Prepaid phone plans tend to be simple, no-nonsense products. Cheap recharge vouchers for calls and messages and no frills.
But if you look a little closer there are prepaid plans with some important extras included. Amaysim and Optus have great prepaid plans available, so we thought we take a moment to tear them down and find ourselves a winner.
Calls, SMS and data are the most important parts of any phone plan, but these are not the only things to consider. Both Amaysim and Optus give you several reasons to choose their prepaid plans over the competition.
International Calls
If you have friends and family overseas then you’re probably aware of how much it can cost to call them. The price of international calls has reduced over the years, but you still have to be careful about where you call and for how long.
All Amaysim Unlimited plans now come with generous overseas calling components, regardless of whether you choose prepaid or postpaid plans.
Even with the $24.95 plan, you get unlimited calls to 10 countries, unlimited text to 32 countries. Plans from $44.90 and up also include 300 minutes to the same 32 countries referred to above.
Optus plans do include a very small amount of credit to use for calls overseas — between $5 and $20 depending on which recharge value you choose.
Data Rollover
Optus prepaid plans may not include unlimited international calls and SMS, but they do offer a better benefit for use in Australia.
Data Rollover lets customers add unused data from one month to the data allowance in the next month. You just need to make sure that you recharge your account before the credit expiry date to carry this unused data forward.
This mightn’t seem like such an important benefit on cheaper recharge options with lower data inclusions, but some of the higher value Optus prepaid recharges come with a lot of data. Data Rollover means you can make best use of the data you’re paying for.
Music, all day and all night
Perhaps the most compelling feature of Optus prepaid is that you can stream music through a number of popular online services and not count the data against your included credit.
Any data used streaming Google Play Music, Guvera, iHeartRadio, Pandora and Spotify through their respective mobile apps is completely data free until June 2017.
Matched with the Data Rollover feature and Optus prepaid looks like one of the best options for data-lovers in Australia.
Smartphone with headphones image via Shutterstock