Woolworths’ foray into the world of SIM-only mobile plans is changing things up with a new name, but it’s the same old story when it comes to how the provider comes to rival supermarket SIM-slinger ALDImobile.
Woolworths Mobile
Woolworths Mobile (soon to be known as Everyday Mobile) currently fields a roster of four postpaid SIM-only mobile plans, which range from $25 per month to $59 per month. You can find the complete list in the widget below.
Regardless of which postpaid plan takes your fancy, you’ll get access to most provider-specific perks and coverage via the Telstra network. You don’t get access to the entire network, which is exclusive to Boost Mobile and Telstra’s customers, just the wholesale one.
Woolworths Mobile also ranges a number of prepaid mobile plans. The cheapest of these starts at $30 and comes with 30-day expiry, but the more expensive options come with longer expiry terms and larger data allowances. You can find the complete list in the widget below.
The main perk that Woolworths Mobile offers is the ability to save 10% on your next shopping trip to the supermarket. It used to be that the only catches here were that you could only utilise this inclusion once per month and that your potential savings are capped out at $50.
Earlier this year, another caveat entered the picture. Aussies looking to take advantage of the offer are now only able to do so via physical Woolworths and Woolworths Metro stores. Woolworths Online orders are no longer eligible.
Woolworths Mobile’s postpaid and prepaid plans also come with a 500GB data bank. It’s not quite so generous as Belong’s unlimited data banking, but it is handy to have on hand for those unexpected moments when your home internet connection falls through.
ALDImobile
While it relies on the same Telstra network as Woolworths Mobile does, ALDImobile only offers prepaid mobile plans. If you’re looking for a postpaid plan, you won’t find any here. That said, Aussies looking to sign up for a prepaid mobile plan through ALDImobile do get a lot more options than they might elsewhere.
At the time of writing, ALDImobile offers an outsized total of eight prepaid mobile plans. These range in price from $17 to $110 per month. Three of these are also family plans, which are designed to be shared between up to four people. You can find the full list in the widget below.
Each ALDImobile plan also comes with unlimited local calls and text and unlimited data rollover if you recharge with the same plan or one with a higher value within 24 hours of your current plan expiring.
ALDImobile prepaid plans priced at $25 per month and above also come with unlimited calls and texts to 20 international countries, while the $55 per month plan also ups the ante with access to the Telstra 5G network.
That said, there is one caveat to consider here. New customers considering swapping to ALDImobile will need to factor the one-off $5 cost of getting a SIM from the provider into their calculations.
Unlike Woolworths Mobile or Coles Mobile, ALDImobile does not offer any sort of shopping-related perks. Instead, the main drawcard here is the cost-saving family plans. These plans offer a shared pool of data that can be accessed by multiple users. However, the account owner can set individual usage limits if one family member ends up using more than their fair share.
The ALDImobile $45 family plan caters to two users, the $80 family plan will play nicely with four users, and the $110 family plan supports a sizable six users.
ALDImobile v Woolworths Mobile
If you’re looking to compare ALDImobile to Woolworths Mobile plans, it makes sense to start by focusing on prepaid mobile plans since that’s the area where the two providers most easily overlap.
While more than half of ALDImobile’s lineup consists of month-to-month prepaid mobile plans, Everyday Mobile ranges just one.
Coming in at $30 and kitted out with 32GB of data as standard (plus another 32GB of data if you sign up before 18 July 2023), the Everyday Mobile $30 provides a lot more bang for your buck than the cheaper $17 and $25 plans available from ALDI.
That said, if 64GB isn’t enough for you, then there’s plenty to like about the $35 Prepaid Plan available from ALDImobile. Excluding the one-off cost of a $5 ALDImobile SIM, it’s only $5 more expensive than the Woolworths Mobile plan mentioned above, but it comes with a whopping 84GB of data.
If you compare these ALDImobile plans against postpaid plans like the Woolworths Mobile $35 SIM-only plan, the conversation goes a little differently.
The former features unlimited data rollover while the latter has 500GB of data banking. That’s not a huge difference, but when we’re talking about two plans that are identical in price, data allowance and network coverage that small detail counts for a lot.
The one other big difference, aside from the shopping discounts the Woolworths Mobile gets you, is the way that these two providers treat 5G.
If you want 5G coverage through ALDImobile, you’re going to shell out for one of the provider’s most expensive plans. At the time of writing, the ALDImobile $55 Mobile Plan is the only plan available from the provider which includes access to the Telstra 5G network.
This plan also includes 120GB of data as standard (doubled if you sign up before 18 July 2023), unlimited local and standard calls, unlimited data rollover, unlimited calls and texts to 20 selected countries plus 400 minutes of calls and texts to another 30 countries.
On the other hand, Woolworths Mobile customers can enjoy the same level of access to the Telstra 5G network through everything from the $35 SIM Only plan to the $59 SIM only plan. It’s important to note here that the latter includes 5G as standard while the rest only include it on a trial basis.
At the time of writing, Woolworths Mobile’s 5G network trial is slated to end on 8 August 2023. This deadline has been extended before, but don’t treat that as a guarantee it’ll go on forever.
That said, if you’re looking for a cheap MVNO that gets you 5G on a budget, there are a few better options out there. Check out the widget below for a shortlist of MVNOs that offer 5G in Australia.
Fergus Halliday is a journalist at WhistleOut, Australia’s phone and internet comparison website.
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