We’ve heard your feedback loud and clear about Google’s decision to partner with Telstra as their exclusive carrier partner in Australia for the upcoming Pixels phones, and this tip this afternoon is likely to be quite helpful to you if you’re an existing Telstra customer, or prepared to become one.
By following this advice, you can get your Pixel on what is effectively a 24 month instalment plan, with no interest, and you get better value than Telstra’s advertised plans. Here’s how it works.
How to get a better value Pixel on a new plan
Off the shelf, Telstra’s $85 plan gives you a Pixel with 500 mins of calls and unlimited texts, and just 1GB of data. This doesn’t sound like amazing value, and it isn’t really. So let’s hack.
Telstra Currently offers a $20 SIM-Only casual plan. This plan has zero call inclusions, data inclusions or texts. It’s just a SIM. When used, all costs are added on top. For example if you made a 1-min call, your bill would be $21 for the month.
To this, we can add a couple of things:
- It’s possible to add a 24 month device payment to that SIM plan. This means you can add the Pixel / Pixel XL or any other device you choose. This is done by dividing the phone cost over 24 months. The Pixel 32GB currently retails at $1,080AUD through Telstra’s system. So dividing $1,080 by 24 gives us $45 per month.
- You can add a Voice and Data Pack to the $20 SIM. One of the options Telstra offers is $15 for 2GB, Unlimited Calls and Unlimited Texts.
This gives you a plan that comes to $80 a month (being $45 for the phone, $20 for the service, and a $15 voice/data pack). That’s $5 less than Telstra’s lowest advertised plan for the Pixel, with twice the data, and unlimited calls.
This can be applied to any phone, including the 128GB models, so there’s definitely a bit of value to be found here.
Of course, if you’re looking at higher end plans, the value does tend to fade out a little. For example, if you take Telstra’s $50 BYO SIM plan, you get 5GB of data on top of the unlimited calls/SMS, and a $45 phone instalment takes you to $95 a month.
This compares well to Telstra’s Medium plan, which is $94 a month, and only has 3GB of data. However, if you jump to $99 (or just $5 more per month) you get Telstra’s Large plan, which has 10GB of data.
So, if you’re looking at the lower end of plan inclusions, and if $15 a month can make a big difference to you, this might be a good way to get a good deal from Telstra. Our advice is that you can’t do this online, it has to be ordered in store, but a Telstra rep will be glad to help you set this up. It’s not advertised, but it doesn’t mean it’s not available to any customers who ask.
Great guide, Just to let you know that telstra is currently having a great BYO promo. where u can also add a device to it.
$40:
$1,000 call credit
unlimited text/mms
5gb Data
$50:
$1,000 call credit
unlimited text/mms
10gb Data
and a few other ones it’s on their website and instore, deal ends on 22nd of Jan
worked for me .. $94/month .. $20 sim, $15 addon (2 gig plus unlimited calls / texts / mms), $59 for my Pixel XL 128GB.
Thanks: Anonymous Telstra tipster!!
Thanks so much, had no idea this could be done. Already on Telstra and need to recontract so helps a lot.
Doesn’t seem to work on small business accounts, cheapest sim only is 50 bucks.
Can’t find the 20 dollar plan on the personal site either, just the $35 one.
Agreed, I just went to a telstra store and they know nothing about a casual $20 sim only plan. They also said you can’t attach a handset payment plan to a casual plan.
I just called the business center. Cheapest sim plan is $35, you can’t recontract onto it (only new contract) and you can’t ‘add a phone’ to it. (small business account)
I asked about the $20 personal plans, they had no clue and didn’t think it existed.
Many stores will avoid selling it as it makes Telstra no money. You can definitely do it though, so go to a bigger store or push them. There IS a $20 Casual plan for consumer accounts, so if you’re a business customer you’ll have to either open a consumer account (which takes 2 mins) or convert your account to personal.
I currently am on a business account with around 6 months of contract left, I was going to recontract with the Pixel but it’s too expensive. do you know if you can recontract onto a personal account for the same price? Sorry, users seem to know more than Telstra… Can’t get any info out of them
Yea my friend is a manager at a Telstra shop on the Sunshine Coast and they have no plans at all to stock or order the Pixel. Telstra in the major cities will have them but yea, they don’t see anyone buying an android at iPhone prices and I kind of agree. It’s the wrong price point for the masses. Thats kinda not the point of the pixel though..
I want my phone can get updates asap don’t want to waste time on carrier.
Ahh why do we pay so much for phone plans 🙁
Australians are charged more for everything because we are suckers. Almost $300 more than the US price for a pixel XL for example.
Exactly