Considering buying a mobile plan from giffgaff?
In this article, we’ve reviewed giffgaff, to see if they’re worth joining – based on their speeds and coverage, value for money, customer service, roaming policies, and more.
Before we begin, if you’re searching for a new mobile plan, on giffgaff or any other network, use our comparison site to find the cheapest pay monthly phone plans or SIM-only deals on the market right now.
Contents
- giffgaff overview
- Coverage and speeds
- Roaming allowances
- Value for money
- Customer service
- Verdict: should you join giffgaff?
- Alternatives
- Conclusion
giffgaff overview
giffgaff is a mobile virtual network operator (MVNO) that is owned by O2, and uses their infrastructure to service its customers.
This provider is mostly focused on offering cheap SIM-only deals. They have a range of monthly rolling and pay as you go plans on offer, for a very reasonable monthly cost.
However, they now also offer SIMs on an 18 month contract, allowing you to lock in for longer to access a lower price.
Plus, you can now buy certain phones on a pay monthly contract with giffgaff, and they have a good range of handsets available – including the latest iPhones, and cheaper refurbished models.
The good thing about these phone contracts is they’re very flexible. You can normally choose the contract length and upfront cost, to build a plan that works for you.
Unlimited calls and texts to UK numbers are included on all giffgaff tariffs, as well as unrestricted 5G speeds.
You can also use WiFi calling or VoLTE with giffgaff, which is great, and it’s also easy to get started with an eSIM using the giffgaff app if you’d prefer.
Apart from these features though, giffgaff’s SIM plans are very basic, mostly because they’re so cheap. There are no freebies or add-ons included, or other perks like data rollover.
Coverage and speeds
giffgaff uses the O2 network, which means their 4G performs really well, but their 5G isn’t the best on the market.
O2 has the second-best 4G coverage in the UK at the moment, just behind EE. As a result, they offer really good coverage, even in rural areas, making giffgaff quite a good choice if you live in the countryside.
We had a great experience when getting online and making calls with giffgaff, even in remote areas, and our 4G speeds were very strong as well.
On 5G, our speeds were still good, in an area with strong O2 5G signal.
The problem is, O2 5G isn’t as widely available as it is on EE, Three, or Vodafone. And we never saw speeds of more than 300 Mbps, which we can get on Three in our area.
Fortunately, because Vodafone and Three are in the process of merging their networks, they will have to sell off certain 5G frequency allocations in the near future. O2 will be in a prime position to pick up these allocations, to help their 5G performance catch up to the other networks.
Also, from what we can tell, giffgaff customers receive essentially the same connectivity that O2 customers do, which is great.
Since O2 owns giffgaff, they don’t deprioritise users of the cheaper network, from what we have seen at least.
Roaming allowances
giffgaff is not a great choice when it comes to roaming.
They only allow you to use 5GB of your monthly allowance in certain EU and other destinations, which is very little compared to what most other networks offer.
Outside of Europe, there aren’t any roaming add-ons you can choose to buy, meaning you’ll need to pay per megabyte of data used, or per minute of calls made.
Most other mobile providers allow you to use at least 10GB of data per month in Europe, and sometimes a few other countries as well – giffgaff has arguably the most restrictive roaming allowances of any MVNO on the market, including other cheap networks.
If you want to use an O2 MVNO with a much better roaming allowance, look at Tesco Mobile – they currently allow you to use your entire data limit when roaming in Europe, as long as you don’t stay overseas for too long.
Value for money
If you want a cheap SIM with a good data limit, giffgaff can be very good value for money.
When you compare their prices to other SIM plans with similar data limits, giffgaff often has some of the lowest prices on the market. They can be a particularly good choice if you want a cheap unlimited data SIM.
Given the level of coverage they provide on 4G, we think giffgaff’s SIM-only deals are very competitively priced.
Their phone plans can also be good value as well, depending on how you build your tariff – but use our comparison site to see if giffgaff offers good value for money on a given phone you’re interested in buying.
It is worth mentioning though, because they’re so cheap, you do miss out on certain things with a giffgaff SIM, such as having a high inclusive roaming allowance, as we mentioned above.
Customer service
Sort of similar to their roaming policies, another area where giffgaff cuts costs is through their customer service channels.
They don’t have a phone number you can call to get help. This is common to see with small, cheap MVNOs like giffgaff, but other similar providers, like spusu and Lebara, allow you to get in contact over the phone.
If you ever run into problems, giffgaff will first point you towards their community forums to get help.
Failing that, you can use their live chat to eventually get connected with an agent.
Even though there is no phone number to use, giffgaff’s customer support is still quite good. Their team is helpful, and it doesn’t take long to begin speaking with a real person once you join the live chat queue.
We just wish they made it easier to reach out without relying on the community forum as a first line of support – because in our experience, it can be difficult to get good-quality information or help on these discussion boards.
Verdict: should you join giffgaff?
giffgaff has a few advantages, but some significant downsides as well.
Their 4G coverage is great, and from our testing, giffgaff SIMs provide consistent service and fast download speeds.
giffgaff has a great range of plans to choose from, and they offer very reasonable monthly costs, even if you want a high data limit.
However, it would be good if giffgaff had a phone number you could use to reach out to them. Plus, their roaming fair usage limit is very restrictive compared to what most other networks offer.
Overall, we rate giffgaff 3 out of 5. They can be worth considering if you want a cheap, basic SIM or phone plan to use in the UK, with great 4G signal and speeds.
Best giffgaff alternatives
If you’re not set on buying a giffgaff SIM plan, you might like to look at these other mobile networks as well.
1. Smarty
Smarty is essentially Three’s version of giffgaff – they use the Three network, and are owned by their upstream provider.
Like giffgaff, Smarty also offers very cheap SIM-only deals. However, they have faster 5G speeds and better roaming allowances – currently, you can use up to 12GB of your data allowance each month overseas.
The downside to Smarty is they have no customer service phone number, just like giffgaff, meaning you need to use live chat to get help from them.
2. spusu
spusu is one of the few MVNOs on the market that uses the EE network.
As a result, they offer extremely good coverage in rural areas, compared to most other networks. EE has the best 4G coverage of any of the big four providers.
There isn’t a huge range of SIM plans to choose from with spusu, but their prices are reasonable, and they’re easy to reach over the phone.
3. Tesco Mobile
If you want to use the O2 network, but don’t like the look of giffgaff, Tesco Mobile is likely your best choice.
They offer you the ability to roam in the EU with your full allowance, which is great, and have better customer service than giffgaff.
The downside to Tesco is, they can be a bit more expensive than some other MVNOs on the market, because their SIM plans aren’t as basic.
Conclusion
This is the end of our giffgaff mobile network review.
If you’re still not sure which mobile network to join, leave us a comment below, and we’ll get back to you as soon as we can.
About the author
Tom is the founder of Green Smartphones. You’ll find him writing about phones on the Green Smartphones blog, or talking about SIM deals and mobile networks on our YouTube channel. He’s the Android expert on the team – currently using a Google Pixel 9, recently upgrading from a very long-suffering Note 20 Ultra. When he’s not working on Green Smartphones, you’ll find him playing football or hiking.