewal.
Compared to the TPG plan, you’re actually getting the same amount of data but for $70 less.
365-day long expiry plan vs monthly postpaid plans
Next, here are the three cheapest monthly postpaid plans in WhistleOut’s database with at least 16GB of data:
The cheapest plan here is from Moose Mobile, it comes with 25GB. It’s discounted for the first seven months to $9.80 with the price returning to $24.80 per month afterwards. The total price for 12 months is $192.60.
For this comparison, we’ll look at the three cheapest 365-day long expiry plans in WhistleOut’s database with at least 200GB of data (we’ve taken our 16GB figure, multiplied it by 12 to 192GB and rounded it up):
Here the cheapest plan is from Kogan. It comes with 300GB (or 25GB per month) for $135 on the first renewal.
That’s a saving of nearly $60 and once again you’re getting the same amount of data.
Dylan Crismale is Digital Content Editor at WhistleOut, Australia’s mobile and internet comparison site.