Survey Claims UK Broadband and Mobile Users Save up to £258 by Haggling or Switching
A recent survey of 5,014 UK adult consumers, which was conducted by Which?, has claimed that the average broadband-only ISP customer could save £100 per year by switching to a new provider – rising to £160 and £155 on Sky Broadband and Virgin Media respectively. Similarly, those who haggled saved £65 (rising to £92 and £85 respectively on Virgin Media and BT).
The story is similar for mobile and TV customers. Mobile customers who switched operators and swapped to a SIM-Only deal were found to have saved an average of £258 a year, while those who stayed with their existing network and instead opted to haggle their way to a SIM-Only plan were able to save £210.
Across all types of mobile contracts, EE, O2 and Vodafone customers stood to make the biggest savings by switching away from their provider. Meanwhile, EE, O2 and Vodafone customers who left their current provider and switched to a different network or SIM-Only deal saved an average of £163, £127 and £121 respectively. Finally, out-of-contract TV and broadband customers could save an average of £169 by switching (rising to £237 on Sky TV), while haggling with an existing provider resulted in savings of £99.
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However, it’s important to say that haggling is more likely to work with providers, particularly the biggest players (they have dedicated retentions departments), where discounting is a routine practice for attracting new and retaining existing customers. By comparison, smaller providers don’t traditionally offer big discounts to new customers and their prices may be more stable, thus haggling is less likely to return a positive result. Nevertheless, it’s always worth a try, and the worst thing they can say is “no”.
All of this is particularly relevant given the recent announcements from a number of broadband and mobile providers (e.g. BT – here and Virgin Media – here), which have increased the level of mid-contract price hikes they apply. For example, BT’s mid-contract hikes, which are applied from April each year, jumped from £3 to £4 (monthly). We’re expecting a number of other providers to soon follow suit, as per usual.
On the other hand, it’s now easier for consumers to switch providers than even before, thanks to systems like One Touch Switching (OTS) on broadband and Text-to-Switch (Auto-Switch) on mobile. Which?’s survey similarly discovered that most consumers found the switching process easy. This was the case for 80% of broadband and 79% of mobile customers, albeit falling to 69% for those with a broadband and TV bundle.
The main reason(s) people switched also varied by sector. Mobile customers switched for a better mobile deal with another provider (41%) or because they had issues with signal and reception (13%). By comparison, broadband customers switched to avoid slow speeds (21%) or an unreliable connection (16%), while broadband and TV bundlers looked for a new provider because of poor customer service (17%).
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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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I’m just in the process of switching from BT to Plusnet (complete on the 28th fingers crossed). I have spent the last couple of weeks replacing all the the bundled stuff with my own kit and started a new VOIP line with Andrews & Arnold so hopefully swapping providers in future will be a breeze.
The end of contract dance is a big reason I avoid Sky and Virgin like the plague (besides their generally rubbish customer service). I’d rather use a smaller provider that hasn’t built a business model around ripping people off unless they call up and do the cancellation pantomime.
Exactly this. If it made financial sense to provide me a service for a set price for the initial 12/24 months, I’m pretty sure it won’t magically cost 50% more suddenly. The price I paid during the initial term should have paid for the installation costs already, so if anything, the price should go down.
I would never use an ISP who are penalizing out of contract customers just for the purpose of ripping them off.
I’m still with Zen, out of contract for about 4 years. If they tried this trick I would have left after the initial term.
I really don’t understand it? I guess I will never make a business man?
At the rate some of the major players are losing out to alt nets why would you chance losing more customers with mid or end of contract price hikes and then having to put up prices again when you lose market share?
Customers often don’t consider future rises and base their purchase decisions on what is cheapest now. They buy on initial headline price.
Providers that have an initial higher price with no future rises do less well, generally, than ones that start with a low price.
Service providers are just reacting to observed customer behaviour.
I am fine with the broadband I have, could I get cheaper? Yes, for a while until they start sticking the prices up. I could get 100Mb/s from Now broadband for £25 a month, but they say prices may rise in contract, but they don’t say what to.
I can get 500Mbs from Plusnet for £30.99 and then it rises to £44.99 a month from 31st March 2026, £48.99 a month from 31st March 2027.
So not worth changing and it is hassle as need to have Openreach network installed and to be honest, if I can help it I prefer not to go back to Openreach.
Mobile, Smarty is fine at the moment, unless Vodafone mucks it up, £5 a month for 4GB of data, unlimited calls and text. Looking around just for the fun of it, the only one I can see that offers anything close is something called spusu, who ever they are.
Sure, there are some that offers a load of data for a a fiver a month for the first 3 months and then stick the price up to a tenner a month, like ID mobile. Which is fine if you want or need 50GB of data a month. They also shove you into a contract. No contract for smarty, just pay monthly.
There are some people who may save a fair bit, certainly with mobile if they use a lot of data, but need to keep an eye on what the costs rise to.