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- Good for flexible low-cost plans
- Excellent scores for customer service
- Users feel confident about their speeds
- Free EU roaming
- EU roaming has a surprisingly low cap
- No perks or family plans
The original no-frills network selling low-cost, no commitments plans, Giffgaff has evolved to take on longer term contracts without losing its focus on simplicity and value. It’s still one of the best networks for low-cost, low-data plans for less demanding users, but also a top option for heavy users looking for a good deal.
What’s more, it’s done spectacularly well in this year’s Expert Reviews Mobile Network Awards, winning Best Overall Mobile Provider and the award for Fastest Mobile Network, along with top-three rankings for Value, Most Recommended, Customer Service and Sim-Only Contracts. While it had stiff competition from Lebara and Tesco Mobile, its consistently high results for customer satisfaction point to a happy and loyal userbase. 59% of the customers we surveyed told us they would actively recommend Giffgaff to others, and only 9% said they would do the opposite. Only Lebara scored higher, and every other network bar Smarty had a higher percentage of active demoters.
Giffgaff review: What do you get?
Giffgaff appears to have stopped describing its plans as ‘goody bags’ but its modus operandi remains unchanged. Its SIM-only deals are provided as 18-month contracts, where you’re free to change your plan from month to month, or as rolling one-month plans where you can switch or cancel the plan at any time.
The big difference is that the longer-term plans are either slightly cheaper or give you more data for your money, so that £10 buys you 20GB on a one-month plan or 25GB on an 18-month plan. Prices start at just £6 for 2GB on a one-month plan, and rise to £35 for an unlimited plan on a one-month contract, or £25 if you sign up for eighteen months. Plus, frequent discounts give you the chance to get even more for less. For instance, the 18-month unlimited plan is currently available with a £10 discount, making it one of the cheapest unlimited deals around.
On top of this, Giffgaff also offers PAYG services, though the additional flexibility means getting less data for your money at each price point. While plans used to differ when it came to inclusive UK texts and minutes, both come unlimited these days.
Last year, Giffgaff had also started selling smartphones on transparent monthly payments. It’s continued to do so this year, and there are some good deals available. At the time of writing, the iPhone 17 is out of stock, but you can have an iPhone 16 for just £31.98/mth plus £20 upfront, or a Samsung Galaxy S25 for £34.89 plus £25 upfront. However, both are on 36-month contracts with 50GB of data, and reducing the term to 24 months ratchets the monthly cost of the Galaxy S25 up to £46.34/mth. Increasing the data allowance to 100GB takes it up to £49.34/mth. That’s still very competitive with the more affordable networks, such as iD Mobile or Three, but make sure you’re comparing the same terms and similar data allowances before signing up for a new handset.
Value has never been a problem for Giffgaff, and it’s still one of the top-ranked networks on this front. An impressive 66% of customers say they’re very satisfied with the value of their Giffgaff service – a figure only equalled by our Value winner, Lebara. Giffgaff falls behind Lebara and Sky Mobile by having fewer satisfied customers overall and a 1% of customers dissatisfied, but it’s only put in third place by a whisker. What’s more, it comes a close second to Lebara in the Best for SIM-only contracts category – a great result with so much competition from the even cheaper no-frills networks.
Giffgaff review: Customer service
Giffgaff has managed to keep costs nice and low while maintaining impressive levels of customer service and satisfaction. Over half (51%) of the users surveyed who had experienced an issue with the network told us they were very satisfied with the way Giffgaff handled it. A further 36% were satisfied, and nobody responded that they were dissatisfied. Tesco Mobile won in this category, but only by the tiniest of margins, so it’s another strong result for Giffgaff.
Ofcom’s latest Comparing customer service report is just as positive for Giffgaff. It has the joint-highest score for overall satisfaction and scores comfortably above the average for overall satisfaction with complaint handling and satisfaction with value for money. Only 8% of customers had any reason to complain, compared to an industry average of 14%.
Giffgaff review: Coverage, reliability and speed
Giffgaff is also ranked the fastest mobile network by its users. 95% said they were satisfied with the speed of their mobile data service, while 89% told us they were confident that their connection was reliably fast enough for demanding tasks such as large file downloads or video streaming when in a busy urban area. We didn’t have a large enough sample size to rate Giffgaff for reliability, but the award for performance is a good indicator.
Giffgaff runs over Virgin Media O2’s host network, which the latest independent speed tests from RootMetrics indicate is the slowest of the UK’s major operators. It has the slowest UK-wide median download speed, at 36.2Mbps, and is the only network with a 5G median download speed of under 100Mbps. However, speeds and coverage are improving, and the rollout of 5G services should give both Virgin Media O2 and Giffgaff a performance boost. Giffgaff’s users seem delighted with what they’re getting already, and can expect even better in the future.
Giffgaff review: Roaming
Giffgaff has free roaming on its plans within the EU and selected EU zone destinations, though subject to a rather miserly 5GB fair use cap. Go above that and using your data allowance will cost you 10p per MB, though you can buy a travel add-on or start a new one-month plan early to get another 5GB allowance.
Travel data add-ons are available in 38 EU zone destinations, plus China, Switzerland, Turkey and the USA. These come in 1GB, 5GB and 10GB flavours, each lasting 30 days, and cost between £4 and £45 depending on the data allowance and the destination. You’re looking at £4 to £12 in Europe, £6 to £18 in Turkey and the USA, and a shocking £15 to £45 in Switzerland and China.
Outside these destinations, costs can vary, but it’s often 20p per MB, 30p per text and £1 per minute, so we’re in the regions of expensive rather than extortionate. Giffgaff didn’t have enough users who had used its roaming features to get ranked in the Best for Roaming category, but it’s a solid option if you’re travelling mostly within the EU.
READ NEXT: Best roaming SIM-only deals
Giffgaff review: Other features, services and spending caps
Giffgaff offers an optional spending cap on its monthly and 18-month contracts, preventing you spending more than £45 on credit in a month. You can also request that next month’s plan starts early if you run out of data – or even if you’re down to the last 100MB.
Giffgaff has mostly stuck to its no-frills premise, so you can’t expect much in the way of perks or bonuses. There is a £5 payback every time you bring a new user to the network, and you can also earn more by contributing to the community with help and advice. There are no family or multi-user plans, which explains Giffgaff’s absence from the Best for Multi-User Plans category, as well as Best for Perks.
Giffgaff review: Verdict
Don’t worry about what Giffgaff doesn’t do. It’s a great network for anyone who’s looking for a simple SIM-only contract, and its scores throughout our survey show that it’s getting customer service and satisfaction right. It’s also getting better as an option for Pay Monthly handset plans, which tend to be cheap and reasonably transparent. There’s a real sense that its customers trust Giffgaff and that they feel like they’re getting a good deal. While there are better choices out there if you want the cheapest plan or the fastest speeds, Giffgaff is this year’s strongest network overall.
