Vodafone review: Strong bundles but not always brilliant value

Last year’s Mobile Network Awards had some good news for Vodafone. Scores for customer service and satisfaction were on their way up on the sub-par results of the previous years, while speeds and 5G coverage were also improving. This year’s awards survey sees Vodafone building on that success, though it’s still not getting the same high marks as the winning networks. While users rate its perks and extras, they’re not always so keen on its speeds, reliability or value, especially in comparison to some of the cheaper no-frills brands.

Earlier this year, Vodafone completed a merger with Three, creating the UK’s biggest 4G/5G network, VodafoneThree. Three and Vodafone customers can now connect through either network, which should improve coverage and performance. However, it’s early days and the change may not be reflected in this year’s survey results.

As it is, Vodafone scored higher than both Three and O2 in our Most Recommended category. 39% of users said they would actively recommend it, while 16% of users would warn potential subscribers off it. Of the other major networks, only EE did better. With 41% happy to recommend and 13% feeling more negative, neither network gets close to leaders Giffgaff and Lebara. It’s a similar story in our overall results table, with Vodafone ahead of O2, iD Mobile and Three, but behind EE, Sky Mobile, Tesco Mobile and the rest. It’s doing better, but there’s still work to be done if Vodafone wants to take home any awards.

Vodafone review: What do you get?

Vodafone offers a good selection of smartphones on flexible pay-monthly plans, where you pick your phone, decide on the length of term and the upfront payment, then add airtime, texts and data according to your needs. As always, the monthly cost increases if you reduce the term from 36 to 24 months. Right now, you can have an iPhone 17 with 120GB of data for £53.24/mth over 36 months plus £30. However, that rises to £64/86/mth on a 24 month contract, still with £30 upfront. It’s a similar story if you opt for a Samsung Galaxy S25, where you’re looking at £37/mth on a 36-month contract plus £30 upfront, but £45.50/mth on a 24-month deal.

This makes Vodafone a little more expensive than Three or iD Mobile, though slightly cheaper than EE on a similar deal. 

Still, customers don’t so much flock to Vodafone for cheap handsets or low-cost SIM-only deals as they do for its value-packed bundles. In fact, Vodafone offers a bewildering variety of packages, including or excluding global roaming, EU roaming, free Disney+ or Amazon Prime subscriptions, free picture messages, device care or temporary data boosts and free trials of Vodafone’s Secure Net Internet security protection. Some plans come with speed restrictions, but a maximum 100Mbits/sec shouldn’t be a massive problem unless you’re using an unlimited connection to download massive files or games.

Even the entry-level SIM-only plans aren’t cheap. You can find plans on Giffgaff or Smarty with unlimited data for what Vodafone charges for a basic 20GB or 30GB package. What’s more, prices escalate and your choice of package narrows if you go for a 12-month or 30-day rolling contract, rather than the network’s default 24-month plans. All the same, you can get good value as long as the ‘free’ extras and entertainment bundles give you what you want for less than if you paid for them separately. Certainly, Vodafone’s users rate it highly for its perks, with 85% satisfied and just 3% dissatisfied, leading to a net score of 82%. 

Despite this, Vodafone was the second lowest-rated network in our Best Value category, coming in just behind iD Mobile and O2 and just ahead of Three. 38% of customers said they were very satisfied with the value of their package, while 45% were satisfied. However, the 5% of customers who were disappointed here dropped the total score to 78%. To put that in perspective, the five leading networks in this category all scored over 90%.

Vodafone review: Customer service

There’s good news for Vodafone in this year’s Customer Service category. Having once languished near the bottom of the rankings, it’s now in fourth place behind Sky Mobile, Giffgaff and winners, Tesco Mobile. 82% of users who experienced a problem are either satisfied or very satisfied with their customer support. That still leaves 6% who are dissatisfied or very dissatisfied, but the net score of 76% is enough to put Vodafone ahead of EE, Smarty and Lebara, and 10% clear of the nearest brand below, O2. 

To balance this, Vodafone hasn’t done so well in Ofcom’s 2025 Comparing customer service report, where its scores for overall satisfaction were lower than the industry average, and the network had a higher than average number of customers with a reason to complain. All the same, the volume of complaints per 100,000 customers was under the average and down on last year, and waiting times and call abandonment rates were also lower. There’s definite evidence that Vodafone has fixed some of its problems with customer support.

Vodafone review: Coverage, reliability and speed

Having merged with Three, the united VodafoneThree network covers over 99% of the UK. What’s more, the network expects to have 5G services in reach of 71% of the UK population by the end of 2025, with plans to hit 99% by 2030. 

Three quarters of the users we surveyed were confident of getting a reliable connection for Web browsing – more than Three, or O2 – but just 70% said the same about streaming, which was the lowest score of the brands who met the threshold for inclusion. Vodafone’s score for online gaming was also lower than the average, putting it out of contention for our Reliability awards. As for speed, here Vodafone beat both O2 and Three, but fell behind Tesco Mobile and Lebara, not to mention EE and the winning no-frills brands. That’s not a bad effort, but it’s still not a great one.

In Rootmetric’s latest round of UK-wide performance testing, Vodafone had the second-highest UK median download speed (48.4Mbits/sec) behind EE (110.8Mbits/sec). On 5G download speeds, it comes third behind EE and Three, both of which have higher median 5G download speeds and higher speeds for the fastest connections. There’s potential to improve that on the merged VodafoneThree network, but we’ll need to wait until next year to find out.

Vodafone review: Roaming

Vodafone bundles roaming into its Xtra Euro Roam and Xtra Global Roam plans, giving you inclusive data, calls and texts in either 51 European destinations or 83 worldwide. There’s a fair usage policy of 25GB for your data, after which you’ll be charged £3.58 per GB used. You might not want to go crazy streaming Netflix while abroad.

Outside these plans, you’ll face a daily charge of between £2.57 and £7.86 to use your normal allowances, or – if you’re sensible – you’ll splash out on a roaming pass, costing £12 for 8 days or £17 for 15 days in Europe, or £17 and £27 if you’re further afield. Just be aware that there may be strict data limits, so check before you use.

Vodafone review: Other features, services and spending caps

Vodafone supports Wi-Fi calling, so you can make and take calls over a Wi-FI network where you can’t get a reliable mobile signal. You can also set spending caps through the My Vodafone app, restricting how much you can spend on out-of-plan charges, video calls and picture messages, roaming and premium rate texts.

Vodafone review: Verdict

Vodafone’s biggest strength remains its bundles, as reflected in its second-place position in the Best for perks category. Otherwise it’s a fast network with good coverage and decent customer support, but also on the expensive side. That’s a problem when cheaper networks are matching it or even beating it on many counts. It’s worth considering if you can find an entertainment or roaming package that fits your budget and your needs, but otherwise you’ll find that our winning networks give you more for less.

Written By

Stuart Andrews

Stuart Andrews has been writing about technology and computing for over 25 years and has written for nearly every major UK PC and tech outlet, including PC Pro and the Sunday Times. He still writes about PCs, laptops and enterprise computing, plus PC and console gaming, but he also likes to get his hands dirty with the latest gardening tools and chill out with his favourite movies. He loves to test things and will benchmark anything and everything that comes his way.

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