Compare Postpaid Plans

Why compare postpaid plans with Canstar Blue?

What is a postpaid plan?

Postpaid phone plans are plans that you pay for after you’ve used the plan’s inclusions. You’ll typically receive a bill each month, much like other utilities such as your internet, and be required to pay that bill before a due date.

Your plan will have a set amount of inclusions for calls, SMS and data, as well as any extras your telco might offer, such as international calls and texts. If you go over any of these inclusions, or access a service not included on your plan, you’ll be charged an additional amount on your bill.

Inclusions on your postpaid plan will depend on what the provider offers. Often you’ll pay more for higher amounts of data, while unlimited calls and SMS are usually standard inclusions. Some providers offer extras such as international calls and SMS, entertainment bonuses and no excess data charges (in the form of unlimited capped-speed data).

12 month mobile plans

12-month phone plans used to be fairly standard, and some telcos might have required a credit check to ensure you could pay your bills. However, there aren’t too many providers offering 12-month postpaid plans anymore. Typically providers which offer 12-month as well as month-to-month plans, will offer incentives such as more data for your money, to encourage you to sign up for a 12-month contract.

Month-to-month plans

Month-to-month plans are now the norm when it comes to postpaid plans. Sometimes referred to as ‘no lock-in contract’ plans, your plan essentially runs month-to-month with the freedom to cancel your plan whenever you want without incurring any early exit or termination fees.

However, depending on when you cancel your plan, you may have a final bill you need to pay off after you’ve cancelled. You might also be charged the full month’s plan fees, even if you cancelled a day or two into the new billing cycle.

Best postpaid providers and plans

When it comes to choosing a postpaid phone plan, you’ll have a lot of options not just for the plan, but for the provider you want to sign up to.

The big three telcos, Telstra, Optus and Vodafone, are perhaps the providers that first spring to mind when it comes to the typical postpaid plan where you’re billed monthly. However, there are also plenty of smaller providers, known as Mobile Virtual Network Operators (MVNOs), who also offer postpaid phone plans. Sometimes these smaller providers will offer cheaper plans or more data for your money than the big three. However, the big three telcos might also pack in a little more value in terms of extras.

These smaller providers — including Belong, Dodo, Woolworths Mobile, Moose Mobile, TPG and Southern Phone — will use either the Telstra, Optus or Vodafone mobile networks to deliver service to customers. It’s important that before you sign up to a new plan, you check the mobile coverage of your chosen provider to ensure you will have network coverage where you live and any other places you frequently visit.

Finding the best postpaid provider will depend on what you’re looking for in a mobile phone plan. If you think about what kind of inclusions there are, along with your budget, you can then start to compare options from a range of postpaid plan providers.

To help you make this decision, and if you want to know what other Aussies think of their postpaid provider, every year at Canstar Blue we release a report on Australia’s favourite SIM-only postpaid phone plan providers. We survey Aussies with a postpaid plan to rank their current provider across a range of metrics including network coverage, customer service, billing and overall satisfaction. The overall winner is awarded Most Satisfied Customers for Postpaid Mobile SIM-Only for that year.

How to find the best postpaid plan

The best postpaid plan will differ from person to person, as we all have different needs. 

When choosing a postpaid plan, it’s important to consider a few things and to have realistic expectations as to what you need before signing up to a new phone plan.

Inclusions

Before signing up to a postpaid plan, you’ll need to think about which inclusions are must-haves for you. This will include plan basics such as data and international calls, but can also include 5G network access, unlimited capped-speed data and other extras.

Data will be the most important inclusion to look at for most people and it determines which plans you’ll want to compare. While it’s easy to think that a plan with more data is a ‘better’ plan, if you don’t actually use much of your included data, you might be better off saving money with a cheaper plan and a smaller data inclusion.

You might also want to consider whether you want a plan that doesn’t charge excess data fees. Telstra, Optus and Vodafone all include unlimited capped-speed data on postpaid plans, so if you go over your fast data inclusions, you won’t be charged extra fees and will be able to continue using data but at a capped speed (which is typically fast enough for basic activities like browsing social media and music streaming).

It’s important to be realistic about what you want on a plan to avoid paying too much for a plan with inclusions you don’t really need or use.

Cost

The other factor to consider is a postpaid plan’s cost. Often things like data inclusions will determine how much you pay for your plan with larger data inclusions on the more expensive plans.

For this reason, it’s important to be realistic about what you need on your plan in order to set a budget. While everyone would like to save money on a cheap phone plan, setting your budget to a $10 plan with only 1-2GB of data per month, isn’t going to work for you if you regularly use 10GB per month or more.

Once you’ve set your realistic expectations for budget and inclusions, you can then compare postpaid plans from a range of providers to help you find the best plan for your needs.

Is a postpaid plan right for me?

One of the advantages to postpaid is that you’ll never be without your inclusions, unlike prepaid plans where you run the risk of using up your inclusions before your plan resets.

However, for some, this is also a disadvantage. Considering that you can typically keep using your plan and access calls, text and data, means you also run the risk of paying extra for any inclusions you go over. You’ll also be billed extra for any additional services you access which are not part of your plan’s inclusions.

For example, if you go over your data allowance, you might be charged for extra data. Usually providers will charge an extra $10 per 1GB of data, so you might be charged an additional $10 or so, on top of your regular plan fees. If you go over your data regularly, this can really add up.

This is one of the reasons why some people don’t like postpaid phone plans, as those extra charges can add up and contribute to ‘bill shock’. Bill shock is especially common when you’ve been travelling overseas and perhaps used global roaming services on your current plan, and then been charged for these (which can be very expensive). That’s why it’s important to read the critical information summary before you sign up to any plan so you know what additional fees and services you might be charged for.

Postpaid plans are certainly convenient and being billed monthly might be more manageable than recharging a prepaid plan. Postpaid plans might also include access to extras, such as no excess data charges and entertainment bonuses, that prepaid plans often don’t have.

Ultimately, consider what you want in your phone plan and whether you prefer to pay for your usage after the fact with a monthly bill. If you don’t mind either way, it could just come down to finding a plan that best suits your needs. Considering that most postpaid plans are now month-to-month plans (removing the need to cancel a contract or pay exit fees), if you’re unhappy with one plan, you can always switch to another plan.

About our phone experts

Tara Donnelly: Utilities Editor

As Canstar Blue’s Utilities Editor, Tara Donnelly covers the internet, mobile and energy sectors – topics she’s spent a decade focused on, alongside consumer technology, within the comparison industry. Her telco expertise has seen her appear in national media including 9 News, 7 News, Sunrise, the ABC and The Sydney Morning Herald. You can follow Tara on LinkedIn and Twitter.

Josh Filosi: Data Insights Analyst

Josh Filosi is Canstar’s Data Insights Analyst, and helps develop and deliver the methodology for Canstar Blue’s Value Rankings and Awards for the telco industry. He holds a double-major in Economics and Behavioral Science, and enjoys interpreting complex data. Connect with Josh on LinkedIn.