What to Look for in Prepaid Mobile Phone Plans

When it comes to prepaid mobile plans, you want to be looking out for certain things to get the best deals. In this article, we’re going to look at how you can get the best bang for your buck by detailing what you should be looking for in a prepaid mobile plan. Let’s take a look at some of the tips and tricks that can get you started.

What is a Prepaid Mobile Phone Plan?

Prepaid mobile phone plans are when you pay your chosen provider a predetermined amount of money upfront, which is then taken and converted into credits. These mobile credits can either be used on calls, texts, data, or a combination of the three. What you get out of these mobile credits is determined by the plan itself and what it offers.

Pros and Cons of Prepaid Mobile Phone Plans

Here are some of the pros and cons of prepaid mobile phone plans:

Pros:

- Get what you pay for

- No surprise charges (unless you’ve got excess data fees as an option on your plan)

- Great for budgeting

Cons:

- It can be a pain when you run out of credits

- Depending on how often you’re recharging the credits, it can sometimes end up costing you more

- Excess data fees, if they apply on your plan, can be far more expensive than the initial plan

Tips for What To Look For In a Prepaid Mobile Phone Plan

Tip 1: Choosing The Plan That Suits Your Budget

You should have a fairly concrete idea of how much you’re willing, or need, to spend each month on a prepaid mobile plan. Next, consider what you use your phone for and how integral it is to your daily life, whether through work or personal uses.

Following your self-determined budget, it’s time to shop around. There’s no right or wrong answer when it comes to the plan you choose. Look at the various carriers in Australia and see which one offers the best prices, coverage, and additional features that make their offer the best of the bunch. Our Catch Connect Prepaid mobile plans are great value!

Tip 2: Choosing a Plan That Suits Your Data Needs

Obviously, it’s important to consider how much data you actually need. This is where the price can change drastically. Sometimes the higher the data amount, the more value you get out of the price, but you also don’t want to get more data than you realistically need. So consider what you use data for, how much of it you’d need in a month, and figure out which plan offers the best value for your data needs

It’s essential that you cover all your basis for what you need data for during a given month. So here are some of the features or apps that can consume a lot of data:

- Streaming video (YouTube, TikTok, Netflix, etc.)

- Online games

- Social media (Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Pinterest, etc.)

- Music streaming (Spotify, Apple Music, YT Music, etc.)

- Video calling and Facetime

- Calls using data (WhatsApp calls, etc.)

Tip 3: Choosing a Provider

Don’t just look into one or two providers when shopping around for a plan. Instead, try and see what all the major providers offer and see where they might be the right choice before doing further research. While you may already have some ideas about who you want to use for your prepaid mobile phone plan needs, it’s important to know what everyone offers.

A great way to determine which phone carrier is best for you is by getting all the information not just on their service but also on their customer service. You want a carrier that’s reliable and upfront instead of a company that’s hard to reach and features hidden costs.

We pride ourselves on providing highly competitive prepaid mobile plans in Australia. We consider ourselves to be in the top 5 providers:

- Catch Connect

- Amaysim

- Optus

- Kogan Mobile

- Telstra

Tip 4: Extras

This is a double-edged sword. You want to look for all the extras to see if they’re either making the plan more valuable or if they’re inflating the price without offering anything beneficial. Some extras can include free months if you pay for an annual plan or something similar. Other extras can be gift cards, additional services, etc.

Be careful when looking at extras. You want to know that what you’re spending money on is worth it. So make sure you’re not getting sucked in by extras that sound great but don’t serve you any purpose. For example, some carriers have frequent flyer points. However, if you’re an infrequent traveller, you may never get the full benefit of this extra.

Tip 5: What Excess Data Fees Do Each Carrier Charge?

The vast majority of prepaid mobile plans provide a fixed data inclusion for a monthly fee. So if your plan allows for 10GB of data, the price becomes dramatically higher once you go over that 10GBs. For example, say the plan is $35, but you go over your allotted 10GBs by 1.5GBs and are charged an additional $20 on top of the monthly fee. The value in your original deal has been diminished, and you’re paying far more for much less.

So, it’s important to take the steps seriously when determining what you need in a given month. Even if you’re paying a little bit more and getting slightly more gigabytes than you actually need, it’s far better than paying excessive amounts for excess data. Take a look at all carriers to see which one offers the fairest excess data fees in case you’re ever in the position where you do rack up additional excess data fees.

Conclusion

Prepaid mobile phone plans can be incredibly complicated, so it’s crucial to ensure you’ve got all your facts straight before signing up.

With Catch Connect, you’re given transparency, control, no lock-in contracts, and great deals to keep you connected. Take a look at our available plans and everything you need to know about our service on our website.