Guide to mobile SIMs for kids, teenagers and families
Dan Howdle • October 10th, 2024
If you’re looking to buy a new SIM for your son or daughter, it can be difficult to know where to start with so many different providers and deals out there. Your starting point is likely to be cost, but there are a few other things worth thinking about before you plump for the cheapest option.
In this guide, we take you through the key points to consider when shopping for a SIM only deal for your teenager. We’ve done the research, so you can get on with choosing the right deal and get your teen happily browsing TikTok or listening to Spotify in no time.
Family SIM packages
If you’re happy with your own mobile service provider, then it is probably worth finding out if they offer a Family SIM deal. Most providers now offer Family SIM deals, which allows you to have more than one SIM on the same account, often with a discount for each extra SIM you add. Family or group SIMs are available from EE, Smarty, Vodafone, O2, Three, Tesco Mobile, Asda Mobile and a number of smaller providers too.
Not all providers refer to it as a Family SIM (you may see phrases such as Family Plan, Group Plan, Sharing Plan or Additional Plan) but almost all of them offer the option to add an extra SIM to an existing account in return for some kind of benefit – usually money off the additional SIMs you choose to add.
- BT Family SIM deals
- EE Family account
- SMARTY Group plan
- O2 Family plan
Why choose a Family SIM?
A Family SIM enables you to consolidate your family’s mobile service finances in one place, and you can easily monitor and make changes from one app. You can also keep a close eye on how much data your son or daughter is using, and, in the case of some Family SIMs, such as those offered by Sky Mobile (Sky Piggybank) and EE (Data Gifting), you can also share data between everyone on the same plan – useful if someone runs low.
Most mobile service providers that offer Family SIMs have an additional discount on the second SIM. Some providers offer perks like additional data as a bonus instead. Here are some Family SIM schemes from popular providers to give you a flavour of what's on offer:
- Three – Doesn't offer a dedicated Family SIM plan under its own brand but does so via SMARTY (Three owns SMARTY), which includes discounted rates when adding multiple SIMs to one account
- Tesco Mobile – Offers two main family plans: Family Perks and Family Pack. With Family Perks, each member on your account can choose a monthly perk like extra data, discounts on your bill, or Tesco Clubcard points. Family Pack provides unlimited data, minutes, and texts for each member, with increasing savings as you add more SIMs to the plan. Up to five members can join the Family Pack
- EE – Provides a 'Multi-line Discount' plan where you can get up to 30% off additional SIMs. This discount is available on SIM only and data only plans, and you also get a 10% discount on EE Broadband when bundled together
- Vodafone – Has the 'Additional Plan', allowing you to add up to nine SIMs to your account. Each additional SIM receives a 15% discount
- O2 – Offers its 'O2 Family plan', which provides a 20% discount for each additional SIM you add. This plan allows you to add up to 20 SIMs to a single account, making it ideal for larger families or businesses
- SMARTY – Offers a 'Group Plan' 'with a 10% discount on each additional SIM. SMARTY's plans are generally lower in cost and do not require long-term contracts
Downsides of a Family SIM
There aren’t many downsides of choosing a Family SIM, but a couple of things are worth bearing in mind. First, find out what the contract term is for additional SIMs. Some providers insist on locking in additional SIMs on a lengthy contract. Others, such as SMARTY offer additional SIMs on the same one-month rolling contract basis as all their other plans.
Also, check the flexibility over data allowances. Some providers only allows additional SIMs to have the same data allowance as the main account holder, while others allow you to vary the allowance per SIM.
Finally, bear in mind that although the discounts offered by Family SIM plans are good, they may not always offer the best value SIM deals available across the wider market.
SIMs with parental controls
Every parent worries about what their child is doing online. At home, connected to Wi-Fi, it seems less of a worry as you most likely have a number of security systems in place – including parental controls – set up on your home broadband connection. But if the prospect of setting your youngster loose on the net on a mobile phone is terrifying, don’t worry as there are plenty of controls you can establish on a mobile phone for peace of mind.
All providers automatically block access to 18+ sites via their networks. If you want a more tailored approach to what your offspring are doing, a combination of either the phone’s parental controls or a parental controls app, along with your own home broadband controls should do the job.
Apple iPhones offer built-in parental controls that you can set up and control using a passcode, while Android offers something similar using Google Play and Google Family Link.
Capped usage SIMs
A capped usage SIM is anything other than an unlimited data SIM, where you pay for a fixed amount of data per month. Data amounts have been steadily increasing over the years but you can still get small allowances from 1GB upwards from some providers, which can be a good choice because it creates additional limits on what can be done on your child's phone when they're away from the home Wi-Fi, which will have additional safeguards.
How to choose the right data plan for your child
If you have a younger child, it’s likely that they will be spending most of their time using your home Wi-Fi rather than eating into their mobile data, so they will only need a very small data allowance for the few times when they are out without access to Wi-Fi. Most of the time, even if they're at a friend’s house they can log on to the friend’s Wi-Fi and save their data.
If you're looking for a SIM only deal for a teen however, you might want to consider a higher monthly data allowance. Older kids might spend far more time out and about, and might be actively streaming from Spotify, watching YouTube or posting on Tiktok. Video and audio streaming uses a lot of data, so if you have a child of secondary-school age, it may well be worth getting them a bigger chunk of data to play with.
Several providers aimed at the youth market, including VOXI (Vodafone’s little sibling) and SMARTY (which uses the Three network), specialise in offering SIM only deals for the younger market. These come with a chunk of data along with unlimited usage for social media and messaging apps, so all those hours your child spends on TikTok, YouTube, Facebook and the like won’t touch their data allowance, making a smaller (and cheaper) data allowance last much longer.
Consider setting up a spending cap
In most cases, providers will send a text message when you approach your monthly usage allowance. Some devices allow you to set a limit in your hardware settings as well, though you have to update to match your billing cycle to get an estimate of actual usage. To avoid being charged, you can set a limit on the account, either blocking any further usage completely or by setting a financial limit of say £5 or £10 extra per month so that you don’t get any unpleasant bill shocks. Also bear in mind that having to buy extra data is expensive and definitely something to avoid.
Unlimited SIMs
Increasingly mobile providers are moving towards pushing unlimited data SIMs as standard. While they are now more affordable than ever, if you can save money by having a limited plan we still advise you do. The average mobile SIM data usage in the UK is still about 8GB, simply because most of us spend most of our time in Wi-Fi range.
