What is Electric Kiwi Broadband and is it a Great Deal?

There is no shortage of broadband providers in New Zealand. Canstar Blue’s latest Broadband Star Ratings and Awards cover 13 major players. And since last year’s award, even more providers have started offering broadband services, including Electric Kiwi. But what is Electric Kiwi broadband and is it a great deal? Canstar explores.

Aside from its very catchy jingle, Electric Kiwi is well-known for its low-frills electricity deals. A two-time winner of Canstar Blue’s Award for Most Satisfied Customers, Electric Kiwi consistently rates as one of NZ’s best power brands. And now it has added broadband to its power offering.

Electric Kiwi broadband: What’s on offer?

No frills

Just like Electric Kiwi’s power deals, its broadband offerings are no-frills product. It only offers unlimited broadband over existing fibre connections. This means, no landlines or other perks, such as free or cut-price streaming services.

And, Electric Kiwi broadband is only available to existing Electric Kiwi customers who have their power with the provider. This means that if you want to sign up to Electric Kiwi broadband, you first have to sign up to purchase your power through the company.

Two basic plans

There are just two no-frills plans on offer. Each comes with a free router and unlimited data, delivered at different speeds:

Sweet Fibre: 300Mbps down / 100Mbps up

Sweet As Fibre: 800Mbps down / 500Mbps up

Compare Electricity Providers with Canstar Blue

Electric Kiwi broadband: What does it cost?

Unlike many other broadband contracts, which require you to sign up for a year, there are no long-term contracts with Electric Kiwi broadband. Fees are charged on a daily basis and billed with your power charges, either weekly, fortnightly or monthly.

Two basic rates

Sweet Fibre: costs $2.65 per day, which works out to $80.60 per calendar month

Sweet As Fibre:  costs $2.95/day, which works out to $89.73 per calendar month

Electric Kiwi broadband: Is it a good deal?

Electric Kiwi now has Broadband

Your favourite independent power company, now with broadband. All plans come with unlimited data and a free modem, with no contracts or notice periods.

Join Now

Compared to other no-frills providers, Electric Kiwi broadband’s rates are very competitive, if you don’t want to be tied down to a long-term contract.

Yes, there are cheaper options out there – plus comparative broadband deals that offer sweeteners, such as free Netflix, Neon and Prime – but they all require you to sign up for at least a year. And if you break your contract, you’ll have to pay penalty fees. Electric Kiwi broadband comes with no such penalties. And you’re free to cancel whenever you want.

Also, making the deal sweeter. There is no charge, not even a delivery charge, for the router that comes with Electric Kiwi’s plans. Most other providers only provide a free router if you agree to sign up to a long-term plan. And then they usually charge a $15 one-off modem delivery fee.

Finding the best broadband plans

Ultimately, if you’re after the best broadband deal, it’s always worth doing a little research. To help you get a clearer picture of broadband providers in NZ, Canstar Blue rates all the big providers in the market annually. We survey thousands of broadband customers and ask them to score their providers across categories including Value for Money, Network Performance and Customer Service.

Canstar Blue’s 2021 review of NZ internet providers compares NOW, 2degrees, Bigpipe, Contact, MyRepublic, Orcon, Skinny, Slingshot, Spark, Stuff Fibre, Trustpower, Vodafone and Voyager, and awards the best our 5 Star rating:

See Our Ratings Methodology

The table above is an abridged version of our full research, so to find out more about NZ’s best broadband providers, just click on the button at the bottom of this story.

Compare broadband providers for free with Canstar!

About the author of this page

This report was written by Canstar’s Editor, Bruce Pitchers. Bruce began his career writing about pop culture, and spent a decade in sports journalism. More recently, he’s applied his editing and writing skills to the world of finance and property. Prior to Canstar, he worked as a freelancer, including for The Australian Financial Review, the NZ Financial Markets Authority, and for real estate companies on both sides of the Tasman.