If you don’t use your mobile phone very often, it’s best to choose a low-cost Pay As You Go tariff with no regular monthly subscription.
If you only use your mobile phone from time to time (e.g. for trips or emergencies), it’s normally best to choose a fairly cheap Pay As You Go SIM card with no regular monthly charges. When choosing a network, it’s important to look at a number of factors including minimum usage requirements, coverage and how you can top-up your SIM card.
In this article, we’ll discuss our top things to look out for when choosing a Pay As You Go SIM card as a light mobile phone user. We’ll also review a selection of recommended networks, that we think are particularly well suited for light mobile users.
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Choosing a Mobile Network For Light Usage
As a light mobile user looking for a Pay As You Go SIM card, we think there are six really important things you need to look out for in your mobile network:
No Regular Monthly Charges
As a light mobile user, it’s highly likely you’ll want to stay away from tariffs that have a regular monthly charge. This includes any Pay As You Go tariff that requires you to top-up every month (otherwise, you’ll be paying for airtime that you never actually use).
Because of this, Pay Monthly SIM cards and Pay As You Go bundles should normally be ruled out from your search (we’d only really consider them if your typical mobile phone bill exceeds £5/month). It’ll be better to instead choose a “traditional Pay As You Go tariff” where there are no regular monthly charges and where you only pay for what you actually use (so you’ll pay nothing in the months where you don’t use your handset).
Minimum Usage Requirements
The issue of minimum usage requirements is also something that’s worth investigating very closely.
In the UK, all Pay As You Go networks have a minimum usage requirement for keeping your SIM card active. On the best mobile networks, you’ll only need to use your SIM card for a chargeable call or text message once every 270 days. However, on some other mobile networks, this can be a lot shorter: it can even be as little as 84 days.
On SIM cards with a very short inactivity period, it’s possible for your SIM card to get inadvertently disconnected (this is particularly so if you only use your phone from time to time). Upon disconnection, you’ll normally also lose your phone number and any remaining credit on your account.
Where possible, we recommend choosing a mobile network that only requires you to use your phone every 270 days. For a wider selection of mobile networks, you can also consider mobile networks that require you to use your phone every 180 days.
Reliable Coverage
The level of coverage you can get on your phone is another important consideration. You’ll want to make sure your mobile phone is actually available for you to use during your trips away from home or during those “emergency situations”. The availability of all three types of coverage is beneficial (2G, 3G and 4G coverage).
In the UK, there are only four network coverage providers: EE, O2, Three and Vodafone. The four network coverage providers each license some spectrum from the Government and maintain their own network of phone masts.
All other companies offering a mobile service are known as virtual network operators (MVNOs for short) – they piggyback on one of the four network coverage providers. When using a virtual network operator, you’ll receive the same underlying coverage as you’d get when using the host mobile network directly (e.g. customers on ASDA Mobile get the exact same coverage as customers on EE).
Topping Up & Top-Up Expiry
With regards to topping up and adding money to your account, it’s worth considering minimum top-up amounts, the available methods for topping up your SIM card and how long your top-ups will last for.
On the best mobile networks, it’ll be possible to top-up from as little as £5 each time (some other mobile networks will require a minimum top-up of £10 each time). You should look for a range of available top-up methods, ideally allowing you to top-up both in-store and remotely (e.g. online, by text message or by phone call).
Typically, on most major networks, your Pay As You Go top-up doesn’t expire providing your SIM card remains active. However, on some smaller networks, top-ups are sold with only a 90-day validity period. On those networks, if you don’t use your credit during the 90-day period, it will expire and will be removed from your account.
Customer Support
The availability of customer support is another important thing to consider when choosing a Pay As You Go network.
Most mobile networks will offer telephone support, whereas others will emphasise online-only support (e.g. community forums, e-mail or web chat). For instance, if you’d like the ability to pick up the phone and talk to customer support, you should avoid networks like giffgaff that have purely online support.
Low Prices & Availability of Bundles
Finally, and probably slightly less important than the other five factors, it’s worth looking at the exact per-minute, per-text and per-megabyte rates. Generally, it’s worth choosing a reasonably priced mobile network, but this shouldn’t dominate your decision, especially when compared to the other factors listed above. The reason for this is if you’re only spending £1 or £2 on your phone bill each month, the actual savings from choosing a slightly cheaper mobile network will be minor and measured in pennies. You should expect to pay in the region of 8p/minute, 4p/text and 5p/MB.
As well as having access to low Pay As You Go rates, it’s also worth choosing a mobile network where you have the option to buy a bundle when you need one. This can be useful in the situations where you need to use your handset a lot (for instance, if you need to make a long phone call or if you need to use the mobile internet extensively during a trip away).
Recommended Networks
At present, we’d recommend the following SIM cards for a light mobile user:
ASDA Mobile
On a SIM card from ASDA Mobile, you’ll get 99% population coverage from EE, including on 2G, 3G and 4G. The minimum top-up is just £1 each time (or £5 if you’re topping up in-store with a voucher). Usage costs just 8p/minute, 4p/text and 5p/MB. Bundles are available to buy from £5/month, and as long as you keep your SIM card active, your top-up will never expire. |
giffgaff
The minimum top-up on giffgaff is £10 each time and will also give you free calls and texts to other giffgaff members for 3 months after top-up. Regular Pay As You Go rates are 15p/minute, 5p/text and 5p/MB with the option to buy a goodybag bundle when you need it from £5/month. |
1pMobile
1pMobile offers coverage from the EE network. Alongside the traditional Pay As You Go tariff of 1p/minute, 1p/text and 1p/MB, data boosts are available to buy (e.g. giving you a discount of 40% when you use 1GB per month). It isn’t possible to buy an all-inclusive bundle on 1pMobile. |
Vodafone Pay As You Go 1
On the tariff, you’ll pay 20p/minute, 20p/text and 20p per 5MB of data. However, the maximum charge is capped at £1 per day (for unlimited minutes, unlimited texts and up to 500MB data). What this means is you can decide to batch up a number of long phone calls (e.g. when catching up with friends and family) in order to save money on them. Vodafone offers 99% population coverage on their 2G, 3G and 4G network. You can top-up from £5 each time and your credit will never expire providing your SIM card remains active (you’ll need to use it for a chargeable activity at least once every 270 days). Unfortunately, it isn’t possible to buy a one-month bundle when required unless you switch to Vodafone’s Big Value Bundles tariff instead. |
At present, ASDA Mobile is our recommended network for the majority of light mobile users. With 
If you only use your phone from time to time but tend to use it quite a lot when you do, For information on how other mobile networks compare to this, please see our in-depth guides to minimum usage requirements, network coverage, topping up, customer support and Pay As You Go rates.
More Information
For more information about Pay As You Go deals, you can read our other in-depth guides around this topic. In particular, it’s worth seeing our guide to the best Pay As You Go SIM cards and our comparison of traditional Pay As You Go deals.
Andy T said:
O2 classic is cheaper than giffgaff and they run the network that gg use. If you don’t want a bundle it’s a no brainer to use them if the O2 coverage suits you.
Mike Haycock said:
Hi is there a pay as you go provider that is suitable for minimal use IE only every 3 to 6 months without loosing all unused credit.I only use it to very rarely
Ken replied:
Hi Mike,
Yes – there are plenty of “traditional Pay As You Go” providers, which are ideal if you only use your phone from time to time. For more information, see my guide to Pay As You Go rates and the inactivity policy on each UK network.
Hope this helps!
Ken
Gary said:
Hi, I have bought a Nokia back up mobile that I keep in the car in case of emergency or if I leave my regular mobile at home. I haven’t used it for a year or so then I left my mobile at home and went to use it and it would not register the sim for use…frustrating to say the least. Any advice?
Cheers
Gary
Ken replied:
Hi Gary,
Sorry to hear about what has happened to your old phone. Unfortunately, most UK networks will disable your SIM card if you don’t use it for a chargeable activity once every 6 months. The best way to avoid this is to make sure you use your phone once in a while (or put it in your diary to send a text message every 5 months or something). There’s more information in my guide to PAYG inactivity.
With regards to the SIM card that has already been disabled, you could try contacting your mobile network’s customer services to see whether they’re able to restore it. There’s certainly no guarantee they’ll do this, but it might be possible for them to do.
Ken