A strong combination of fast speeds, great value and a helpful online community

Value is definitely one of Giffgaff’s strong suits, and although it doesn’t score as highly with customers as Tesco Mobile or Lebara, there’s little to complain about here. Giffgaff’s cheapest tariff starts from £6 a month, and that includes 2GB of data with unlimited minutes and texts. However, it’s worth pointing out that Lebara’s cheapest deal is £1.50 per month cheaper and offers more data.

If you’re more data hungry or you’ve got Spotify/TikTok/YouTube-gobbling teenagers to feed, the 25GB and Unlimited tariffs are also reasonably priced, if once again undercut by Lebara.

Giffgaff does offer deals that include phones as well as SIM-only tariffs, and it’s worth noting that the company also sells refurbished phones, which are much cheaper than buying new. If your kids insist on having iPhones, it’s one of the cheapest ways to pick them up, provided they aren’t screaming for the latest model.

Speed

Score: 4.5/5

Given that it’s owned by Virgin Media O2, it will come as no surprise that Giffgaff runs on the O2 network. That’s by no means a bad thing, with overall winner Tesco Mobile doing the same, and customers seem to have few complaints about the network’s performance.

A healthy 89 per cent of the Giffgaff customers we surveyed said they were happy with the speeds on offer from the network, which is why it shares our speed award with Tesco Mobile.

O2’s 5G outdoor coverage is pegged at between 70-76 per cent by regulator Ofcom, which isn’t as comprehensive as that of EE (86-89 per cent).

Reliability

Score: 5/5

Giffgaff customers are highly satisfied with the robustness of the network. Overall, 95 per cent of those surveyed said they were happy with reliability, while 88 per cent said they were satisfied with the consistency of data speeds and the latency (or responsiveness) of the network.

That means Giffgaff is the joint winner of our most reliable mobile network award, alongside Tesco Mobile and Lebara.

Customer service

Score: 3.5/5

If there’s a slight downside to Giffgaff’s offering, it’s customer service. As we mentioned previously, Giffgaff puts a lot of emphasis on community support, with customers helping other customers through the firm’s online forums. But there are some issues (such as billing) that only a company representative can sort and that may be where Giffgaff falls short.

For example, only 66 per cent of Giffgaff customers were happy with the ease with which they can reach the customer support team, a distinctly mid-table score. When it comes to the quality of support, only 72 per cent of Giffgaff customers said they were happy.

Roaming

Score: 4/5

Like many other networks, Giffgaff does include EU roaming in its plans, but there are limits. For example, even if you’re on an unlimited plan or, say, 25GB per month, the EU roaming data allowance is capped at 5GB. That should still be enough for a holiday, but others, such as Lebara, let you use your full data allowance while you’re in the EU.

Giffgaff customers seem reasonably happy with the situation, though, with 77 per cent saying they were happy with the roaming value.