Cheap Broadband Deals

The good news first. Cheap broadband stopped meaning slow broadband a few years ago. Full fibre has now been built past around 8 in 10 UK homes, and that build, plus a price war between the big networks and the smaller altnets, has dragged the floor of the market down hard.

The result is that the cheapest tier of full-fibre deals often costs no more than the part-copper line it replaced. Old FTTC connections are mostly sold at 35 to 67Mbps averages, and that is about as much as the technology has to give. Entry-level full fibre starts above that ceiling and holds its speed at 8pm when the whole street is streaming. Same sort of money. Completely different evening.

There is still a trap at the bottom of the market, and it is the rock-bottom deal running on ageing copper-based kit. It saves a fiver a month and buckles the moment two people need it at once. It helps to know which connection type actually comes into the house, and to spend two minutes on what speed your household needs, because the cheapest deal that genuinely covers your home beats the cheapest deal full stop.

For contracts taken out from 17 January 2025, Ofcom banned inflation-linked price rises. Providers can no longer bury a "CPI plus 3.9%" clause in the small print. Any in-contract rise must be shown in pounds and pence, prominently, before you sign. The big providers now advertise something like "£3 a month rise each April" next to the headline price. Read that line. It is the most honest number on the advert.

Two cautions. Contracts signed before the rule are not covered, so a deal from 2024 can still carry the percentage clause. And while some smaller full-fibre providers still fix your price for the entire contract, that habit is no longer universal among altnets, so check each provider's terms rather than assuming.

The monthly price on the tile is one of four numbers, and it is rarely the deciding one.

The first is the setup fee. Most deals cost nothing to start, but some add £30 or more, and a one-off £30 wipes out a couple of pounds a month of saving. The second is the post-intro price, the figure your bill becomes when the introductory window closes. The third is the scheduled annual rise, now shown in pounds and pence. The fourth is the contract length, because a cheap 24-month deal locks the saving in for longer, while a cheap 12-month deal is only cheap for a year before you do the whole dance again.

Put those together and you get the full-contract total, which is what our ranking is built on. The advert wants you looking at one number. The contract is decided by four.

If anyone in your household claims Universal Credit, the cheapest broadband in the UK is not in the list above. It is a social tariff, the discounted package every major provider now offers, and the entry points are lower than most people guess.

These prices move as providers refresh their tariffs, but at the time of writing the cheapest entries include:

Most fixed-line social tariffs sit between £15 and £20, and the full list lives on Ofcom's site. Universal Credit qualifies you for every tariff on it. The major providers also accept Pension Credit, ESA, JSA and Income Support, and some add PIP and Attendance Allowance. The claimant needs to be the account holder, and applying usually takes minutes, not a stack of paperwork. These tariffs typically come with no mid-contract rises and no exit fees, so trying one costs nothing if your circumstances change. Most people who qualify have no idea they do.

Now for the expensive end of cheap. The most reliable way to overpay for broadband is to do nothing. When your contract ends, the introductory pricing falls away, the annual rises keep landing and the bill drifts upward while the service stays identical. Providers reserve their best prices for new customers, and the people quietly funding those prices are the out-of-contract ones.

The fix takes five minutes. Check whether you are overpaying, then switch or haggle. Haggling can work, but only if your threat to leave is credible, which means turning up to the call knowing what the deals above would cost you.

You can be price-sensitive and still be choosy. If you will never plug in a landline phone, broadband-only deals strip out the calls you are not making. If you would rather not be tied in for two years, no-contract deals cost a little more each month but let you leave whenever you like. Cheap is a budget, not a category, and the list above covers every flavour of it.

The default order is cheapest first, measured on first-year cost at your address, with deals marked down for steep mid-contract rises and for padding the package with extras you never asked for. Where a provider has paid for placement or a deal is an exclusive, it is badged so you can see it is not the algorithm talking. The point of this page is the lowest real cost, not the lowest advertised one.