Feel like a change? Here’s some great SIM-only phone plans with great value

While the tide of mobile phone plans is changing, there’s still a lot of contracts out there; 12 months, 24 months, sometimes it can feel a little daunting. For the phone companies, of course, these are brilliant because it locks in some future income.

For consumers, though, plans without contracts are often preferred; there’s no lock in term, you can change when you like, and if your needs change, you can take account of that too. Sometimes contracted plans offer better value, but this isn’t always the case; some providers offer month by month plans with great value.

With some recent changes in the mobile plan space – Telstra’s huge plan simplification and the move to (mostly) contract free terms – there’s never been a better time to review what you’re paying for.

Plans with 30GB data or more

For big data inclusions, you can’t walk past Telechoice. Powered by the Telstra network, Telechoice offers 30GB of data with no contract for just $39 a month. Better still, if you’re in a hurry, Telechoice still has a number of stores around in shopping centres meaning you can probably sign up today and walk away with a new SIM.

Other providers offer different value propositions – Belong is $1 more expensive, but it offers unlimited international talk and text to 33 selected countries. You can also roll over your data to the next month, meaning if you have a lean month, you can save your data and have a bigger one next month. You can also save up a bit of data and drop your plan down if needed.

You can of course get more data than this – Jenee offers 40GB for $44.95 a month, and – without contract – Telstra will give you 60GB for $60 a month, with the bonus of no excess usage fees in Australia (although your data speed will be limited if you blow through that 60GB data).

There’s lots of options, and this is just a start.

Plans with at least 5GB data

For those who don’t need quite so much data, and are more looking for a way to stay in touch, there’s some real bargains available for under $20 a month.

At just $15.95 a month, SpinTel is among the cheapest way to get 5GB data to use each month. Plans step up quite a bit from here, but so does the value.

For example, $7 more gets you an extra 3GB from Jenee, and an extra $2 more gets you 10GB from Moose.

If you’re happy with $25 a month, you can get 10GB from Belong, which – as noted above – includes data rollover. $29 a month gets you 15GB from Telechoice, and both Belong and Telechoice use the Telstra network which might get you a bit more coverage in edge areas.

There’s always bargains to be found, and it’s sometimes easy to forget that not everyone wants 432GB of data on their mobile plans; there’s an awful lot of competition at the affordable end of the market too.