Your guide to giffgaff SIM only
Giffgaff is a somewhat unusual provider in that its customer service is taken care of by its own community. This not only allows it to offer pricing that's often lower than its competitors, its customers actually find this system incredibly effective, with giffgaff winning both customer satisfaction and industry plaudits aplenty. Let's take a closer look at its offering.
Key features
- Flexible contracts – giffgaff’s plans, until recently known as goodybags but no longer, let you change your plan every month (not that you'd probably want to). Whether you want more data or a cheaper option, you can tweak it to suit your needs whenever you like
- PAYG and contracted options – Where once, giffgaff only offered rolling monthly contracts, you now also have the option of both PAYG (even more flexible but slightly more expensive), and 18-month contracts (much less flexible, but slightly cheaper)
- No credit checks – Unlike most providers, giffgaff doesn’t require a credit check to join. This makes it ideal if you’re worried about your credit history or prefer to avoid long-term contracts
- Unlimited calls and texts – Each SIM comes with unlimited calls and texts within the UK as standard, so you’ll never have to worry about running out of minutes or messages
- EU roaming included – You can take your phone with you while travelling across Europe without problems. You can use your data, calls, and texts in most EU countries at no extra cost, though there’s a fair usage limit of 5GB of data per month
- 5G at no extra cost – Every SIM includes 5G for free. All you need is a 5G-ready phone and 5G coverage in the location you're planning to use it
- Community-powered support – giffgaff’s community forum is packed with members ready to help with any questions or issues. It’s a friendly and supportive system that is often highlighted as one of the most positive aspects of being a giffgaff customer
- Payback rewards for referrals – You can earn 'points' for referring friends to giffgaff, which can be converted into cash, credit, or charity donations
Data and calling
You may or may not be aware that there are only four mobile networks in the UK, with the many, many other providers piggybacking onto one of these networks to deliver their service. Giffgaff is on the O2 network, and indeed is owned by O2's parent company, Telefónica UK Ltd, and as such much of what is true in terms of data speeds and signal availability, whether 4G or 5G is shared with O2.
Here's a look at the data and calling features around O2 (the network) and specific to giffgaff (the provider).
- 5G data speed – O2's average 5G data speed is around 90-100Mbps, depending on where you source the information
- 4G data speed – 4G data speeds on O2 hit around 17-20Mbps on average, which trails quite a way behind the fastest provider of 4G, EE at around 30Mbps
- Mobile tethering – giffgaff allows unlimited tethering on all plans, so you can use your phone as a hotspot to connect other devices to the internet. Very useful if your home broadband goes down unexpectedly
- Wi-Fi calling – giffgaff supports Wi-Fi calling, enabling you to make and receive calls over Wi-Fi when your mobile signal is poor. This feature is available on most modern phones, but if it's a dealbreaker, make sure your phone supports it
- International calling – giffgaff offers 'competitive rates' for international calls, and you can also use credit to call abroad from the UK
- Spend caps – You can set a spend cap on your account to control any additional charges beyond your plan. This ensures you won’t face unexpected costs, especially for things like premium-rate numbers or time when you meet or exceed your data limit
Roaming on giffgaff
Giffgaff states you'll get a data, calling and text allowance when roaming abroad to the 'EU and selected destinations'. But there are a few caveats there. For one thing, data is going to be limited to 5GB per month even when you're in one of the listed destinations, and you'll need to ensure roaming is turned on on your phone.
It's really important though that you make 100% sure the place you're going is supported in giffgaff's roaming rules. We've got the full list of destinations here. They are:
Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, French Guiana, Germany, Gibraltar, Greece, Guadeloupe, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Martinique, Mayotte, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Reunion, Romania, San Marino, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, and Ukraine.
Individual rates apply to countries not appearing in this list. In some cases it'll still be relatively cheap to use your giffgaff SIM abroad, and in others it'll be more economical to pick up a temporary SIM locally. You can check individual roaming rates by country on the giffgaff website.
Calling abroad from the UK on giffgaff
Giffgaff advertises 'competitive rates' for calling abroad from your giffgaff mobile. However, it doesn't present an exhaustive list. Rather you'll have to visit giffgaff's international calling page and type in the name of the country you're visiting. 'Competitive rates' is quite a soft, meaningless term since it relies on comparing giffgaff's international calling rates with those of its competitors and there's no easy way to do that.
What's more, unlike some providers, where you can bolt on an additional 'pack' or add-on, which then gives you either free or low-cost calling to a host of additional countries, giffgaff has no such scheme. You simply need to check the rate applied to the country you're calling then decide fo yourself whether this constitutes 'competitive'.
A couple of examples – correct at the time of writing – of giffgaff's international calling rates are USA, where you'll pay 3p per minute for calling to either a mobile or landline, and Australia at the same rate. Things tend to get more expensive when calling locations like Afghanistan, where you'll pay 30p per minute, or South Korea for 14p per minute.
"Giffgaff's customers absolutely love them, and there's really no recommendation we could give you that's going to sway you as much as the vast quantity of positive customer feedback the provider receives. Pricing is very competitive, and coverage and features are solid. Giffgaff is one of our top pick providers."
Dan Howdle, Broadband and mobile expert
