You can get a short-term home broadband deal from £20/month with no contract and lots of flexibility.

In the UK, the contract length on popular home broadband deals has steadily been increasing over the last few years. Many broadband plans now lock you in to a 24-month contract, giving you limited flexibility when things change.

If you’re looking for a short-term home broadband plan, there are a number of providers that offer home broadband on a flexible one-month rolling deal. This means you can change or cancel your broadband service at any time

In this article, we’ll review and compare ‘no contract’ home broadband providers in the UK. We’ll start with an overview of the available options, before looking at each individual provider in more detail. We’ll also look at 4G home broadband as a flexible alternative to getting fibre broadband without a contract.

No Contract Broadband Plans: From £20/month
Recommended Deal: £23/month for NOW Fab Fibre (no contract)
(36Mbps average download speed, £70 upfront fee applies)
No Contract Broadband Providers:

No Contract Broadband Deals

At present, NOW is our recommended provider if you’re looking for a broadband service that has no contract and no credit check.

NOW

If you’re looking for a widely available broadband service with no contract and no credit check, NOW offers one-month rolling broadband plans from £20/month (or £23/month if you’re looking for a fibre broadband service). You’ll pay £65 upfront for the service (£60 for activation and £5 for the delivery of your new hub).

NOW is the low-cost sub-brand of Sky. Because of this, you can get a discounted NOW television membership if you’re a NOW Broadband customer. For instance, an Entertainment membership gives you access to Sky’s entertainment channels including Sky Atlantic, Sky Max, Sky Witness and more. There’s also a Cinema membership with access to Sky Cinema and a Sports membership with access to the Sky Sports channels on compatible streaming devices.

To get NOW Broadband without a contract, you’ll need to choose the “no contract” option when ordering your new broadband plan online.

Get No Contract Broadband on NOW →

Compare Short Term Broadband Deals

The following table shows a list of other ‘no contract’ broadband providers in the UK:

Broadband Provider Plans From Network Provider Key Features
Cuckoo £29.99/month Openreach
Direct Save £27.95/month Openreach
Hyperoptic £30/month Hyperoptic
NOW £20/month Openreach
  • Optional NOW TV memberships with Sky channels
Virgin Media £38/month Virgin Media
  • Access to O2 Priority discounts and offers

For more information, you can read on to learn more about each individual provider.

No Contract Broadband Plans: By Provider

Cuckoo

Cuckoo is one of the UK’s newest providers of fibre broadband and full fibre broadband. They offer their broadband plans on a flexible 1-month rolling contract, with a £60 upfront fee for setting it up. You’ll benefit from a 12-month fixed price promise and 1% of your bill every month will be donated to charity.

In around 90% of UK homes, you’ll be able to get Cuckoo’s fibre broadband plan. This has an average download speed of 67Mbps:

ServiceAverage SpeedContract LengthUpfront PriceMonthly Price
(may rise during contract)
No price plans could be found matching this criteria.

In certain locations, you may also be able to get full fibre (FTTP) broadband on Cuckoo. This gives you average download speeds of up to 900Mbps, depending on the plan you choose:

ServiceAverage SpeedContract LengthUpfront PriceMonthly Price
(may rise during contract)
No price plans could be found matching this criteria.

As an alternative, Cuckoo’s plans are also available on a 12-month contract with free set-up. If you cancel before the end of your 12-month plan, you’ll be charged a £60 early termination fee.

Price From Download Speed Coverage

£39.99/month

67Mb to 900Mb

90%+ UK homes
(powered by Openreach)

Tariff Information: Cuckoo Website

Direct Save Telecom

In the UK, Direct Save Telecom is another provider of unlimited no-contract broadband. You can get their no-contract broadband service from £27.95/month (plus a £24.95 upfront fee for set-up):

ServiceAverage SpeedContract LengthUpfront PriceMonthly Price
(may rise during contract)
No price plans could be found matching this criteria.

You can pay an extra £3/month to add evening & weekend calls, or an extra £5/month to add anytime UK calls.

Price From Download Speed Coverage

£27.95/month

11Mb to 63Mb

95%+ UK homes
(powered by Openreach)

Tariff Information: Direct Save Telecom Website

Hyperoptic

Hyperoptic offers full fibre broadband in around 700,000 UK homes (mainly covering apartment blocks and new-build developments in 57 major UK towns and cities). If you’re connected to the Hyperoptic network, you can choose from a range of 30-day rolling plans from £30/month:

ServiceAverage SpeedContract LengthUpfront PriceMonthly Price
(may rise during contract)
Hyperoptic
Fast (1 month)
50Mbps download1 month contract£39£30/month
Hyperoptic
Superfast (1 month)
150Mbps download1 month contract£39£40/month
Hyperoptic
Ultrafast (1 month)
500Mbps download1 month contract£29£50/month
Hyperoptic
Hyperfast (1 month)
900Mbps download1 month contract£29£60/month

You’ll be able to get download speeds of up to 1Gbps (1,000Mbps) on the Hyperfast plan from Hyperoptic.

Price From Download Speed Coverage

£30/month

50Mb to 900Mb

0.7m+ homes
(powered by Hyperoptic)

Tariff Information: Hyperoptic Website

NOW

NOW is a low-cost sub-brand of Sky, offering unlimited broadband from £20/month with no contract and no credit check (£23/month if you’re looking for a fibre broadband service). You’ll pay £65 upfront for their no-contract service (this consists of a £60 activation fee and £5 for the delivery of your new hub).

At present, you can choose from the following plans:

ServiceAverage SpeedContract LengthUpfront PriceMonthly Price
(may rise during contract)
NOW Broadband
Brilliant Broadband (no contract)
11Mbps download1 month contract£70£20/month
NOW Broadband
Fab Fibre (no contract)
36Mbps download1 month contract£70£23/month
NOW Broadband
Super Fibre (no contract)
63Mbps download1 month contract£70£23/month

As a NOW broadband member, you’ll be able to add a discounted NOW television membership:

  • A NOW Entertainment membership gives you access to Sky’s entertainment channels including Sky Atlantic, Sky Max, Sky Witness and more.
  • A NOW Cinema membership gives you access to the Sky Cinema channels and more than 1,000 movies to stream whenever you like, on-demand.
  • A NOW Sports membership gives you access to all of the Sky Sports channels, including live action, analysis and more.

You’ll be able to watch these channels on any compatible streaming device with no satellite dish required. For more information, see our NOW broadband review.

Price From Download Speed Coverage

£20/month

11Mb to 63Mb

95%+ UK homes
(powered by Openreach)

Tariff Information: NOW Broadband Website

Virgin Media

If you’re living within Virgin Media’s coverage area, you can get their broadband service on a 30-day rolling contract. This starts from £38/month, with an £80 upfront fee for installation.

On Virgin’s 30-day rolling plans, you’re currently able to choose between M50 Fibre (with an average download speed of 54Mbps), M100 Fibre (with an average download speed of 108Mbps), M200 Fibre (with an average download speed of 213Mbps) and M350 Fibre (with an average download speed of 362Mbps). You can read our Virgin Media review to see how these plans compare.

Unfortunately, the faster plans like Gig1 fibre are not available on a 30-day rolling contract. You also won’t be able to get Virgin Media TV on a 30-day plan.

Price From Download Speed Coverage

£38/month

54Mb to 362Mb

53%+ UK homes
(powered by Virgin Media)

Tariff Information: Virgin Media Website

Other Broadband Providers

Unfortunately, most other broadband providers will normally require you to sign up on a fairly lengthy contract. However, it is sometimes possible to find shorter and more flexible deals elsewhere:

Broadband Provider Short Term Broadband Plans
BT Broadband 9-month & 12-month plans are available. Most BT Broadband plans require you to sign up on a 24-month contract. However, they do sometimes offer 12-month plans and student broadband deals with only a 9-month contract.
EE Broadband On mobile broadband only. Unfortunately, EE does not offer any short term fibre broadband plans. Instead, they’ll point you towards their mobile broadband devices such as the 4GEE WiFi and the 4GEE Home. Both of them are available on a 1-month rolling contract and give you the flexibility to use broadband in different places.
Plusnet Broadband No. Plusnet does not offer any broadband plans without a contract.
Shell Energy Broadband No. You’ll need to sign up for either a 12-month or 18-month contract to get Shell Energy Broadband.
Sky Broadband No. All of Sky’s broadband deals require you to take 18-month contract. However, you can get no-contract broadband from NOW instead. This is a low-cost sub-brand of Sky offering cheaper and more flexible deals.
TalkTalk No. You’ll need to sign up for a 12-24 month contract when joining TalkTalk broadband.
Vodafone Broadband On mobile broadband only. All of Vodafone’s fibre broadband plans come on a 24-month contract. However, you can get their mobile broadband service without a contract (e.g. on the Vodafone GigaCube or on a portable wi-fi hotspot).

Short Term Broadband Alternatives

As an alternative to getting fibre broadband on a one-month rolling contract, you can also consider getting 4G home broadband or 5G home broadband. These products give you a lot more flexibility (e.g. you can simply bring your broadband connection with you to another address).

In general, the best value deals are found on Three when you sign up on a 12-month or 24-month contract. The following table shows some of Three’s 4G home broadband deals:

ServiceData AllowanceContract LengthUpfront PriceMonthly Price

Three 4G Hub
Unlimited Data24 month contract£0£11/month
for 6 months, then £22/month

Alternatively, if you’re living in an area where 5G coverage is available, you might be able to get Three’s 5G home broadband instead:

ServiceData AllowanceContract LengthUpfront PriceMonthly Price

Three 5G Hub
Unlimited Data24 month contract£0£11/month
for 6 months, then £22/month

Three 5G Hub
Unlimited Data1 month contract£0£25/month

You can also consider 4GEE Home and Vodafone GigaCube. Both of these have a one-month rolling plan. However, you’ll need to pay quite a lot upfront for the device. In addition, if you’re looking for unlimited data, you’ll pay in the region of £50 to £60 per month. Alternatively, cheaper deals are available if you’re happy with a smaller allowance of data (e.g. 100GB data per month).

Compare 4G Home Broadband Deals

You can use the following interactive comparison table to compare 4G home broadband deals:

How much data do you want on your plan each month?

How long are you willing to commit for on a contract?

Which networks would you be happy to take a plan from?

Showing 24 of 24 price plans that match your criteria

NetworkServiceData AllowanceContract LengthUpfront PriceMonthly Price
Three
Three 4G Hub
Unlimited Data24 month contract£0£22/month
with 6 months half price
EE
BT 4G Home Hub
100GB Data18 month contract£0£25/month
4G Internet
4G Internet WiFi Router
Unlimited Data24 month contract£99£29.99/month
Vodafone
Vodafone GigaCube 4G
100GB Data18 month contract£0£30/month
Vodafone
Vodafone GigaCube 4G
100GB Data1 month contract£100£30/month
4G Internet
4G Internet WiFi Router
Unlimited Data18 month contract£99£34.99/month
EE
4GEE Home
100GB Data18 month contract£0£35/month
EE
BT 4G Home Hub
100GB Data1 month contract£100£35/month
EE
4GEE Home
100GB Data1 month contract£100£35/month
4G Internet
4G Internet WiFi Router
Unlimited Data12 month contract£99£39.99/month
EE
BT 4G Home Hub
300GB Data18 month contract£0£40/month
Vodafone
Vodafone GigaCube 4G
200GB Data18 month contract£0£40/month
Vodafone
Vodafone GigaCube 4G
200GB Data1 month contract£100£40/month
EE
4GEE Home
300GB Data18 month contract£0£45/month
EE
4GEE Home
300GB Data1 month contract£100£45/month
EE
BT 4G Home Hub
300GB Data1 month contract£100£45/month
BT Mobile
BT 4G Home Hub
Unlimited Data
Up to 15Mbps
24 month contract£0£47.41/month
EE
4GEE Home
Unlimited Data18 month contract£0£50/month
EE
BT 4G Home Hub
Unlimited Data18 month contract£0£50/month
Vodafone
Vodafone GigaCube 4G
300GB Data18 month contract£0£50/month
EE
4GEE Home
Unlimited Data1 month contract£100£50/month
EE
BT 4G Home Hub
Unlimited Data1 month contract£100£50/month
Vodafone
Vodafone GigaCube 4G
300GB Data1 month contract£100£50/month
BT Mobile
BT 4G Home Hub
Unlimited Data
Up to 30Mbps
24 month contract£0£62.10/month

For more information, see our guide to 4G home broadband in the UK.

More Information

For more information, you can compare all fibre broadband providers. You can also read our in-depth broadband provider reviews.

Your Comments 1 so far

We'd love to hear your thoughts and any questions you may have. So far, we've received 1 comment from readers. You can add your own comment here.

  • Keith Murrell said:

    Hello Ken. I see you recommend three as the favourite ISP. I was with three for six months using the B535 Router and the service was very very patchy. There are lots of people who are also dissatisfied with the three service not just home broadband but three in general. There is a Facebook page which has almost 3000 members all documenting their grievances with three. You may like to check it out.

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