Best mobile plans in Canada

Canada’s great, I love it. But what I’ve learned is that, in Canada, if you’re not careful, you’re going to get ripped off by a lot of things.

Mobile (or cell) contracts are no different.

So read on for my overview of the Canadian mobile market and my suggestions for the best mobile plans in Canada right now.

Before we get into my suggestions of the best mobile plans in Canada, let’s explain a bit of the context you’ll find yourself in when trying to get a mobile plan in Canada.

The Big 3 mobile companies

Canada’s mobile market is dominated by the Big 3 cell providers – Bell, Rogers and TELUS.

Between them the Big 3 mobile companies account for around 90% of revenue market share for mobile according to the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC).

These three have dominated the market for years with little competition and therefore prices, from my perspective, seem really high. According to the 2019 Communications Monitoring report from the CRTC, Canadians pay an average of $101 a month on cellphone plans – a shockingly high figure by international comparisons.

The tentative good news is that more mobile companies are starting to come through now to offer competition… but if you dig a little, it’s only the perception of competition in most cases.

Read on to find out why.

Cheap phone plan companies

There’s a few mobile providers in Canada that I’d group into cheap phone plan providers. These are Fido, Bell, Koodo, Virgin and Freedom.

However, these companies are not truly competitors to the big 3.

Fido, Koodo, Virgin and Freedom are the biggest-non-Big-3 mobile brands. Of them, three are directly owned by the Big 3: Rogers owns Fido; Bell owns Virgin; and Telus owns Koodo.

Freedom is the only one not directly owned by the Big 3 and therefore in my opinion the only real challenger in the true sense of the term.

The Big 3 are not going to give you the same for less at their discount brands are they?

Genuine challengers have a harder time getting off the ground in Canada than they might in many other countries because Canada does not currently allow companies to operate as Mobile Virtual Network Operators – that is to provide services by using other company’s (Big 3’s) network infrastructure.

So any true challenger currently has to build their own network infrastructure which is obviously a huge undertaking in any country, let alone one as vast as Canada – this creates a big barrier to new players entering the field.

If you do go with a discount provider then you’re going to need to check the geographical coverage.

Fido, Bell and Virgin use their parent company’s networks so offer the same coverage. Freedom on the other hand is building its own infrastructure which is pretty strong in the main urban areas in Southern Ontario, British Columbia and Alberta. Outside of urban areas you’ll likely use one of Freedom’s partner networks on which you’ll have a limited amount of data included in your plan.

Cheapest phone plan providers

Along with the bigger mobile plan brands mentioned above, there’s another category to mention which we’ll call… ‘The Basics’.

The cheapest group of phone plan providers are: Public Mobile, Chatr, Lucky and Cityfone.

Again, they are owned by the big 3 – Telus, Telus, Bell and Rogers respectively.

The good news about this is that you get the nationwide network coverage of one of the Big 3’s network, you get data allowances similar to the other discount brands and unlimited minutes and texts.

Sounds great right?… but obviously there’s a bit of a catch…

And that is that these providers will limit your data to 3G speeds.

At first reaction this might seem like a non-starter for most people who are now used to being able to consume rich media on their phone wherever they are. That was my initial reaction too, but actually, for the average person 3G speeds are more than sufficient.

3G speeds will allow you to stream music, check Insta, watch YouTube and all the other usual stuff you’d do on your phone.

I myself have one of these cheapest mobile plans with 3G speed limit and I’ve never not been able to stream music and video over that connection.

So if you’re someone who isn’t bothered about being able to stream 4K videos on the go, these cheapest phone plans brands could be a good option for you.

Depending on where you live, there are several regional players that you should check out as well.

A few of them: Videotron (Quebec and Ottawa), Eastlink (East coast), XPLORE (Manitoba) and SASKTEL (Saskatchewan) to name a few. Again, you’re going to want to check the network coverage to decide if they’ll work for you.

Getting the best mobile plans in Canada as a newcomer

When you’re shopping for your first mobile contract, you likely will have to take a pre-pay (or pay as you go) rather than a post-pay plan.

But honestly, I have a pre-paid monthly plan and it makes very little difference practically to me.

One thing to consider though is you might want to change to a post-pay plan when you can as it will help build up your credit score in Canada which is important. It’s easy to keep track of your credit score using free services. The one I use is ClearScore – it’s free, easy to use and gives you the information you need.

You can also check out my article on banking in Canada for more on credit scores.

One last tip I would give you is that my partner and I have found it really useful that we’re on different networks to maximize our chances of having mobile signal. Being new to Canada we’re trying to explore the country as much as possible so when we get outside the main urban areas and transport corridors, we’ve often been in a position where one of our phones doesn’t have reception but the other does – comes in handy when you’re trying to plan routes etc. Given many of the providers offer very similarly priced plans in the market segment they operate, you should be able to vary who you go with without sacrificing on price.

One very last tip! If you go for a plan that hasn’t locked you in for a certain period (i.e. you’ve brought your own phone) then do continue to shop around and switch if better deals come up. Often you may be on a plan that’s discounted for the first x number of months. So once that discount stops – move provider if your current one won’t price match. The process for porting your number over to a new provider is really easy (all done during the signup process – you don’t even need to call your old provider).

The best mobile plans Canada

With all the above in mind, here’s what I think are the best phone plans in Canada right now.

So these are my recommendations of the best mobile plans in Canada based upon how I use my phone – mostly streaming music and consuming social media and video on the go. If that’s not you then they might not be the best fit – you’ll need to assess what’s important to you and check out the Market Overview section above to see who best fits. My recommendations are definitely geared heavily towards price, I really would find it jarring paying the prices that the Big 3 are charging for my mobile (cell), but if price is not such a factor for you and you use tons of data, go for it!