These can net some tidy savings, along with other perks such as data sharing between people on the same account.
We’ve picked five of the best family mobile phone plans available, each offering different advantages, such as a 30% discount, data gifting or a variable free monthly perk.
Read our guide on 10 ways to save money on your mobile phone bill for more tips to help to reduce your outgoings.
Get a great deal on a mobile phone contract, or browse Sim-only deals starting from around just £5 a month
A family or shared mobile plan is usually controlled by one main account, but can have multiple deals operating from it. For some family plans, everyone using the account has to have the same data plan, whereas for others, the group can all have different deals.
However, keep in mind that these types of deals can discourage switching to a better deal in the future, as there could be extra hassle organising everyone to switch from a shared deal.
Our survey and pricing analysis calculates the top performing networks, along with those to avoid. In our round-up of the best and worst UK mobile networks you can see how smaller providers performed against the Big Four – O2, Vodafone, EE and Three.
Use this checklist to help when thinking about the best type of family plan for your usage.
Discover more ways your phone deal can help you out in our article seven mobile provider perks that can save you money .
We’ve selected five of the best family plans available, offering a variety of savings, allowances, perks, data rollover and gifting.
This deal gives you multiple Sims for one household, paid for from one account. Each additional Sim is 20% cheaper.
It's a good option if your family has similar data needs, but trickier if usage varies between people. You can have up to 5 Sims and choose from 3GB, 6GB or 15GB of data per Sim.
All come with 4G and 5G enabled, unlimited minutes and texts, access to 5 million BT Wi-fi hotspots and a 30-day money-back guarantee.
BT family Sims are now no longer available to new customers.
Check BT Sim-only deals to find out what's available.
Sky Mobile’s data ‘piggybank’ has been a popular perk for a long time. It allows customers to rollover any unused data at the end of the month and use it at a later date. Data can be kept for up to three years.
Since 2021, data saved in a Sky piggybank can be shared with up to seven other Sims linked to your account, so you can share your carefully hoarded data with friends and family.
This is a huge advantage if some of your family burn through data faster than others. Spare data can also be cashed out and exchanged for rewards such as a new phone or accessories.
Customers with two or more deals with Tesco Mobile can choose from a free perk each month. Each person can choose their own perk, so there’s no need to argue over the best option.
The available perks are:
This is a great option if your household has varying priorities in how they use their phone.
to see which ones suit your needs.
EE offers a 30% discount on airtime plans (Sim-only, data Sim and Flex Pay device loan) that are added to a family account. A 10% discount is applied to Pay Monthly plans taken with a phone, laptop or tablet.
You can choose from a variety of data plans from 1GB to unlimited data, from any of EE’s standard range of plans.
This plan allows data gifting, so you can move excess data between your family if anyone gets low. The gifted data cannot be carried over to the next month, and all plans reset to their original data as each month begins.
You can also get 10% off your EE Broadband bill every month when you’re an EE customer, along with an extra 20GB of mobile data every month.
EE's Sim-only deals aren't the cheapest around, so weigh up your options carefully.
By creating a Smarty group, the group owner can manage everyone’s usage and payments from one place, change plans or purchase add-ons for each Sim. Up to 8 Sims can be added to one account, and each will receive 10% off.
If you choose a money back plan, you can get a data discount for unused data. This is Ideal for controlling a collection of household phones, or a variety of your own devices.
Group owners can:
Group members can:
Smarty Sim-only deals offer some of the best value in the mobile market.
The benefits of some family plans will depend on your usage, such as Sky’s communal data piggyback, or Tesco’s monthly free perk. However, for plans that offer a discount, it's worth considering if cheaper options are available elsewhere.
Even with the discount, EE’s family plan may not work out as a cost-effective option as their Sim only deals are expensive. EE’s one month rolling contract for 5GB of data is £22 a month, so 30% off with the family plan it would still cost you £15.40 a month. Alternatively, you could get 60GB of data for just £10 a month with iD Mobile, and many other similar deals from cheaper providers.
These discounts can be helpful, but you could find even better deals. Browse the Sim-deals on offer at Which? Switch Mobile to see what's available, or check out our pick of the best Sim-only deals , where we highlight options starting at just £5 per month
