Circles.Life mobile: Plans and prices

Circles.Life made a big splash on the telco scene when it arrived in Australia, offering norm-disrupting hefty data allowances for a competitive monthly fee. Fast-forward to more recent times, and Circles.Life continues to be a SIM Only telco with competitive pricing, plenty of data and a tendency for appealing time-limited promotions. Here’s everything you need to know about Circles.Life in Australia.

• Circles.Life offers plans on the Optus 4G Plus mobile network, which is available to 98.5% of Australians.
• Circles.Life doesn’t offer Prepaid mobile plans; instead, it exclusively offers monthly SIM Only plans. You’ll need to bring your own (BYO) compatible mobile phone to use a Circles.Life plan.
• If you go over your data allowance, Circles.Life SIM Only plans automatically charge a $10 fee for a 3GB data top-up.
• Circles.Life has a reputation for offering time-limited deals that reduce the initial monthly pricing and/or offer bonus data.

There is only one type of mobile plan available from Circles.Life: SIM Only. This means you need a mobile phone to sign up for a Circles.Life plan as the telco doesn’t sell its own handsets. Circles.Life SIM Only mobile plans are charged monthly, include unlimited standard national calls and texts, and the data allowance resets at the end of your billing period.

Circles.Life SIM Only mobile plans cover the full range of budgets, from cheaper entry-level offerings to data-stuffed pricier alternatives. As is the telco trend, the more you pay for a Circles.Life SIM Only plan, the more data you get, which is the only real difference between cheaper and more expensive Circles.Life plans. Prices start at around $15 per month for limited data and incrementally stretch up to under $60 a month for hundreds of gigabytes of data.

Circles.Life SIM Only plans are offered on the Optus mobile network, which doesn’t include Optus 5G. Technically, Optus 4G Plus download speeds can get to around 100Mbps. Practically speaking, Opensignal data suggests Circles.Life users should expect download speeds around 56Mbps and upload speeds of roughly 8Mbps.

The cheapest Circles.Life SIM Only plan comes with less than 10GB, which means it’s for casual users only. Data allocations go up exponentially, though, for mid-tier Circles.Life plans, with most offering more than the 35GB Australian monthly data median. Circles.Life’s two priciest plans have 100GB+ of data for heavy data users.

Like a lot of telcos, Circles.Life offers international calls via an optional paid add-on. A flat monthly fee is available for any Circles.Life plan with more than 30GB of data and offers 300 call minutes to 25 dialling destinations. Note that Circles.Life doesn’t offer international texts.

Here are the 25 dialling destinations that are included with the Circles.Life International Standard Calls Add-on: Bangladesh, Canada, China, Denmark, France, Germany, Greece, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Ireland, Japan, Malaysia, New Zealand, Pakistan, Philippines, Singapore, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Taiwan, Thailand, United Kingdom, United States of America and Vietnam.

Circles.Life is renowned for regular SIM Only plan deals, albeit they’re typically time-limited affairs. If there’s a Circles.Life SIM Only deal on today, you’ll see it below.

Circles.Life doesn’t offer much in the way of perks once you get past the telco norm of $0 upfront plan fees. On the pricing front, there are student discounts available for a couple of Circles.Life SIM Only plans. As for other perks, there’s no data rollover or data sharing, for instance, and Circles.Life doesn’t offer eSIM—an alternative to physical SIM cards—in Australia (though the telco does in Singapore).

Customers can take advantage of international roaming with Circles.Life, but it’s via pay-as-you-go (PAYG) credit, which isn’t as convenient or cost-protective as the typical postpaid add-on from other telcos. Circles.Life supports roaming for 94 Zone 1 countries in Oceania, North America, Asia and Europe, plus 87 Zone 2 destinations.

Here are the 94 Zone 1 destinations: Afghanistan, Albania, Armenia, Austria, Azerbaijan, Bangladesh, Belarus, Belgium, Bhutan, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Brunei Darussalam, Bulgaria, Canada, China, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Faroe Islands, Fiji, Finland, France, French Polynesia, Georgia, Germany, Gibraltar, Greece, Greenland, Guam and the Northern Marianas, Guernsey, Hong Kong, Hungary, Iceland, India, Indonesia, Ireland, Isle of Man, Italy, Japan, Jersey, Kazakhstan, Kiribati, South Korea, Laos, Lativia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Macau, Macedonia, Malaysia, Malta, Monaco, Mongolia, Montenegro, Myanmar, Nauru, Nepal, Netherlands, New Caledonia, New Zealand, Norfolk Island, Norway, Papua New Guinea, Philippines, Poland, Portugal, Puerto Rico, Romania, Russia, Samoa, San Marino, Serbia, Singapore, Slovak Republic, Slovenia, Solomon Islands, Spain, Sri Lanka, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, Tajikistan, Thailand, Timor-Leste, Tonga, Turkey, Ukraine, United Kingdom, United States of America, US Virgin Islands, Vanuatu, and Vatican City.

And here are the 87 Zone 2 destinations: Algeria, Anguilla, Antigua and Barbuda, Argentina, Aruba, Bahrain, Barbados, Belize, Bermuda, Bolivia, Bonaire, Botswana, Brazil, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Cayman Islands, Chad, Chile, Colombia, Congo, Costa Rica, Cote D’Ivoire, Curacao and Bonaire, Dominica, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Egypt, El Salvador, Ethiopia, French Guiana, Gambia, Ghana, Grenada, Guatemala, Guinea Bissau, Guinea, Guyana, Haiti, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Jamaica, Jordan, Kenya, Kuwait, Lebanon, Liberia, Madagascar, Malawi, Mali, Mauritania, Mauritius, Mexico, Morocco, Mozambique, Namibia, Nicaragua, Nigeria, Oman, Palestine, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Qatar, Reunion Island, Rwanda, Saudi Arabia, Senegal, Seychelles, Sierra Leone, South Africa, South Sudan, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, Sudan, Syria, Tanzania, Trinidad and Tobago, Tunisia, Turks and Caicos, Uganda, United Arab Emirates, Uruguay, Venezuela, Yemen, Zambia, and Zimbabwe.

Circles.Life sells SIM Only mobile services on the Optus 4G Plus network, which is available to 98.5% of the Australian population. The interactive map below should have the Optus 4G network selected to give you a visual indication of coverage in areas of interest. Note that the Optus 3G network is shutting down in September 2024.

Switching from one telco to another in Australia is a straightforward process, which includes shifting to Circles.Life. Follow these steps to switch to a Circles.Life SIM Only plan:

1. Choose the Circles.Life SIM Only mobile plan that you’d like to buy then click the orange ‘Go to Site’ button (if available) to go directly to the Circles.Life website.
2. On the Circles.Life website, click the corresponding ‘Buy Plan’ button to confirm your SIM Only plan purchase.
3. Optionally, add a relevant promo code (check if one is automatically included), then select whether you want to include international standard calls.
4. Select to transfer an existing mobile number or whether you’d like a new one, selecting your existing telco for the former option and whether it’s a Prepaid or postpaid (SIM Only) plan. Follow the remaining checkout prompts to complete sign-up.

Once you’ve ordered a Circles.Life SIM Only plan, you can track your order via the confirmation email or by selecting ‘Manage order’ on the Circles.Life website. Number transfers can take up to 48 hours to finalise.