Boost Mobile offers service on Telstra’s network with a variety of prepaid plans and phones on offer.
What services does Boost Mobile offer?
Boost Mobile is a prepaid mobile virtual network operator (MVNO) operating on Telstra’s full 4G network. This marks it out from other Telstra MVNO wholesalers, as while some do have access to parts of the 4G network, Boost’s status as a Telstra subsidiary marks it out for full access.
Boost offers three different plan tiers, all under the general UNLTD+ plan name branding. All of Boost’s plans are effectively SIM-only plans with 28 day expiry periods, although it does sell a variety of phones outright for use on its network as well. These are typically low cost, low-power Android devices, locked to Boost’s network.
How much does Boost Mobile cost?
All of Boost Mobile’s plans are offered on a prepaid basis, which means that you pay upfront for service, but can’t be billed for additional use beyond the inclusions of each UNLTD+ plan tier.
There are four current pricing tiers at $10, $30, $40 and $50 respectively. All plans offer unlimited calls and texts, but the $10 plan only has a 7 day expiry period where the other plan tiers expire after 28 days.
Each tier also gives you a data quota to use, with the $10 recharge offering 1GB of data, the $30 tier offering 3GB, the $40 tier offering 5GB of data and the $50 tier offering 7GB of data. That’s not quite the end of the Boost Mobile data story, however, as all but the $10 plans also come with 1GB of "bonus" weekend data. That 1GB of usage is allocated per weekend, which means that over a 28 day span you could get up to 7GB, 9GB or 11GB respectively from each plan tier. The bonus data does not accrue, however, and only applies for data sessions initiated between Friday 9:00pm AEST and Sunday 11:59pm AEST.
What extras does Boost Mobile offer?
The two upper tier Boost Mobile plans provide unlimited standard calls and texts to Canada, China, Hong Kong, India, Malaysia, New Zealand, Singapore, South Korea, United Kingdom and USA during their 28 day expiry period.
As noted above, Boost Mobile also offers "free data" weekends. All plans except the cheapest $10 plan qualify for up to 1GB of "free" data each weekend, counted between Friday 9:00pm AEST and Sunday 11:59pm AEST. As such, the baseline data for each plan is at least the base quota plus potentially up to 4GB more depending on your usage habits. You can’t accrue bonus data or roll over unused data quota with a fresh recharge, however.
What extra bonuses are available on these plans?
Pros
- "Bonus Weekend" Data Each Weekend Boost plans get an additional 1GB of data to use just on Saturdays and Sundays. It doesn't roll over, but it's a nice bonus to have.
Cons
- Inflexible calling minutes Boost charges against the entry level $25 recharge on a per-minute basis. The only way to add more minutes is to buy a fresh recharge, rather than a calling top-up, although other top-ups to cover roaming or extra data are available.
Boost Mobile prepaid recharge options
Running low on credit on your Boost Mobile plan? It’s easy to recharge with a variety of methods to choose from:
- Recharge online: You can recharge any Boost Mobile plan from the Internet at Boost Mobile’s recharge portal. Major credit cards as well as PayPal are accepted, and you can set up a recurring recharge if you’d prefer to save yourself the hassle of manually recharging in the future.
- With the Boost Mobile app: If you’re an iOS or Android user, Boost Mobile also provides an app that lets you easily check your balance and recharge when needed. The app is free to download for iOS (download here) and Android (download here) devices.
- From your phone: If you’d prefer to recharge over the phone, you can do so simply by dialling #111# from your Boost Mobile connected handset.
- From your phone browser: Boost Mobile provides a dedicated mobile browser interface for recharging, which you can access at care.boost.com.au.
- Via voucher: Recharge vouchers for Boost Mobile prepaid plans are available at major retailers, and can be redeemed via any of the methods detailed above.
