Giffgaff to Launch Cheaper 18 Month UK Mobile Contracts
Mobile network operator giffgaff, which normally only offers Pay As You Go (PAYG) and 30-day (monthly) style contract plans, has announced that they’re planning to introduce a new set of mobile plans with an 18-month minimum term from 11th April 2023. Expect to pay less for more mobile broadband data.
At present the operator’s regular 30-day plans (golden goodybags) tend to start at £6 per month for 2GB (GigaBytes) of data – including unlimited calls and minutes – and rise up to £35 per month for unlimited data. By comparison, the new 18-month plans will start at £8 per month for 6GB (the same 30-day plan gives you 5GB) and rise up to £35 for unlimited data.
Curiously, the price of giffgaff’s top two plans appears to be the same between both their 30-day and 18-month terms, which doesn’t seem very attractive. But giffgaff says that customers can still “[move] between price points as flexibly as they do with goodybags today” and there are no credit checks to prevent joining.
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Giffgaff’s Statement
Within that 18-months members are fully in control of how much they spend, moving between price points as flexibly as they do with goodybags today.
Anyone can join, there’s no credit check, and we’re hoping that from June good contracts can even be purchased using credit, meaning fair value for all. Something we know is important to you.
If you need to leave you can. Our Early Termination Fee, can be as little as £4/ remaining month. Making sure that no one is forced to stay if their circumstances change, whilst also keeping a fair exchange for us.
As I’m sure many of you have benefited from, we make improvements to our data allowances each year. If you’re on a ‘good contract’ you’ll benefit from any improvements we make on your plan too, without having to lift a finger.
If folks want to go SIM-only, or opt for a phone deal from us, they’ll get the same great value. Your phone and SIM payments will always be shown transparently and kept separate.
Essentially we are bringing the giffgaff goodness of goodybags to contracts. Which is also why they’ll come with features such as:
➤ Up to 5GB EU Roaming included.
➤ Reserve tank – 1GB data on us if you run out(available from £10 and above)
➤ Monthly Best Plan recommendations within the ‘Good contract’ range based on your usage the month before.We’re also not finished there, there are more improvements that we’d like to make in the future, such as improving the experience outside of your core contract/ plan for things such as Roaming, International Calling or extra UK data.
Despite the positive tone, the new plans are perhaps not as attractive as they could be for such a big change, and they go against giffgaff’s long-standing position on contracts, as still referenced via their own website: “Put simply, we’re the mobile network run by you, our members. And simplicity is kind of our thing. That’s why we don’t do contracts. We think you should stay with us because you want to, not because you have to.”
Credits to one of our readers (Gareth) for spotting this update.
Mark is a professional technology writer, IT consultant and computer engineer from Dorset (England), he also founded ISPreview in 1999 and enjoys analysing the latest telecoms and broadband developments. Find me on X (Twitter), Mastodon, Facebook, BlueSky, Threads.net and Linkedin.
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If this shakes up the mobile contract market in the UK then that is very much welcome
Welcome? I suspect the motivation here is that VMO2 don’t like the flexibility of giffgaff’s customer relationships, and want to (a) lock in customers, and (b) ensure that they’re also on the hook for a monstrous, non-cancellable annual price hike, as both O2 and BM already do.
Not dissimilar to the way BT are limbering up to start slowly throttling the life out of Plusnet. In both cases, some corporate breadhead at head office who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing thinks that the superior service and better prices of Plusnet and giffgaff are an affront to the larger, more dinosaur elements of the respective parent group.
I wont be surprised if long term they try to push people away from the 30 day bundles to these med-long terms contracts, so it could be disruptive, but not in a good way.
Unreasonable contract lengths for these poor value offerings. Far better deals are available from other MNVOs on the VMO2 network.
With a little searching Lyca Mobile currently offers 3GB for 1p, 5GB for 80p and 6GB for 85p per month respectively for the first six months, without contract on a 30 day rolling period.
All offerings include unlimited UK calls and SMS, plus 100 mins of international calls to 40 countries.
Downsides of Lyca Mobile are (in my experience) its poor CS and website UI, no eSIM support, VoLTE or Wi-Fi calling. That said my experience of giffgaff CS (albeit 10+ years ago) was also very poor.
Lycamobile has esim now.
Thanks tinker, that’s good to know.
I find Three to be cheapest then Vodafone and then Talkmobile if you looking for good 4G speeds stay away from Three that’s if you haven’t got a 5G smarthpone.
£9.95 im paying for 100gb which I got when they did Black friday offer which lasted until Jan 2023 and get 100gb for £10 as an additional sim which is for my partner on Talkmobile.
Giffgaff network USELESS very slow 4g sometimes can’t even send iMessage.
RWG mobile 5GB data and unlimited calls & text for £5 using EE
Lebera mobile 5GB data and unlimited calls & text for £5 using Vodafone.
Both have 5g and good 4g speed. Lebera mobile have Wi-Fi calling aswell.
RWG and lebera is best for now
Wrrong as RWG doesn’t have 5G yet. It’s still on 4G as they told me 5G isn’t ready yet.
@Phil – Wrong RWG do have 5G, your inof isnt up to date – https://www.rwgmobile.wales/rates-plans-eng-per/
Honesty we need Wi-Fi calling and 4G VoLTE calling on this network it would make an absolute difference to many people on giffgaff especially people are out coverage completely and isolated without these features
RWG do have 5g. I got 5g with good speed
Been with GiffGaff for about 10 years with my work phone and when I left my EE contract in 2021, I recommended myself and got £10 extra free credit on my existing account and my new one. That £10 credit became £20 and a tenner bonus on my work phone credit – win win, even if you just stay for a few months
Contracts, IMHO are a mugs game – I stuck with EE/Orange from 2004 to 2021 on a contract and moved between handset upgrades and SIM only with my number as and when. When I’d not had a new iPhone for about 6 years and wanted to jump from an iPhone 6Plus to an iPhone13, they were expensive, rude and unhelpful, so I bought it direct from Apple for £32 a month over 24 months and put in a £6 GiffGaff SIM. EE has wanted £60/month for 5GB data, which they reduced to £50 but was still over £240 over 2 years. Can’t justify that nonsense of paying £240 more for a phone service. I work from home and use half a gig a month. I paid £15 a month extra to Apple and it paid off the phone in 17 months. I now just pay £6 a month and plan to do this for many more years.
Some folk say 02 data is slow and unworkable. I am in Newcastle upon Tyne and it’s never been a problem here
This will shake up the market you must be joking uncompetitive over priced not enough data poor signal internet doesn’t work 1mb download
I ported my number to Giffgaff couldn’t send texts they couldn’t sort it out closed support tickets automatically couldn’t reply the issue wasn’t fixed for weeks ended up porting out Terrible network like O2
Giffgaf NO wifi calling poor signal you stuffed
RWG Mobile £10 20Gig but no wifi calling
Lebera and VOXI both have Wi-Fi calling and 4g calling and 5g
Looking at the plans from other MVNOs, I don’t see why I’d get into a long term contract with GiffGaff, especially on a network (O2) that lacks investment.
during the 18 month term, might prices ‘change’?
I will stay with Smarty unless 3 merges with Vodafone. then I will see what else is available, but i am not going for as contract. I pay a fiver a month 4Gb of data, which I use very little off, unlimited calls and text. The network is pretty reliable and the one place I do have a problem with it, I can use Wi-Fi calling.
One of the reasons I am looking at changing from Plusnet broadband is because of the long contracts