The amount of data included with Sim-only deals has been increasing faster than usage – or in other words, providers are now offering more for less. To help you get the best bang for your buck, we’ve looked at the best and worst deals for £5, £8, £12 and £16 a month to show how little you could be spending to still meet your needs.
Best data allowances for £5 Sim-only deals
In the past, a £5 Sim deal might only have afforded you 250MB or 500MB of data - essentially enough just for emergencies. Today, you should be looking for at least 2GB for your money.
As well as the price, when choosing a deal keep in mind networks offer other benefits and reasons to join. For example, Smarty includes 12GB of free EU roaming with all of its Sim-only contracts.
Best data allowances for £8 Sim-only deals
Spending just £8 a month can get you as much as 30GB on a monthly contract, which our survey found would be enough to meet the needs of three quarters of mobile users. Only 23% of people said they use more than 30GB per month.
Alongside incredibly cheap data, Talkmobile offers 5GB of free EU roaming, while iD Mobile allows data rollover. This means if you have unused data at the end of the month, it gets added to your next month's allowance.
Best data allowances for £12 Sim-only deals
Once you pay over £10 for data, you unlock the type of deals that will be sufficient for all but the most extreme of data users, as 100GB is easily accessible.
With 30GB of free EU roaming included with all contracts, iD Mobile is a great choice if you expect to use a lot of data while travelling. Smarty allows group plans, which saves 10% on each additional Sim added, which could help a family or group of friends save.
Best data allowances for £16 Sim-only deals
As only 2% of Sim-only phone users said they use more than 50GB per month, so spending as much as £16 per month shouldn't be necessary for most. However, if you are a very heavy data user or rely on hot-spotting as an alternative to broadband, you can get a huge amount of data for your money.
Look out for further opportunities from providers, such as with Smarty, If you refer a friend you will both receive £10 vouchers for Amazon.co.uk, John Lewis Partnership or Uber. Three has an extensive range of perks, such as free Paramount+, or a variety of benefits from the Three+ scheme. For example, offers on Caffè Nero, Moonpig and Cineworld or access to presales for festivals, music gigs and comedy events.
Four more things to consider when switching to a better Sim deal
How to switch mobile networks
Text to switch has made switching mobile network easier than ever. You need a porting authorisation code (PAC), which you get with a simple text message from your current network provider. Previously, to get a PAC you had to call your provider, who would often try to deter you from switching and make the process frustrating.
To switch and keep the same mobile number, text PAC to 65075.o switch and change your number, text STAC to 75075source https://www.which.co.uk/news/article/how-to-get-more-data-for-less-on-a-sim-only-deal-aeOuw4o2V73m