Today, Optus has finally released their iPhone 5s and 5c pricing – and if you wouldn’t be surprised that many of the carriers are charging more for less (that’s a debate for another day). However, should you sign a contract with Optus or just get the damn phone outright? Well, we’ve done the math for you so you don’t have to – and you’ll be a bit surprised.
First off, unlike Vodafone and Telstra, Optus’ BYO phone plans aren’t a cheaper equivalent of their existing plans. There are three BYO plans (MySIM $25, $40 and $65) that we had to try and match with the five contract plans. As such, we have compared the following in order to calculate which is cheaper:
- MyPlan $35 = MySIM $25 (Identical in minutes and data)
- MyPlan $50 = MySIM $40 (Minutes are in between MyPlan $50 and MyPlan $60)
- MyPlan $60 = MySIM $40 (Data is identical)
- MyPlan $80 = MySIM $65 (Data is identical)
- MyPlan $100 = MySim $65 (Minutes are identical)
Of course, it is not perfect.
Want a cheap plan – don’t get a contract
Based on our quick calculation on the cheapest plans for each of the different variations of the iPhone 5s and iPhone 5c, you are better off buying the phone outright and then sign up with Optus through its BYO Phone plans. That said, the difference is not much. If you buy the iPhone 5c 16GB and sign up on its MySIM $25 plan instead of getting the phone via a contract (and paying $57 per month), you only save $29 over 24 months. That’s roughly $1.21 per month.
Of course, both being the cheapest, you only have 200 minutes of calls and 200MB of data. If you are a heavy data user – then get ready to pay a bit more. In most cases, the plans are cheaper than just getting it outright and connecting to one of their BYO phone plans. But the BYO phone plans don’t have the same data caps as the contract plans. So do take that into consideration before deciding.
You can look at the full price comparison below. Alternatively, if you want a better viewing experience or can’t see the table below, you can click this link to see the full Google Spreadsheet.
Note: Difference was calculated by subtracting Carrier Subsidised Total from BYO Total (i.e. Difference = BYO Total – Carrier Subsidised Total). If the value is positive, then the Carrier Subsidised Plan is cheapest. If it is negative, then getting it outright is cheaper.