Prices
How to read a broadband price
A broadband price is a small stack of numbers, not the largest speed on the advert. This page is the stack. It does not contain this week’s deals. Use it before you trust any poster, including ours.
Reviewed 5 November 2026 · 6 min read · Independent · Not a price list
The stack, from top to bottom
Start with the monthly price after any introductory period. That is the price you will pay for most of a long contract. Then write how many months, if any, are charged at a lower opening price. Then write one-off costs: setup, activation, a router that is not included, and postage. Then write any in-contract rise that is stated in pounds and pence, and the month it applies. Then write the early-termination charge on the service you would leave, in pounds, on a date.
Add the opening months at the opening price, the remaining minimum-term months at the later price, the one-off costs, and a stated rise only if it falls inside the term you are counting. That is the known scheduled cost. Do not add a rise nobody has stated. Do not treat a blank exit fee as zero. Do not subtract cashback, voucher codes, or a gift you have not received.
If two deals are identical on that sum, then look at upload, the network, whether an engineer must enter the home, and how you will get help when it fails. A cheaper known cost on a network that cannot be installed is not cheaper. It is fictional.
Words that hide the stack
“From” means at least one product, somewhere, starts at that point. It is not your flat. “Up to” a speed is a ceiling, often a wholesale headline, not the throughput you will measure on Wi-Fi. “Was” is a comparison with the provider’s own previous price, which you may never have paid. “Average download” needs the small print on how the average was built.
A mobile discount, a TV bundle, or a multi-service utility discount can make the broadband line look cheaper than the line is on its own. Price the line alone first. Then decide whether you want the other contract. One Touch Switch will not move the other contract with the line.
A rolling monthly price can be higher and still be the right shape if you expect to move. A twenty-four month price can be lower and still be the wrong shape if the exit fee would trap you. The stack does not tell you which horizon you should care about. It stops you from mixing them up.
How a comparison should behave
A comparison can show a published offer. It should say where the offer came from and when it was reviewed. It should not pretend a postcode match means the product can be ordered. It should not rank brands with a score and call that score an official rating. Ofcom does not hand us a league table to reprint.
If the published list fails to load, the honest page says so and does not fill the gap with sample prices. Sample prices teach the wrong lesson: that a made-up figure is a decision. We would rather show nothing than show a drill.
When you leave the comparison for a provider’s site, you are in their order flow. Their price, their rise, and their address check replace ours. If the two disagree, theirs is the order. Tell us if our published record is stale. Do not assume we saw the screen you are looking at.
Broadband money is not the energy bill
Gas and electricity have a different regulator and a different switching path. A company that sells both can put them on one direct debit. That does not make them one contract. One Touch Switch does not move energy. An energy switch does not move broadband. Price each one with its own method.
A multi-service discount can be real and still be a poor reason to accept a long broadband term. If you leave the broadband and keep the energy, ask what happens to the discount. If you leave the energy and keep the broadband, ask the same question the other way. Write the answer down. A bundled “saving” that disappears when one service ends was never a property of the line.
Water, council tax, and insurance are not part of this comparison. Anyone who folds them into a broadband advert is mixing household admin with a telecoms contract. Separate them before you decide.
Questions
- What is the known scheduled cost?
- Intro months at the intro price, plus the rest of the minimum term at the later price, plus upfront costs, plus a rise only if it is stated and falls inside the term. Do not add a rise you have not been shown. Do not treat a missing exit fee as zero.
- Should I subtract cashback?
- No, not until it is paid and the terms say you keep it. Cashback is not a lower monthly price. A comparison that deducts it is advertising, not arithmetic.
- Is “from” my price?
- No. It is the bottom of a range, often for a product or a premises that is not yours. Read the price after any introduction for the product they will actually sell you.
- Do you list social-tariff prices?
- No. Ask the provider. Eligibility and price move, and a figure printed here would pretend we had checked your benefits, which we will not do.
- Does a utility bundle make the broadband cheaper?
- Only if the discount survives on the broadband contract alone, in writing. Price the line first. One Touch Switch does not move gas or electricity.
- What if your figure and the provider’s differ?
- The provider’s order is the one you would pay. Ours is a published record, not a checkout. Use theirs, and tell us if our record is out of date.
Social tariffs are not intro deals
Some providers sell a social tariff for people on certain benefits. Eligibility, the current price, and whether it is exempt from ordinary rises are for that provider to confirm. We do not collect benefit letters and we do not print those prices, because they move and because a wrong figure would be worse than none.
Absence from a page on this site is not proof a provider has no social tariff. Presence in an old article is not proof they still sell it at your address. Ask them, and ask a second provider only if that second provider can serve the premises.
A commercial “saver” package is not a social tariff. The eligibility test is the difference. If you do not have to evidence a benefit, you are in the ordinary market, and the stack above applies.