Three New Phone Contract

Our interest: we have no affiliate arrangement with Three and earn nothing if you sign up with them. The link on this page goes to Three’s own site. We list Three because it is one of the networks in this category, not because it pays us.

Three now tells you what your bill becomes. Its cheapest advertised unlimited SIM reads “£23.00 per month, increasing to £25.30 from 1 Apr27, £27.60 from 1 Apr28” — printed on the tile, in pounds and pence, before you click. That is £2.30 a year, and it is a flat amount rather than an inflation percentage.

It is a genuine improvement. Three’s older contracts rose by December CPI plus 3.9%, which for April 2026 meant 7.3% — a figure nobody could have forecast when they signed. The fixed-amount system replaced it for anyone joining or upgrading from 9 November 2025, and it means the 24-month cost of a contract is now arithmetic rather than a guess.

The cheapest 24-month SIM only is £13 for 4GB on the Lite tier. Below, the full published grid, what the three tiers actually differ on, and the one number that went up 38% this April while nobody was looking.

The fixed annual rise, by band

For anyone who joined or upgraded on or after 9 November 2025, the April increase is a set amount tied to your plan’s data allowance:

• Up to and including 4GB — £1.80 a month
• Over 4GB and under 100GB — £1.90
• 100GB and above, including Unlimited — £2.30
• Home Broadband, all tariffs — £3.50
• Smartwatch pairing — £1.80

Three states it applies “from 1st April 2026 and onwards”, calculates to two decimal places and rounds up to the nearest penny, and excludes device payments, add-ons and out-of-bundle charges.

Notice what the bands do to small plans. A £13 4GB plan rising £1.80 is a 13.8% increase. A £29 unlimited plan rising £2.30 is 7.9%. The flat-amount system is fairer than a percentage in absolute terms and considerably less fair in proportional ones — the cheapest plans take the biggest percentage hit, every April.

If you joined between 1 November 2022 and 7 September 2024 you are still on the old rule: December CPI plus 3.9%, which came to 7.3% for April 2026 off a December 2025 CPI of 3.4%. And the underlying network terms carry a third mechanism again — an annual increase “by an amount up to the RPI Rate”, taken from January RPI and appearing on the May bill, with no rise at all if RPI is negative. Three has three price-rise regimes running side by side; check which one your contract names.

The published grid, and what the tiers really buy

Three’s own price guide, effective 27 August 2026, for plans joined or upgraded from 18 April 2026. Unlimited minutes and texts throughout. 24-month SIM only:

Twelve-month terms cost £2 more a month across the board; one-month rolling costs £7 more on 4GB and £7 more on unlimited.

The tier difference that is actually published is roaming. Lite includes inclusive roaming in Go Roam in Europe only. Value and Complete include all three Go Roam bands — Europe, Around the World and Around the World Extra. There is also a Lite+ on unlimited only, at £33, which is Lite plus the Full Speed add-on.

That last point matters more than the price gap suggests, because the advertised Lite plans carry a stated cap of “speeds of up to 100Mbps”. Lite+ exists to remove it. So on Three’s cheapest tier you are buying a speed-limited service, and the £4 step from £29 to £33 is what full network speed costs.

Every headline price also includes a £5 discount for paying by a recurring method such as Direct Debit. Pay another way and add £5 to each figure above.

The roaming charge that rose 38%

Three’s Go Roam daily charges went up this April, and by considerably more than any plan price. For anyone who joined on or after 18 December 2025, from 1 April 2026:

The charge unlocks your UK allowance for 24 hours. Three also states that these daily charges “rise each 1 April by CPI plus 3.9%” — so while your plan price now rises by a fixed amount, your roaming still rises by an index. A fortnight in Spain is £38.50 at £2.75 a day, and that is on top of the plan.

Two exclusions worth knowing: the Republic of Ireland and the Isle of Man carry no daily charge, and anyone on a Pay Monthly plan started before 1 October 2021 pays nothing either. Value and Complete tiers include the passes; Lite and the older Advanced plans do not.

Then the fair use cap, which catches people out. Pay Monthly customers can use up to 12GB of data per month in any Go Roam destination, whatever their UK allowance. Beyond that Three charges a surcharge of 0.3p per MB — about £3 a GB — and the terms allow Three to block roaming data for the rest of the billing period. Exceed the limit in any two months within a rolling twelve and Three may suspend international roaming altogether. An “unlimited” plan is a 12GB plan the moment you land abroad.

Handset deals: two contracts, not one

Three splits a phone contract in two, and says so clearly: “Your device plan is separate to your airtime plan… They’re 2 different contracts, so you’ll see two separate direct debits on your bank statement.” On your statement they appear as H3G for airtime and H3GDEVICEPAYMENT for the handset.

The split works in your favour at the end. Device plans run over 12, 24 or 36 months at 0% APR, and “once your device is fully paid off, your direct debit will stop automatically”. You then pay airtime only. That is the opposite of the old bundled model, where the handset cost stayed in the price indefinitely unless you noticed.

You can also repay a device plan in full at any time, and overpaying either lowers the monthly amount over the same term or shortens the term — your choice.

The trap is the mirror image: cancelling your airtime does not cancel the device plan. Three states it plainly — “your device plan will not be cancelled”. Switch network with a handset still being paid off and you keep paying Three for the phone while paying someone else for the service.

Airtime rates on handset plans run from £18 for 5GB Lite to £31 for unlimited Lite on 24 months, with Value and Complete £5 and £10 above that respectively.

Leaving early, and leaving on time

The cancellation fee is “a lump sum equivalent to the total of the Monthly Charges remaining during the Minimum Term”, less a variable discount, currently 3%. Three’s worked example: £25 a month with six months left is £150, minus £4.50, so £145.50.

At or after the end of the minimum term there is no fee at all. The terms give you the right to end the agreement “at the end of your Minimum Term or any time after your Minimum Term has expired” on at least 30 days’ notice.

One thing Three does not do is drop your price when the term ends. The contractual rate simply continues, so a 24-month plan that has absorbed two April increases keeps charging the higher figure until you act. On the £23 unlimited example, that is £27.60 a month indefinitely for a contract you are free to leave.

Cheaper inside the same group, and the tariffs a regulator froze

Three has no social tariff of its own. Its financial support page sends you to SMARTY, a sibling brand in the same group, for “a low-cost, unlimited, 1-month plan for those who need it most”, available to people on any of five income-related benefits including Universal Credit and Pension Credit. SMARTY prices it at £12 a month for unlimited data on a rolling one-month plan with no credit check and a 12GB fair use limit. Three is not listed on Ofcom’s own social tariff page.

There is a second reason to look at the sibling brands. When the CMA cleared the Vodafone and Three merger on 5 December 2024, it did so subject to legally binding commitments, with final undertakings accepted on 28 March 2025. Those undertakings cap specific tariffs for three years, and they name them:

• Three Pay Monthly SIM only, £14 for 25GB, 24 months
• Three Pay Monthly SIM only, £16 for 120GB, 24 months
• SMARTY social tariff, £12, unlimited data, rolling monthly
• VOXI, £10 for 20GB, rolling 30 days

Both Three tariffs appear in its price guide at exactly those prices, both flagged as half price for the first six months. What Three advertises on its SIM page, though, is £11 for 30GB and £8 (was £16) for 120GB — and a 30GB plan at £11 is not one of the protected ones. If you want the tariff with a regulator standing behind its price for three years, ask for the 25GB at £14 or the 120GB at £16 by name.

Where Three falls short

Three price-rise regimes at once. A fixed amount for post-November-2025 joiners, CPI plus 3.9% for a 2022–2024 cohort, and an RPI clause in the underlying network terms. Working out which applies to you means reading your own contract date, not the website.

The cheapest tier is speed-capped. Lite plans state “speeds of up to 100Mbps”, and removing the cap means Lite+ at £33 on unlimited. A 5G network sold with a 100Mbps ceiling is a smaller product than the marketing suggests.

Roaming rose far faster than plans. Around the World went from £5 to £8 a day, up 60%, and roaming charges still rise by CPI plus 3.9% even for customers whose plan price now rises by a fixed amount.

Unlimited means 12GB abroad. The fair use cap applies regardless of your UK allowance, with a 0.3p per MB surcharge beyond it and the contractual right to block your data or suspend roaming entirely after two breaches in a year.

No 3G fallback. Three has switched off 3G completely, so an older handset that drops out of 4G coverage has nothing to fall back to.

No standalone 5G. Ofcom’s Connected Nations 2025 states that “Three does not currently deploy 5G SA services”.

And the price does not fall when your term ends. You keep paying the escalated rate until you ring up.

Figures were taken from each provider's own published terms on 8 October 2026. Variable rates can change at any time — confirm the current rate with the provider before applying.