Prepaid Vs Postpaid : Which Plan Saves More Money

Trying to decide which mobile plan would give you more value for money? We’ve listed down the comparison between prepaid and postpaid below to help you decide which one is best suited to your lifestyle!

4 Factors To Consider When Choosing A Mobile Plan

Usage

If you are a heavy user, which means you either make a lot of calls or use up a lot of data, it may be better for you to opt for a postpaid mobile plan. This is because postpaid plans usually offer free calls as well as bundle data plans. Although postpaid plans generally do cost more than prepaid plans, if you actually use the extras such as free calls, it will work out to be cheaper.

Extra Features

Nowadays, many people select a specific mobile plan just for the extra features and perks it offers. Things such as access to premium Spotify, free data, free calls and many more are among the main factors that attract people to opt for a certain mobile plan. Most of the time, postpaid mobile plans offer all of the extra features.

For example, Maxis users who are on the MaxisOne Plan 98 and above are entitled to get free premium Spotify. As for perks, U Mobile users on the P70 plan have access to 15GB quota and on top of that they get free unlimited video streaming on Video – Onz; which means they don’t use up their data plan when streaming videos on YouTube and iflix.

Related: Best Mobile Prepaid Plans In Malaysia

Convenience

Postpaid plans offer more convenience as you won’t have to go through the hassle of topping up to keep your account active, and to be able to actually use your phone. Once you’ve used up all your credit, you won’t be able to make any calls until you top it up.

Other than that, you will also have the convenience of payment via auto charging it to you credit card if you are on a postpaid mobile plan. This way your account won’t be barred should you forget to pay your monthly bill. You also won’t have to go through the hassle of topping up when your credit runs out unlike if you are on a prepaid mobile plan.

Flexibility

If you do not want to be tied down to a contract and would rather have a flexible mobile plan, a prepaid would work better for you. This is because with a prepaid mobile plan you get to control how much you want to use and what you would like to subscribe every month as well.

As for a postpaid plan, most telecommunication companies require the users to sign a contract and aside from that there is usually a minimum fixed monthly amount to be paid. Therefore regardless of your usage of the free calls or free data given, you will still be charged the fixed amount.

So if you want no frills and flexibility without being tied down to any contract, prepaid would be the ideal mobile plan for you.

Related: Know Your Rights As A Consumer of Prepaid Services in Malaysia

Comparison Of Postpaid vs Prepaid

We choose 4 telecommunication companies in Malaysia to compare their postpaid and prepaid plans below:

Maxis

We compared Maxis’ postpaid and prepaid plans of the same price at RM48. The postpaid plan gives users 100 minutes of free calls and 100 SMS. While the prepaid plan offers 13 GB data, 2GB for YouTube and Spotify premium.  Therefore you’ll have to decide if you want free calls or extra perks for RM48.

Related: Which Telco Has The Best Roaming Plans For Malaysians

Celcom

For the plans from Celcom, for similar price you will get to choose between postpaid or prepaid with varying offers. So whether you want free calls and SMS or free music streaming, you can have your pick. As for the data offering, it does not differ much between the postpaid and prepaid plans for the same price.

U Mobile

Both prepaid and postpaid plans from U Mobile offer free calls. However, for prepaid the free calls will be limited to 15 minutes daily to U Mobile numbers only while postpaid users will get 50 minutes per month free calls to all networks. The postpaid costs more than prepaid plan but it does give more extras such as the free calls and more data.

Related: Reduce Your Mobile Data Usage with these 15 Tricks

Digi

As for Digi, we think the postpaid plan is ideal if you make a lot of calls because it would cost you 30sen per minute with the prepaid plan. However, if you need data more than calls then for RM28, the prepaid which offers 6GB total is quite a good deal.

To conclude, we’ve noticed that most postpaid plans offer free calls although the amount of minutes will defer depending on the telecommunication company. While most prepaid plans don’t offer free calls or SMS, most of them offer extra such as music and video streaming and even cloud storage.

So in order to determine which type of mobile plan would give you the most value for money, one way to do so is to ask yourself what type of features you use the most and see which plan would give that to you at the best price.

See also: The Best Postpaid Plans in Malaysia