Finder Utilities Loyalty Tax Report: Australians lost $6.7 billion in 2025

As hotter-than-expected inflation figures suggest potential RBA interest rate hikes in the new year, the increasing cost of essentials, including energy, mobile and broadband plans, is adding to the financial strain.

Finder's end-of-year report for utilities captures price trends from the year that's been, what to expect in 2026 and ways to save.

We also look at how much loyalty tax Aussies have paid – the extra cost of sticking with pricier plans rather than shopping around.

It'll give you the nudge you need to make changes, or at least see if paying extra for your plan is worth it.

NBN loyalty tax, price changes and speed upgrades

Aussies paid

$986 million

in loyalty tax for NBN

We crunched the numbers to uncover how much Aussies are really paying in loyalty tax for broadband across basic (NBN 12 and NBN 25), standard (NBN 50) and fast speed tiers (NBN 100 and above).

Here's how we did it. We took the cheapest monthly plan in each speed tier on Finder as of December 2025 (no discounts included).

We then compared it to what people are actually shelling out on average, based on data from our Consumer Sentiment Tracker (CST).

NBN price changes in 2025

It's been a big year for the NBN for a few distinct reasons.

The first is that, as in 2024, we saw another round of price changes from NBN and internet providers (some for better, some for worse).

But luckily, nothing was as drastic as the year before. We looked at price movements between 1 January and 10 September 2025, just before NBN introduced major changes (which we'll get to in just a minute).

In total, 25 out of 46 fixed-line NBN providers in our database changed prices across different speed categories. The NBN 25, NBN 50, and NBN 100 tiers were impacted the most.

Major NBN speed upgrades

There's been a major push to connect 10 million premises to fibre by the end of 2025.

This expansion means eligible households can access the absolute fastest speeds available on the NBN.

However, the biggest shake-up of all has been the free speed boosts from NBN, which officially kicked in on 14 September 2025.

Here's what changed:

• Home Fast (NBN 100) jumped from 100/20Mbps to 500/50Mbps, making it 5 times faster
• Home Superfast (NBN 250) jumped from 250/25Mbps to a speedy 750/50Mbps, making it 3 times faster
• Home Ultrafast (NBN 1000) doubled its upload speed, reaching up to 1000/100Mbps
• Home Hyperfast (NBN 2000) was introduced as the fastest new speed tier

For example, customers on the NBN 100 plan with eligible connections were upgraded to NBN 500 at no extra cost by their providers.

Eligible connections include Fibre to the Premises (FTTP) or Hybrid Fibre Coaxial (HFC).

These changes have also made NBN 250 largely obsolete, with NBN 750 becoming the new standard superfast speed tier.

While some providers still offer NBN 250, it typically includes higher upload speeds than the former standard.

Snapshot of average monthly prices for NBN plans

Wondering how much fixed-line NBN plans now cost per month? Here's a look at the average prices across each of the speed tiers as of December 2025.

What can we expect in 2026?

• NBN Fibre upgrades to continue. As part of NBN's service improvement plan, it'll continue connecting new customers, where possible, to FTTP.
• Enhancements to the HFC network. From what we've heard and been told, NBN will look to make upgrades to improve HFC's performance and reliability and bring it up to par with FTTP.
• New era of NBN satellite internet. In August 2025, NBN announced it would use Amazon Leo (then called Project Kuiper) to offer satellite internet to regional and remote Australians since its ageing Sky Muster satellites are set to retire by 2032. Amazon Leo will launch in Australia in mid-2026. No other details have been finalised yet.

Mobile loyalty tax and price changes

Aussies paid

$2.8 billion

in loyalty tax for mobile

The average Australian uses around 14GB of mobile data each month. We looked at month-to-month mobile plans on Finder offering at least 14GB of data and found the average cost was about $42 per month as of December 2025.

Interestingly, our CST shows Aussies are spending an average of $54 a month on mobile plans. This means many people could save by switching to more competitive deals.

Crunching the numbers, we estimate Australians are paying a combined $2.8 billion in loyalty tax – the extra cost of sticking with pricier plans rather than shopping around.

We also broke down average monthly costs for low, medium and high data users. It's a handy way to see how your plan compares based on your data needs.

Telstra, Optus and Vodafone plan shake-ups

Unless you're on a phone repayment plan, going with one of the major telcos could be hurting your hip pocket.

We've seen price hikes from Telstra, Optus and Vodafone pretty consistently over the last 3 years.

The silver lining in 2025 is that Telstra and Vodafone only raised the cost of their postpaid plans, leaving prepaid prices alone. Optus was the exception, adjusting both prepaid and postpaid rates since it hadn't touched its prepaid pricing the year before.

In some cases, the price increases include more data. However, this additional data may seem like an unnecessary perk if it won't be used.

Telstra price changes in 2025

Telstra's Upfront mobile plans went up by $5 a month.

The year before, its prices had gone up by $3-$4 a month.

It also raised prices between 2022 and 2023 when the same plans used to cost between $58 and $89 a month.

Optus's price changes in 2025

Optus's postpaid plans saw a $3 price bump, while its prepaid plans were raised by $1 to $30 across month-to-month and long-expiry plans.

Vodafone's price changes in 2025

Vodafone hiked its postpaid plan prices by $4 a month. It did the same the year prior.

What else happened this year?

A lot has happened since the start of 2025, but here are some of the key highlights:

• More price hikes. We saw 15+ smaller providers raise prices this year between $1 and $10 on month-to-month plans.

• Vodafone doubled its network coverage. Vodafone expanded its network coverage to more than 1,000,000 square kilometres across Australia at the start of the year. This has tripled its regional sites and increased its population coverage to 98.4%, bringing it almost on par with Optus (98.5%).

• Telstra launched satellite messaging. The telco giant officially launched Australia's first satellite-to-mobile text messaging service through a partnership with Starlink.

• Optus triple zero crisis. The telco faced the wrath of a Senate inquiry over its 18 September triple zero outage, which was linked to 4 deaths and more than 450 failed triple zero calls.

• Triple zero call failure on Samsung phones. It was discovered in late October 2025 that users would need to replace 11 Samsung Galaxy models with newer handsets, and about 60 models would require system updates. Telstra, Optus and Vodafone/TPG are being hauled before the Senate to address the crisis over Australia's triple-zero capabilities.

What can we expect in 2026?

The main focus for Telstra, Optus, TPG, the regulator and others in the industry will be to bring telecommunications regulation in line with other essential services like water and energy.

But that will be a long slog. In the meantime, key messaging in 2026 will continue its focus on making customers aware of two things.

First, the potential issues where their phone may be unable to dial triple zero in an emergency, and second, the general ins and outs of how triple zero works and how calls can fail, regardless of their provider.

Energy loyalty tax and price changes

Aussies are paying over

$2.9 billion

in loyalty tax for energy

It's easy to get stuck in a loyalty tax loop with energy plans as electricity and gas aren't easy products to understand, so we tend to switch far less often.

Finder took a closer look at the 4 major states that have been impacted the most by price hikes since 2022: New South Wales, Victoria, South Australia, and Queensland.

We looked at their average quarterly bills using our CST data and compared them to the cheapest single-rate tariff plans available on Finder as of December 2025.

The differences are more obvious in VIC and NSW, with SA and QLD residents coming out in front, paying less or around the same on average as the cheapest plan on Finder.

It's interesting to note that SA has some of the highest electricity prices in the country. Yet, both SA and QLD are leaders in rooftop solar adoption, which might explain why electricity bills are lower in these states.

One limitation of our data is that we don't ask households whether they have solar installed.

On top of that, the average bills will be slightly skewed because all Australian households have been receiving $75 credits as part of the government's energy rebate handout since July 2024.

Electricity price changes in 2025

The Australian Energy Regulator's 2024-2025 Retail Market Report is out, and we've pulled together the key highlights and trends for you.

• Over 2024-25, median market offer prices increased between 1.7% and 6.2% for DMO regions (NSW, SA, South East QLD).
• In VIC, price changes ranged from a 2.9% decrease to a 4.5% increase across the different distribution zones.
• Electricity prices stayed more or less the same in the ACT and Tasmania (0.2% and -0.2%).
• As at 30 June 2025, a customer could have saved between 2.5% and 9.5% ($60 to $240) by moving from a standing offer to the median market offer in NSW, SA and South East QLD, and between 7.4% and 9.4% ($115 to $200) in VIC.
• Over 2024-2025, the range of market offers narrowed in NSW and VIC, illustrating that there's now a greater concentration of plans that are priced the same. However, it still pays to compare. For example, in NSW (Ausgrid distribution zone), there was a $450 difference as of June 2025 between the highest range (90th percentile) and the lowest range (10th percentile).

Gas price changes in 2025

The same report shows that gas prices have increased across the board:

• NSW: By 7.8%
• QLD: Between 4.6% and 13.5%
• ACT: By 4.9%
• SA: By 1%
• VIC: Between -1.2% and 4.1%

However, it also found that customers could save money by moving from a standing to a median market offer:

• NSW: By 18% ($210)
• QLD: From 5% to 17% ($40 to $160)
• SA: By 8% ($100)
• ACT: By 20% ($330)
• VIC: Between 15% and 19% ($270 to $370), depending on the distribution zone

What can we expect in 2026?

There's been a lot of chatter in the energy space, but here's what's going to have a direct impact on households:

• The federal government's energy bill subsidy, which began in mid-2024 for all Australian households and many small businesses, has been scrapped. This means we won't be receiving $75 energy bill credits in the new year.
• The Labor government has introduced the Solar Sharer scheme, which will require energy retailers to offer households at least 3 hours of free electricity in the middle of the day. The offer should go live from July 2026 and will be available to households in NSW, SA and South East QLD first.
• There's been a strong appetite for the government's home battery rebates, and we expect that to continue, although the rebates will start to taper off in 2026.

Written by

Mariam Gabaji

Senior Utilities Editor & Tech Expert

Mariam Gabaji is a journalist with 13 years of experience, specialising in consumer topics like mobile services and energy costs. Her work appears in the ABC, Yahoo Finance, 9News, The Guardian, SBS, 7News, A Current Affair and Money Magazine. Mariam holds a Bachelor of Arts in Journalism and was a finalist for the 2024 and 2025 IT Journalism Award for Best Telecommunications Journalist. See full bio

Mariam's expertise

Mariam has written 439 Finder guides across topics including:

• Energy
• Mobile
• Broadband
• Consumer tech