Compare Mobile Prepaid Plan providers in New Zealand at Canstar Blue. Skinny, Kogan Mobile, 2degrees, Spark, Warehouse Mobile, One NZ were compared on Overall Satisfaction, Accessibility of the Provider, Billing, Customer Service, Network Coverage and Value for Money.
Once again the nation’s phone users have spoken, rating Skinny the No.1 choice for prepaid mobile.
Our review compares prepaid providers on customer satisfaction, so you can discover what other Kiwis think about our compared prepaid providers before you sign on with one of them. Think of it like asking hundreds of your closest mates which prepaid provider they think is best!
Canstar Blue surveyed 1714 Kiwis who have an account with a prepaid mobile provider and asked for their feedback on their mobile provider.
Respondents rate their satisfaction with their prepaid providers from zero to ten, where zero is extremely dissatisfied and ten is extremely satisfied. Brand satisfaction was rated by respondents on the following criteria:
The winning brand is the one that receives the highest Overall Satisfaction rating once all the scores from the Overall Satisfaction criteria are combined and averaged.
Brands must have received at least 30 responses to be included, so not all brands available in the market have been compared in this survey. The brands rated in this survey are listed below in order of best overall satisfaction.
Find more information on our Most Satisfied Customer methodology.
Congratulations to Skinny for once again winning Canstar Blue’s Most Satisfied Customers | Mobile Prepaid Plans Award. The award has been running since 2015, and Skinny has taken out top honours every year, which is a remarkable feat, given the competition in the prepaid mobile sector.
This year Skinny achieves another great set of ratings from its customers. It earns a top 5-Star rating for Overall Satisfaction, and further 5 Stars for Customer Service and Network Coverage. Across all other categories it earns great 4-Star ratings.
Skinny Mobile is a division of Spark that runs over Spark’s 4G and 5G networks. But instead of offering all the extras that Spark bundles with its plans, like free and half-price Spotify, Skinny just concentrates on the basics – calls, texts and data – at a reduced price.
Skinny offers the following great-value prepaid plans. It also offers similar weekly plans, although they work out slightly more expensive:
Australian brand Kogan Mobile is a newcomer to Canstar Blue’s award, and achieves a great set of ratings from its customers in its first year on our awards table. Notably, it’s the only prepaid mobile provider to earn 5 Stars for Value for Money. Along with another top rating for Billing, and two 4-Star ratings, for Network Coverage and Overall Satisfaction, it earns 3 Stars for Customer Service and Accessibility of Provider, which is understandable, given that Kogan Mobile is a web-based company.
Kogan was founded by entrepreneur Ruslan Kogan 25 years ago in Australia as an online own-brand electrical goods retailer. Since then it’s grown into a huge company, selling a wide range of products on its NZ and OZ websites.
Here in Aotearoa, it owns online retailer MightyApe.co.nz. However, despite its size, the Kogan Mobile brand is still a small player in the market. But it’s deserving of greater attention, because if you’re after a cheap, no-frills phone deal, Kogan Mobile’s pre-paid deals are some of the cheapest around.
Kogan offers a discount if you pay for a 12-month plan upfront, as shown:
2degrees earns an equal mix of 3-, 4- and 5-Star ratings. Its highest ratings are for Customer Service and Accessibility of Provider, and its lowest are for Billing and Overall Satisfaction, while it earns great 4 Stars for Network Coverage and Value for Money.
2degrees offers eight prepaid monthly plans, plus four two-week plans. And each, except the cheapest $8 monthly plan, comes with a great perk: a free hour of data each day to use at a time that suits your data needs:
NB: All plans offer unlimited calls to other 2degrees mobiles, hotspotting, free voicemail and are 5G ready
Spark scores predominantly 3-Star ratings, including for Overall Satisfaction and Value for Money. It earns its highest ratings for Customer Service and Network Coverage (4 Stars) and Accessibility of Provider, for which it earns a top 5-Star rating.
That Spark scores less highly than Skinny in our ratings for Network Coverage, even though they share the same mobile network (see below), is indicative of consumer perceptions around the idea of value. Because Spark is a premium brand, consumers expect it to deliver a higher level of service and product quality than a no-frills provider, such as Skinny, which affects how they award their satisfaction ratings.
Spark offers four prepaid plans, all come with the offer of $7 Spotify Premium discount. Socialiser data is for use on Facebook, Messenger, Twitter and Spotify apps only. Data Stack: earn 100MB of stackable data every 28 days when you stay on your eligible Spark Prepaid Value Pack, up to a maximum of 10GB while you stay on an eligible pack. Unused Data Stack does not roll over.
Warehouse Mobile scores 3 Stars across all our award categories except one, Value for Money, for which it earns a 4-Star rating. This is understandable given Warehouse Mobile’s low, no-frills prices.
Warehouse mobile offers a range of five easy-on-the-pocket prepaid mobile plans. The ability to call beyond NZ and Australia makes them a great option for those who want to stay in touch with family and friends overseas:
*Other destinations include standard landline or mobile numbers in: NZ, Australia, China, England, Scotland, Wales, the US, India, Canada, Germany, Israel, Puerto Rico, Brazil, Mexico, Malaysia, Singapore and South Korea. Exclusions apply including Alaska and Hawaii.
One of NZ’s biggest telcos, and the operator of its own network, One NZ sits at the bottom of our table, earning mostly 3-Star Ratings, including for Overall Satisfaction, Value for Money and Customer Service. While not a top rating, 3 Stars still indicates that One NZ’s customers are content with their choice of telco.
One NZ’s MyFlex prepay plans allow you to customise your text, minutes, and data allocations. The plans below are default suggestions, provided by One NZ, but they can all be customised to better suit your needs. However, note that changing the mix of text/talk and data can alter pricing.
For example, reducing the text allowance on the $15 plan to 100 texts, while increasing the data allowance to 1.25GB changes the price to $17.
All prices correct as of 26/06/2024. For further details, visit individual providers’ websites.
Other prepaid providersNot all mobile prepaid plan providers in the market qualify for our ratings (based on minimum survey sample size), but that doesn’t mean they’re not worth considering. Here are more providers to check out before making a decision.
Rocket MobileRocket Mobile is a mobile-phone provider that offers a unique range of prepaid unlimited data plans that use One NZ’s mobile network.
The majority of endless plans come with data caps. This means you only get a certain allocation of full-speed data. Once you hit your plan’s cap, data speeds are wound back quite dramatically, usually to around 1.2Mbps. And while 1.2Mbps is fast enough for streaming music and surfing the internet, it’s not suitable for video streaming or video calling.
What makes Rocket Mobile’s plans different is that the cheaper plans come with their max data speeds permanently capped, instead of their data limits. This means that if you don’t use your phone to watch a lot of video, you can get an unlimited data plan suitable for you needs for just $30 per month. And all Rocket’s other plans are quite fast enough to watch Netflix in HD!
| Plan | Data/Speed | Talk/Text | Hotspotting | Cost (monthly) |
| Rocket Starter | Unlimited: at 2Mbps | Unlimited NZ/OZ | 10GB | $30 |
| Rocket | Unlimited: at 10Mbps | Unlimited NZ/OZ | 20GB | $40 |
| Rocket Plus | Unlimited: at 40Mbps | Unlimited NZ/OZ | 20GB | $45 |
| Rocket Max (5G ready) | Unlimited: no speed cap | Unlimited NZ/OZ | 40GB | $70 |
Mighty MobileMighty Mobile is a pre-paid telco service from online retailer Mighty Ape. It piggybacks on the One NZ network, so offers premier coverage across the country. Like Rocket Mobile’s plans, Mighty Mobile’s point of difference is that the data speeds on its cheaper plans come already capped, albeit at speeds that still permit video streaming.
Mighty Mobile also has year-long plans that offer considerable discounts:
As with all utilities – mobile, internet, power, electricity – they only really come in one flavour: electricity is electricity, gas is gas, and access to a mobile service is pretty much the same whatever provider you use.
The only differences come down to the price and the associated packing of the phone products, for example value-added extras and customer service.
So it’s not surprising to see that for the overwhelming majority of phone users in our survey (35%), satisfaction with their provider comes down to one thing: Value for Money.
Customer Service (22%) is also important, rating only slightly higher than Network Coverage at 20%. As we mention above, perceptions of Network Coverage are interesting, as there are only three main mobile networks in the country, which are used by multiple phone providers (see below). And up until the roll-out of 5G, all three mobile phone networks were pretty consistent at delivering reliable coverage to around 98% of Kiwis. However, now that 5G is proliferating, big differences in ultrafast network coverage are appearing, as all three networks update to the latest 5G tech.
Here’s the full rundown of what the consumers in our survey say are the main things they consider when rating their prepaid providers.
What mobile networks are there in NZ?There are three main mobile networks in the country, which were built by 2degrees, Spark and One NZ (formerly Vodafone). Although both 2degrees and Spark sold off their tower assets recently, they still use the networks they built.
In major centres, there’s very little difference between the three networks. However, in rural and remote areas coverage can vary dramatically. And then there’s 5G, which is more limited in its reach, even in major centres.
Here a rundown of the networks and which other providers use them:
Network reaches 97.5% of New Zealanders (with 4G at around 97%). Spark’s network coverage map can be found here.
Network covers over 98.5% of the population (with 4G at over 96%). One NZ’s network coverage map can be found here.
Network covers 98.5% of the places New Zealanders live and work (with 4G at over 96%). 2degrees’ network coverage map can be found here.
Prepaid plans are phone plans that require you to prepay for the telco service: i.e. you pay in advance for phone services to use within a set time period. Once that expiry period is over, you need to recharge your plan in order to continue your service. If you use up some of your data/text/talk allocations before the expiry period, you will need to either recharge your plan, wait until your next recharge (and not have certain services until then) or purchase an add-on for an additional cost, such as extra data, if applicable.
Postpaid plans differ in that you pay after using your phone plan allocations. Typically, you receive a monthly bill from your telco, usually on the same date, that you have to pay by a certain date. If you have used more than your plan’s inclusions, you might incur additional charges on your bill.
The main advantage of a postpaid plan is that you’ll never be left unable to make a call, send a text message, or use mobile data to chat online. If a prepaid plan expires, you need to spend extra money immediately to get your service back up and running. However, postpaid plans allow you to keep using your service, and simply settle the bill later.
The main disadvantage of postpaid phone plans is the potential to blow out your budget if you’re not careful. Make sure that you know exactly what you will need to pay for going over your plan’s inclusions, keep an eye on your data use, and make sure that exceeding your monthly allowance doesn’t become a habit. If it does, you could be better off upgrading your plan, rather than paying extra in excess charges.
The safety net of being able to make calls whenever you need to means that postpaid phone plans are probably a good idea for those who use their phone a lot.
If keeping close tabs on your spending is important to you, then prepaid may be the wise alternative. But when it comes to ease of use and maximum bang for your buck, it’s hard to look past postpaid plans.
This report was written by Canstar’s Editor, Bruce Pitchers. Bruce has three decades’ experience as a journalist and has worked for major media companies in the UK and Australasia, including ACP, Bauer Media Group, Fairfax, Pacific Magazines, News Corp and TVNZ. 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.
Use apps to communicate with others, rather than traditional calls and texts: 60%
Access internet mainly through phone: 49%
Use phone to arrange everyday finances: 46%
Have switched mobile providers to get better value for money: 14%
Data cap is the major consideration when choosing phone plan: 14%
Regularly use a card loaded onto phone to make contactless payments: 16%
Have unlimited data: 15%
The past winners from Canstar Blue’s Prepaid Mobile ratings:
Canstar Blue surveyed 5127 New Zealand consumers across a range of categories to measure and track customer satisfaction, via ISO 26362 accredited research panels managed by Qualtrics. The outcomes reported are the results from respondents who have a prepaid mobile account. In this case, 1714 New Zealanders. Brands must have received at least 30 responses to be included. Results are comparative and it should be noted that brands receiving three stars have still achieved a satisfaction measure of at least six out of 10. Not all brands available in the market have been compared in this survey. The ratings table is first sorted by star ratings and then by mean overall satisfaction. A rated brand may receive a ‘N/A’ (Not Applicable) rating if it does not receive the minimum number of responses for that criterion.
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