Lyca Mobile's pay monthly contracts: are they worth it?

Lyca Mobile now do pay monthly SIM contracts

You only used to be able to join Lyca on pay as you go bundles, where you paid up front each month for minutes, texts and data to use for the month. You had to top up or register a bank card.

Now, you can join Lyca Mobile on a ‘proper’ contract. You’ll accept an agreement to pay monthly for your plan and any extras you use. You can pay by direct debit. And you’ll have to give notice if you want to quit.

Lyca’s best current SIM offers

But is this extra commitment worth it? In this guide, we talk you through the pros and cons of taking a contract SIM from Lyca Mobile.

Useful link: Our full Lyca Mobile network review

They’re always among the cheapest in the UK

Lyca have always been very competitive on price. And they’ve recently made a move to make their pay monthly deals even better value than pay as you go. Especially when there are free months offers running.

Below, we pick through each of their contract SIMs and show you how they compare against the competition:

Lyca's 5GB contract SIMs compared

Lyca's 25GB contract SIM compared

Lyca's 30GB contract SIM compared

Lyca's 100GB contract SIM compared

Lyca's unlimited data contract SIM compared

So choosing pay monthly over pay as you go will usually now get you a better price.

Useful link: Other networks that use EE

Choose how long to commit and change plans whenever

You’ve got a few choices of contract length. Choose either 24 months, 12 months and 1 month. This is how long you’re tied into the deal for. Generally, the longer the better the price.

Comparing on Lyca’s website can be tricky, so we’ve put all the deals side by side in the dropdown below. These are in price low-to-high order, then data high-to-low, then contract short-to-long.

All Lyca’s SIMs compared next to each other

We have also included PAYG bundles here to see if they are currently better value:

A nice benefit is that you aren’t stuck on the same plan you join on. You can move up to more expensive plans whenever you like (though not down).

That lets you join on the cheapest deal you think you can get away with. But if you end up needing more data, you can get a bigger plan later and not overpay on extra charges.

Useful link: Read Lyca's pay monthly FAQs

Your price won’t go up until at least 2026

We think the strongest benefit to Lyca’s pay monthly SIMs is their fixed prices. On pay as you go, Lyca can technically raise the price of renewing your bundle with just a month’s notice.

On their contract SIMs though, Lyca have promised not to raise your monthly cost until at least 2026. And even then they’d still have to give you a month’s notice. That applies on 1-month, 12-month and 24-month contracts.

Lyca aren’t unique in offering no mid-contract price rises (see our guide here) but it’s still a welcome move, when people are worrying about other bills going up. Plenty of networks don’t offer it.

This doesn’t mean that the price of Lyca’s pay as you go bundles definitely will go up in the meantime though. If anything, they seem to fall constantly. So it’s a good benefit but not the be-all and end-all.

Useful link: Best networks for no mid-contract price rises

There aren’t any added special perks for paying monthly

By and large, there's almost no difference between Lyca's pay monthly vs pay as you go. As per above, the main extra benefit is the lack of price rises until 2026. And general convenience of a contract.

Everything else about your experience is the same. Same coverage and speeds, same EU and India roaming. There aren't any clever unique benefits to reward you for committing to a contract.

Something like VOXI Unlimited Video or Social Media data would be excellent - where you can use certain services without it using up your data. Or maybe something useful like data rollover.

So at the moment, the main advantage of joining Lyca's pay monthly vs pay as you go is price. That is still good but it would be nice to see something else interesting added.

Useful link: Our full Lyca Mobile review