Felix vs Vodafone: Mobile plans compared

Vodafone and Felix Mobile are both part of the same TPG group of telco providers, but what they offer differs quite substantially. Vodafone is the more established international brand where Felix is the plucky newcomer with a distinctly green pitch to its mobile plan offerings. So which one is best for you?

As always it depends on your needs and financial circumstances. Here’s a quick rundown of how the two different services compare.

Felix mobile launched with just a single “unlimited” data plan, but has since branched out offering some lower cost plans with set data quotas:

Vodafone as the more established brand has a wider variety of choice when it comes to plans on both prepaid and SIM-only terms:

Here there’s rather obviously some variance depending on how much you’re willing to spend on a contract. By way of comparison, let’s have a look at Felix Mobile and Vodafone’s least and most expensive plans, and what you get with each.

Felix Mobile’s entry level plan costs $25 per 28-day contract period, giving you 25GB of data in return. Right now, you can even get $5 for your first 12 months, bringing the price down to $20 a month. There’s no speed cap on this plan, but additional data over that 25GB will cost you $10 for 10GB.

Vodafone’s lowest cost postpaid SIM-only plan runs to $49 per month with 50GB of data at full network speed. Once that data quota is exhausted, you continue to connect at a speed cap of 2Mbps until your next monthly term period.

On the prepaid front, Vodafone’s standard entry level plan runs $30 per 28 day expiry with 20GB of data included, though it often runs promotions for bonus data on a set number of recharges before reverting to that 20GB limit. On prepaid Vodafone plans, once your quota is exhausted, you’re speed capped at 1.5Mbps, a little slower than with its SIM-Only plans:

The classic Felix Mobile plan comes with unlimited data within your 28 day contract period, albeit speed capped to a maximum of 20Mbps throughout that expiry period.

The highest tier Vodafone SIM-only plan has a hefty 360GB data quota per month, with speeds dropping to 2Mbps if you do manage to chew your way through all that data.

On the prepaid side, Vodafone has a 365 day expiry plan with 150GB as standard over 365 days, though right now you can get an additional 90GB of data to bump that quota up to 240GB. Once it’s exhausted you can continue online at a maximum of 1.5Mbps.

Both Felix Mobile and Vodafone operate on the Vodafone Network in Australia, which means in terms of overall coverage in terms of distance, there’s little between them. The one big coverage difference between the two is for 5G devices. Felix Mobile says that it’ll launch 5G on the Vodafone network in the first half of 2024, but until it does so, it operates on the 4G parts of the Vodafone network only.

This one’s pretty simple, actually. Felix Mobile only offers mobile plan service, not devices on contract. If you need a new iPhone or Galaxy Phone, you’d have to bring it to Felix Mobile yourself.

Conversely, while Vodafone’s SIM-only and Prepaid plans can work with any unlocked phone capable of working on Australian coverage frequencies, it also offers a wide range of handsets on contract terms over 12, 24 or 36 month terms. As an example, here's a look at Vodafone plans the include a 128GB iPhone 15:

Both Felix Mobile and Vodafone operate on an effective contract-free set of terms… mostly.

It’s a simpler affair for Felix Mobile, with contract terms rolling over on a monthly basis, meaning you can cancel your contract or switch to another provider without financial penalty.

For Vodafone SIM-only and prepaid plans the same is broadly true, but where you may have to juggle numbers and costs is if you take up a device on a 12, 24 or 36 month term. Typically those contracts require an active plan to work beside them, requiring pro-rata payment of the rest of the contract payment due based on the original RRP of the device. The small trap here is that any discounts on that RRP you may have been eligible for no longer apply; you only get that discount if you stay connected for the full length of your device contract term.

Felix mobile customers don’t get any included international calling provisions as part of any plan. However, you can add an unlimited call and text pack to a Felix plan at a cost of $5 per month. That gets you Unlimited calls and texts to Austria, Bangladesh, Brazil, Canada, Chile, China, Colombia, Denmark, France, Germany, Greece, Guam, Hong Kong, Iceland, India, Indonesia, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan, South Korea, Kuwait, Malaysia, Mexico, Mongolia, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Peru, Puerto Rico, Romania, Singapore, Spain, Canary Islands, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, Thailand, U.K., U.S.A., Vatican City and Vietnam as long as you stay on your plan and pay the additional $5 per month.

For Vodafone customers, it varies a little depending on whether you’re on a SIM-only or prepaid plan. All SIM-only plans include some level of calling and texting with many having unlimited texts and/or calls to countries Vodafone designates as being in Zone 1. The entry level SIM-only plan only includes texts, but higher tiers include unlimited calls to Zone 1 countries and either calling minutes or unlimited calls to Zone 2 countries, depending on price tier.

For prepaid plans, inclusions vary, with some plans only offering texts while others offer a number of set minutes to either Zone 1 or Zone 2 destinations.

Vodafone Zone 1 destinations include  Bangladesh, Brazil, Canada, Chile, China, Colombia, Germany, Guam, Hong Kong, Iceland, India, Indonesia, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan, Kuwait, Malaysia, Mexico, Mongolia, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Peru, Puerto Rico, Romania, Singapore, South Korea, Spain, Spain Canary Islands, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, Thailand, United Kingdom, the United States of America and the Vatican.

Vodafone Zone 2 destinations include Andorra, Argentina, Austria, Bahrain, Belgium, Bermuda, Bolivia, Brunei, Cambodia, Cayman Islands, Costa Rica, Cyprus, Czechia, Denmark, Dominican Republic, Egypt, Faroe Islands, France, Gibraltar, Greece, Guadeloupe, Guatemala, Hungary, Kazakhstan, Laos, Lebanon, Luxembourg, Macau, Malta, Mozambique, Namibia, Nepal,Northern Mariana Islands, Pakistan, Panama, Paraguay, Philippines, Poland, Portugal, Reunion, Russia, San Marino, Saudi Arabia, Slovakia, South Africa, Sri Lanka, Swaziland, Türkiye, Turkmenistan, United Arab Emirates, Uruguay, Venezuela and Vietnam.

Vodafone notes that its definitions for country designations changes from time to time, so it’s worth checking Vodafone’s specific support page before signing up to check where a specific destination important to you sits.

Felix Mobile and Vodafone might sit on the same network in Australia, but when you leave our shores, their approach to roaming couldn’t be more different. 

Felix Mobile offers a roaming add-on pack for $20 that buys you 4GB of data, 100 minutes of calls (counted incoming and outgoing) and 100 international SMS across 40 destinations with a 365 day expiry period. You must have an active Felix subscription, however if you’re overseas for a longer period you can pause payments on that plan for a maximum of 242 days.

On the Vodafone side of the roaming fence, it’s quite famous for its $5/day roaming plan for SIM-only customers. This gives you access to most of your plan’s standard inclusions in over 100 countries. 

The exception here is unmetered excess data, which within Australia would typically be speed capped at 2Mbps. Instead, if you’re over your regular data cap, you’ll get an additional 1GB added at a cost of $5/GB when needed. Use of $5/day roaming is limited to a maximum of 90 days per calendar year.

For prepaid Vodafone customers, you’ve got a choice of $5, $15 or $35 add-ons to enable roaming in over 80 countries. The $5 recharge buys you a single day with 200MB of data, 25 calling minutes and 30 international texts, which is low-cost, but also quite low coverage, so be careful with your data usage if you opt for that pack. The $15 tier ups the ante to 750MB and 3 days of expiry with 90 call minutes and 120 texts, while the $35 tier gives you 2GB over 7 days with 200 call minutes and 300 texts.

Felix Mobile’s big pitch if you want just a little more isn’t really for you – it’s for the planet. Felix sells itself as a very “green” MVNO with carbon neutral certification, the promise that its operations are 100% powered by renewable energy and the promise to plant a tree on your behalf for every month that you’re a customer.

Vodafone used to compete with extras such as bundled streaming media subscriptions, but that’s not what it offers at the time of writing. The one hook here outside bundling devices on contract terms as detailed above is that if you bundle multiple plans together you’ll get a discount on each plan, with between 5% to 20% discount on plans depending on how many you group together. Not all plans are eligible for bundling, however.