Every provider on the Optus network

Resellers on the Optus network generally sell the same coverage footprint Optus sells, which is the whole appeal. Coverage is strong across the capitals and most large regional centres. It thins out faster than Telstra's once you're properly remote. So the question is simple: does Optus cover where you actually spend your time? If yes, you will usually save more on this network than on either of the others.

Here is the part that genuinely separates this network from Telstra's. Optus tells its wholesale partners they "access the same mobile network as our own-brand business". On Telstra, almost every budget brand rides a smaller wholesale footprint instead. So the coverage question on Optus is just "does Optus reach me", with no second, smaller map to worry about.

On the coverage number itself, treat ours with some suspicion and everyone else's with more. The only page on optus.com.au that states a figure in words is the wholesale one, and it says the 98.5% covers "3G and 4G" networks. Optus switched its 3G network off in 2024, and the 5G statistics beside it are marked as current at May 2021. Optus's retail coverage pages show an interactive map and no percentage at all. Check your own address on that map rather than trusting any single number, ours included.

The usual reseller trade-offs still apply on the plan itself. Some cap your download speed and not every budget brand sells 5G. For ordinary phone use, neither registers.

Three brands here that no longer exist

The budget shelf on this network has been consolidating, and plenty of comparison pages haven't caught up. Three names you'll still see recommended are gone, and none of them appear in the line-up below:

• Circles.Life stopped trading here. amaysim acquired its Australian customers in mid-2025 and moved them onto amaysim plans. The circles.life domain now serves the unrelated Singapore business.
• Vayais closed. amaysim's own page says so plainly, and existing Vaya customers were migrated across.
• Virgin Mobile has been gone for years. Optus announced the phase-out in 2018 and the brand licence expired in 2020.

We keep those records in our database marked inactive rather than deleting them, so an old link still lands somewhere honest instead of a 404.

I'll put a stake in the ground. For most city dwellers, an Optus-network reseller is the value sweet spot in Australian mobile. The coverage is fine where you live and the sheer number of brands competing for you drags prices down.

The one group I'd send elsewhere is anyone who spends serious time in remote Australia. Out there Telstra's reach pulls ahead, and the Telstra network hub is the better starting point.

Whichever brand you lean toward, check its coverage for your own postcode first, then buy the cheapest plan that covers your real data use. On this network that approach almost always lands you a bargain.