EE Family Account review: pros and cons to their shared plans

Start with one main EE account, add more deals when ready

To start benefiting from EE’s family plans you’ll have to have a main EE account in the first place. When you’ve got it set up, you can start adding new plans, or you can move existing plans onto it.

In order to add new plans you need to log in on EE’s website and buy your plan there. To add an existing plan, you’ll either have to use EE’s app, log into your online account or call their customer service and follow their instructions.

When you take out a new SIM you’ll automatically get the benefits of setting up a shared account on EE. And you can take out multiple new deals at the same time and still get the benefits. Bear in mind the most expensive plan won't be discounted.

And if you add an existing deal onto your account you won’t immediately get all of the benefits that you would get if you added a completely new one. Once you renew that existing plan it will then give you all the benefits that it should.

Below we’ll go into all of the benefits of setting up a shared account on EE, the finer details of how it works, the disadvantages of it and also what other networks offer similar or other similar schemes that we also like.

Useful link: Our guide to the best family plan schemes

Pay for all your plans on the same monthly bill

One benefit of setting up a shared account is that you’ll pay for all of your plans on the same monthly bill. It’s convenient to be able to manage all of your deals in the same place.

The main benefit of this is that you can see exactly what you’re spending each month and also how much data each user is getting through. When your contracts are up you can then switch to a more suitable plan.

It makes switching contracts easier as you can see when each plan is due to be renewed. And if your bill isn’t what you expect it to be, it’s easier to find out exactly why.

EE also let you set up plans with different data amounts and contract lengths together on one bill. That’s great because BT offer a similar scheme, but only let you add SIMs with the same allowances, which just isn’t reasonable.

This is a notable benefit as not all networks that offer benefits for setting up shared accounts actually let you manage your plans in one place.

Useful link: The best networks for setting up a shared account

Get 10% off every extra plan added to your account

The most immediate benefit of taking multiple EE plans on one account is that you’ll get 10% off each added deal. Each new plan has the discount applied automatically, and it’s great for squeezing a little extra value out of your EE plans.

While 10% off an EE SIM only plan gets you some decent money off, this discount really shines with their phone contracts. This is because EE will apply the discount to the entire contract, meaning both the cost of your phone and SIM plan.

Bear in mind you only get the discount on additional plans and not the plan you signed up to EE with. And if you take any out-of-plan extras like more data then that won’t benefit from the discount.

If the plan you’ve added is more expensive than your main plan then you’ll still get the discount. But if you sign up with two plans at the same time on the same account the more expensive plan will become the main plan and won’t be discounted.

It’s always good to get money off your deal. Just make sure you know the downsides as well.

Useful link:
EE’s full guide on how to get this discount

You can gift data to other users on your account

The second benefit of setting up a family plan on EE is that you can gift data from one plan to another. This is great if you have one user who is close to using all their data while another has plenty to spare.

Paying for data add-ons on EE can get quite expensive (a 1GB boost for 1-month costs £5.69) but if one of the users on your account is getting low you can gift data to them to stop them going over their allowance and hence incurring extra charges.

You can gift data in increments of 500MB and gift your entire allowance if you so wish. But EE do limit how much data you can gift each month for 3 months in a row depending on how many users are on your account (see limits here).

If you want to have unlimited data gifting then you’ll have to buy a separate add-on that lets you do this. We don’t imagine most people will go over the data gifting limit anyway, but it’s still something you have to bear in mind.

But we like that you can share your monthly allowance rather than just sharing unused data like with Sky’s “piggybank benefit”. And only the main account holder can share data, giving you full control over how your data is shared. Overall, a pretty great benefit.

Useful link:
EE’s full guide to their data gifting

The main plan gets 1GB extra for every plan added

While the discount won’t be applied to the main plan when you set up a shared account, EE give the main account holder an extra 1GB boost for every plan added to their account.

That means if you add four extra plans that you’re essentially getting another plan’s worth of data for no added cost. This data can then be shared between the other users on your account. It’s a nice extra buffer to prevent users going over their allowance.

You’ll keep getting this data boost so long as you keep your plans on your account. If you remove a plan you’ll lose the boost right away. If you remove your main plan, then your next most expensive plan will become the main plan and receive the boosts.

There are also a few plans that won’t get you the data boost, but these are very niche plans that most people won’t have. But, it’s still worth knowing just in case.

Bear in mind if you’ve moved over an existing plan you won’t get the data boost until the plan is renewed or upgraded. That’s one drawback of what is otherwise a nice little benefit to get on top of your shared account.

Useful link: EE’s full guide to their Family Plan data boost

EE are already one of the pricier networks

Typically, EE’s pay monthly SIM only and phone contracts work out as some of the most expensive of all UK networks. So while a 10% discount sounds great, you’re still paying a lot to take out multiple EE SIMs.

Add to that the fact that your main plan isn’t discounted and the scheme sounds even less impressive. Also if you cancel your main plan then your most expensive plan will then become the main plan and not get the discount.

Also you can only add a maximum of four extra plans, while some other networks let you add more to get a larger overall discount. If you’ve got a big family, then you’ll end up paying a lot to get on EE.

If you’re looking for cheaper alternatives on the EE network, Plusnet offer much lower costs and can work out as better value than taking multiple plans on EE. BT are a bit cheaper than EE and offer a bigger discount the more plans you add.

We think EE could improve this scheme by letting you add more plans and offer larger discounts on them, but with all the other benefits that EE’s Family Plans offer we don’t think it’s likely that they’ll give away even more value.

Useful link: EE’s pay monthly SIM only plans

EE’s shared account scheme isn’t the most flexible

While EE offer a decent amount of flexibility in letting you sign up multiple also don’t rate EE’s family plans highly for their flexibility as you can only get these benefits by signing up on a minimum 12-month contracts for each SIM.

The discount will also not be applied to any monthly bundles, SIM only plans on 1-month contracts or 12-month plans that cost less than £12.99. That really limits the sorts of plans you can take out, so bear that in mind before you buy.

Bear in mind both of these sorts of plans should still get you the 1GB data boost. But we find it strange that you don’t get a data boost or a discount for taking out home broadband with EE.

With all those drawbacks in mind, we’ll go through the other networks that offer benefits for signing up on multiple plans, so you can see what you’re missing by going with EE and whether or not they’re the right choice for you.

Useful link: Which plans don’t get you their discount?

A few networks also offer group deals

To know whether EE are worth joining, you have to know both what you get and what you don’t get by joining them. Here are a few networks that offer unique benefits you won’t get on EE, or are simply better value.

SMARTY have a similar family plan scheme to EE, in that you get 10% off all plans added to your account. You can’t add them all at once like on EE, but SMARTY let you add 8 additional lines and their plans are already much cheaper in the first place.

Sky Mobile offer a data gifting scheme called a “piggybank”. At the end of the month, each users’ unused data goes into the piggybank to be withdrawn later. You can share your allowance like on EE, but at least you get to keep the data you’ve paid for.

BT Mobile also let you add 4 extra SIMs. But with them you get a larger discount for every SIM added, and the added SIMs are all on flexible 1-month contracts. However, all SIMs have to have the same data allowance, unlike EE.

We wouldn't say EE’s scheme is better or worse than these. Ultimately it all depends on which network you want to join and what you want out of your plan.

Useful link: Our guide to the best Family Plan schemes