Find the right phone deal

A pay monthly contract bundles a handset and an airtime plan into one monthly bill, usually over 24 or 36 months. SIM only is the airtime alone — calls, texts and data — for a phone you already own. SIM only is dramatically cheaper: plans start around £4.50 a month, where a pay monthly contract with a new handset rarely starts below £9 a month plus an upfront payment. If your current phone still works, SIM only is almost always the better financial decision.

Check your last three bills or your phone's settings — iPhone shows it under Settings, Mobile Data; Android under Settings, Network and Internet, Data usage. Most people badly overestimate. As a guide: under 10GB covers messaging, maps and music if you are on Wi-Fi at home and at work; 10–50GB covers daily social media and some streaming on the move; over 50GB is for people who watch video on mobile data or tether a laptop. Buying an unlimited plan when you use 8GB a month is the single most common way to overpay.

Usually not. The cheapest unlimited 5G plan we track is £15 a month, while 108GB costs £9 a month on the same network — so unlimited is a 67% premium over an allowance almost nobody exhausts. Unlimited earns its money in two situations: you use your phone as your only internet connection, or you tether a laptop regularly. Otherwise a large fixed allowance is better value, and running out is far less likely than it feels.

Longer contracts lower the monthly figure but raise what you pay in total, because you are spreading the same handset cost over more months and paying airtime for longer. A 36-month deal can look £15 a month cheaper than the 12-month version of the same phone and still cost more overall. Work out the total: monthly cost times the number of months, plus anything upfront. Take the longer term only if the total is genuinely lower, or if the monthly figure is what has to fit your budget.

Often, yes. Paying more upfront reduces the amount of handset cost financed through your monthly bill, and on most deals the total comes out lower. The Google Pixel 9a in our picks is a clear case: £79 upfront brings it to £14.99 a month, where zero-upfront versions of similar handsets sit higher every month for two years. Compare the totals, not the monthly figures — and only pay upfront if losing that cash now does not cause you a problem.

Yes, and they are the most reliably underrated option. A refurbished iPhone 13 with unlimited data comes to under £480 across two years; the same handset bought new on contract costs roughly double. Refurbished handsets from a network are graded, tested and come with a warranty — usually 12 months. The trade-offs are cosmetic wear, a battery that has already done some cycles, and fewer years of software updates left. For anyone who does not need the newest model, it is the largest single saving available.

Coverage is local, so the honest answer is that no network is best everywhere. EE generally leads national 5G reach, Vodafone and O2 are strong in cities, and Three has the fastest average 5G speeds where it has built out. What matters more than any league table is coverage where you actually live, work and commute. Check your postcode on Ofcom's mobile checker before you commit, and remember that MVNOs — Lebara, Asda Mobile, iD Mobile — run on the big networks' masts, so they get the same signal for less money.

An MVNO is a provider that rents capacity on one of the four UK networks rather than owning masts. Lebara and Asda Mobile run on Vodafone; iD Mobile runs on Three. The signal is the same as the host network, which is why MVNO plans are usually the best value in any comparison. What you give up is not coverage but extras: fewer perks and rewards, sometimes deprioritised speeds at peak times, and typically no access to the host network's own bundles like included streaming subscriptions.

Very likely. Most UK networks apply an annual price rise every spring, and since 2024 Ofcom has required them to state it as a fixed cash amount in pounds rather than a percentage tied to inflation. Read the figure before you sign, and include it in your total: a £2 a month rise applied twice over a 36-month contract adds roughly £70. Rolling one-month plans avoid the problem entirely, because you can leave the moment the price changes.

Yes, and it is quick. Text PAC to 65075 and your current provider must send you a porting authorisation code within one working day, free of charge. Give that code to your new provider and your number moves across, usually within one working day. Do not cancel your old contract first — cancelling before you port is how people lose their number. The same text-to-switch rules apply whether you are moving to a big network or an MVNO.

Over the full life of the phone, usually yes — you avoid the interest built into handset financing and you are free to change airtime provider whenever a better plan appears. The catch is the cash: a flagship costs £800–£1,200 on the day. Buying outright makes clear sense for mid-range phones, where the handset is a few hundred pounds and SIM only plans start at £4.50 a month. For flagships it depends entirely on whether you would rather hold the cash.

We read the daily product feeds published by the networks and retailers we work with — currently O2, iD Mobile, Lebara and Asda Mobile — and normalise every deal to the same fields: real monthly cost, upfront cost, contract length, data allowance and total cost over the term. The quiz on this page scores that catalogue against your answers rather than against what anyone pays us. We earn a commission if you buy through our links, at no cost to you, and that commission does not change the ranking.