What is a shared phone plan?

Shared phone plans have almost done away with the traditional family mobile phone plan, and while the pair do have similarities they aren’t quite the same thing. These plans come in a handful of variants; some providers will call the feature ‘data sharing’, others ‘data gifting’, and others will stick with the traditional family plan moniker. Let’s break down the jargon, shall we?

As the name suggests, data sharing is a feature that allows you to share data with other users. This feature is typically only available to users with SIM plans on the same account, from participating providers. 

Each SIM plan’s data allowance goes into a pool, and all connected accounts simply slurp up data from the shared resource. Say that there are four plans connected to the account, three with a 20GB data allowance, and one with 80GB - the total pool for the four users will be 140GB.

A handful of Telstra MVNOs offer data gifting between other users as a perk, but it isn’t as cut-and-dry as data sharing plans. Data gifting lets users send data to users with the same provider, albeit in small chunks, and with other limitations.

Each participating telco has its own rules around how, and when data can be gifting but there are a handful of steadfast conditions:

• Data can only be sent in 1GB chunks
• Users can’t gift more than 50% of their data per payment period
• Bonus data and gifted data can not be shared
• Data can only be gifted to customers on the same plan type (ie prepaid to prepaid, or postpaid to postpaid)

At the time of writing, there are eight Australian telco providers offering some form of shared phone plan.

Vodafone, Optus, Telstra, and ALDI Mobile offer data sharing, while Everyday Mobile, Belong, More, and Tangerine all offer data-gifting.

Data sharing on the Big Three telcos is relatively straightforward - all eligible SIM-only and mobile data plans on the same account automatically share data. For Optus these plans include; Optus Choice Plus, Optus Choice Plus Data, Optus Plus Family, and Optus Plus Kids plans, and for Vodafone they include; Vodafone Infinite plans, Vodafone BYOD, Plus, Team, and Infinite Data plans. Telstra only offers data sharing on its Upfront SIM-only and data plans.

Vodafone does sweeten the deal a bit further by offering a 5% stacking discount on additional services - up to a total 20% off your final bill.

Here are the Big Three’s SIM-only plans for comparison.

Aldi on the other hand, only has data sharing on its Family Pack Mobile Plans. ALDI Mobile’s Family plans don’t mess around with separate data allowance, they just drop it all straight into the pool. The provider has three options, one which includes up to two services, another up to four, and the largest plan can service up to six SIMs. 

Arguably ALDI Mobile has the simplest, and best value shared plan on the market, but if you want to stack some extra internet discounts, it is still worth doing the maths on Vodafone’s plans.

Everyday Mobile, Belong, More, and Tangerine offer data gifting between users. Since each of these providers are on the Telstra network, they not only have similar plan structures, but also follow the same conditions for data gifting. We’ve outlined them above, but pretty much users can chuck 1GB at a time to their friends on the same telco. What a way to say Merry Christmas, or Happy Talk Like A Pirate Day!

Here are how the for telcos plans compare: