Every telco plan is different in their own way, and as the local telco market becomes more and more crowded, telcos are pulling all stops to try and capture their own customer base.
Niche segment plans such as Vivifi’s Family Sharing plan and redONE’s Data without Borders have emerged to capture different niches, but what are the best and worst plans for each segment in the market? Read on to find out more.
| Best Plan for lowest price/GB | Grid Mobile |
| Best Plan for heavy talktime users | Vivifi Lite |
| Best plan for heavy all-round users | MyRepublic Unlimited Plan |
| Best plan for medium all-round users | GOMO |
| Best plan for light all-round users | Vivobee Unlimited Plan $1 |
| Best plan for light users to add on usage | Vivifi Lite |
| Best plan for medium users to add on usage | Circles.Life Base Plan |
| Best plan for frequent Malaysia goers | redONE Amazing8 |
| Worst plan for lowest price/GB | Vivifi Me |
| Worst plan for talktime users | Circles.Life Base Plan |
| Worst unlimited plan | Zero1 9GB to Unli |
| Worst light plan | Circles.Life $5 Plan |
Best Plan for Lowest Price/GB
There’s really no dispute for this one. If you’re looking at purely 4G/4G+ data speeds, Grid Mobile offers the best deal among all players at $24.90 for a whooping 40GB. This means that your per GB price is only $0.63.
Best Plan for Heavy Talktime Users
While modern telco plans prioritises on data and gives lesser talktime and SMS, Vivifi Lite are more generous with their talktime. For $8.80 a month, you get 500 minutes outgoing calls and free incoming calls, coupled with 3GB data and 20 SMS. That’s less than 2 cents per outgoing call minute.
Best Plan for Heavy All-round Users
While the recent hype for mega plans have been around Giga’s new 50GB plan for $45, with 10000 minutes outgoing calls and 10000 SMS, MyRepublic’s Unlimited Plan at $48 actually offers the better deal. With 3GB a day, adding up to 90GB (unlimited throttled speed thereafter) a month, and 8000 minutes outgoing calls and 8000 SMS, you may be paying $3 less per month with Giga and getting 2000 minutes and 2000 SMS more, but you are missing out on 40GB of data. Weighing these 2 plans, MyRepublic would appeal more to heavy all-round users.
Best Plan for Medium All-round Users
Unlike certain beliefs that Circles.Life offer the cheapest plan in town ($18) for a medium plan (20GB), the Base Plan offered by Singapore’s first MVNO pales in comparison with GOMO’s plan, the latter offering 20GB for $20, with 200 minutes outgoing calls, free incoming calls and 200 SMS. On the contrary, Circles.Life’s price tag of $18 only applies to port-in users, new users have to pay $28, and talktime is only at 100 minutes with no free incoming calls. That means your 100 minutes is shared between outgoing calls and incoming calls. To round that up, you only get 25 SMS. Even for a port-in user, it may be better off to pay $2 more for GOMO.
Best Plan for Light All-round Users
While Circles.Life boast the cheapest Postpaid plan in the market with its $5 Plan for light users, users with minimal usage may actually derive a better deal with Vivobee’s Unlimited Plan $1. You can be forgiven for never hearing about Vivobee as the Prepaid MVNO riding on StarHub’s network only offers Prepaid plans with their target segment being migrant workers.
That being said, its Unlimited Plan gives you 500MB, 30 minutes outgoing calls, free incoming calls and 30 SMS per month for 12 months for just $1. That is a mere 8 cents per month. Circles.Life’s old Flexi Plan of $0 for 1GB, 30 minutes talktime (no free incoming again) and 10 SMS used to be the better deal, but they have since retired it and replaced it with the $5 Plan; 2GB, 50 minutes talktime, no free incoming and 25 SMS, which makes Vivobee’s 8 cents plan look way more attractive.
Best Plan for Light Users to add on Usage
Even for light users, there are times when they use more, and Vivifi Lite fills this gap. While the monthly price of $8.80 is more expensive than Vivobee’s Unlimited Plan ($0.08) and Circles.Life’s $5 Plan, it already offers more to begin with, with cheaper add-on options.
| Vivifi Lite | Vivobee Unlimited | Circles.Life $5 Plan | |
| Price | $8.80 | $0.08 | $5 |
| Data | 3GB | 500MB | 2GB |
| Talktime | 500 min | 30 min | 50 min |
| Free Incoming Call? | Yes | Yes | No |
| SMS | 20 | 30 | 25 |
| Add-ons | $3.21 for 1GB + 100 min + 100 SMS | $5 Bee Lite for 1GB + 50 min + 50 SMS | $8 for 1GB $12 for 2GB $5 for 30 min $10 for 200 min + Free Incoming Call |
While the add-on price difference between Vivifi Lite and Vivobee is only $1.79, the former already starts with 2.5GB and 470 minutes more, and as light users add on more usage, Vivifi Lite would prove to be the cheaper option.
Best Plan for Medium Users to add on Usage
If you’re a medium range users, hovering around 20GB, with occasional need for talktime (excluding VoIP calls) and SMS, then Circles.Life’s Base Plan add-ons may be what you need when you have to use more in certain months (e.g. holidays). Unlike other telcos which offer immediate unlimited plans, Circles.Life offer an unlimited data add-on for $20 (first 20GB at 4G/4G+ speeds, followed by throttled speeds), unlimited outgoing call add-on at $8, and unlimited incoming call add-on at $2 (unlike other telcos, Circles.Life does not offer free incoming calls).
With all these various add-on options, Circles.Life offers users the freedom to customise their usage according to the category of their need at the moment, be it data or calls, and not a full bundle of data and call unlimited add-on. Unfortunately, Circles.Life does not have a SMS add-on (yay for WhatsApp and Telegram). However, if you are a medium range user without ever having a need for add-on, GOMO would best suit your usage as explained above.
Best Plan for Frequent Malaysia Goers
This is a niche usage, but with the huge amount of Singaporeans going to Malaysia every weekend (just wait outside Kranji MRT on a Saturday and you’ll see why), the amount of users in this segment is very substantial. Seeing the market opportunity here, all of redONE’s plans come with its Data Without Borders USP, allowing all users to utilise their entire data bundle in both Singapore and Malaysia. If you are a frequent Malaysia goer and 1GB/2GB is insufficient for you, you would be better off with a redONE SIM.
Going on an Amazing8 plan ($8 for 3GB) with add-ons ($25 for 10GB), you would get to save on roaming activations; such as GOMO’s 2GB for $10 Roaming Data Pump (10 days), Circles.Life’s 1GB for $5 Roam Boost A (7 days), and Giga’s 1GB for $5 gigaRoam APAC (5 days). If you are a medium range user, it would be even cheaper to just get a primary GOMO SIM and pair it with a secondary redONE SIM.
Worst Plan for Lowest Price/GB
If you’re not utilising Vivifi’s Share USP, then being on Vivifi Me would be a large bill to incur. At $29.90 for 20GB, it is by far the most expensive plan at $1.50 per GB (once again we omit StarHub’s 15GB for $25 SIM-only plan as it comes with free weekend data and redONE’s plans as they come with Data Without Borders USP). With this in mind, if you are looking for a 20GB plan, GOMO may be the best bet for you.
Worst Plan for Talktime Users
One of the flaws of Circles.Life’s Base Plan is that it does not come with free incoming calls. In modern day, free incoming calls have already been accepted as a norm, and if a plan does not come with it, it’s more like a dinosaur construct. What’s more, users are only given 100 minutes to share between outgoing calls and incoming calls, making this plan a nightmare for talktime users. As mentioned above, even if you are a port-in user, its better to pay $20 for GOMO’s 20GB, 200 minutes, free incoming calls, 200 SMS rather than $18 for Circles.Life’s 20GB, 100 minutes, NO free incoming calls, 25 SMS.
Worst Plan for Unlimited Users
When you think of unlimited plans, you would typically think of endless high speed data usage. If that’s the case, Zero1’s 9GB to Unlimited Plan is probably not the one for you. At $39.90 per month, users are given 27GB 4G/4G+ speed data, followed by throttled speeds, 450 minutes outgoing calls, free incoming calls and 450 SMS.
If speed is a concern, then after 27GB you will only be left with throttled speeds. What’s more, the bonus 18GB for this 9GB to Unlimited Plan only lasts for 12 months, following which the bonus 18GB will be removed. With this construct, users are better off paying $8.10 more for MyRepublic’s $48 Unlimited Plan which gives 90GB (3GB per day), 8000 minutes outgoing calls, free incoming calls and 8000 SMS.
Worst Plan for Light Users
While Circles.Life’s $5 Plan is the cheapest Postpaid plan in the market, it barely gives you anything with the exception of 2GB. The rest of the bundle is 50 minutes talktime, NO free incoming calls and 25 SMS. If Vivobee’s $0.08 bundle of 500MB, 30 minutes outgoing calls, free incoming calls and 30 SMS is too little for you, then even Zero1’s $9.90 1GB to Unlimited Plan; 1GB 4G/4G+ speeds followed by throttled speeds, 200 minutes outgoing calls, free incoming calls and 200 SMS is a better option. However, the price of $9.90 is only valid for the first 6 months, following which price will revert to $13.90 per month, so you may want to go with Vivifi Lite; $8.80 for 3GB, 500 minutes outgoing calls, free incoming calls and 20 SMS.
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