SMARTY group plans: pros & cons of 10% discount scheme

Add friends or family onto one account for nice benefits

Most UK networks will let you add extra SIMs onto a main mobile account and SMARTY are one of them. This means if you’ve got close friends or family members who want a new deal, you can all be on SMARTY at once.

This lets you keep all your deals under one roof. You only need one set of login details to see and manage all of your plans or to buy any extra data or top up with credit for any of your SIMs.

Just log into your SMARTY account and take out a new SIM with the mins, texts and data the new user needs or link an existing SMARTY SIM to yours. When the plan renews each month it will be charged to the same card you already use to pay for your plan.

In this guide we’ll go over all the benefits of setting up a group plan on SMARTY and why their scheme is one of our favourites of all networks.

Useful link: How to set up a family plan on SMARTY

Nice discounts on already great value deals

SMARTY already offer some of the lowest cost SIM only deals of all networks. But they go a step further by offering 10% off every extra SIM you add to your account.

While the savings themselves aren’t huge in pounds and pence, overall you’ll typically be paying way less than you would on most other networks. And you can apply the discount to 7 added plans, which people will like.

And each user can choose their own plan with a data amount that suits them. This helps avoid having to pay for more data than your users need, or having to pay for extra data if their plan is too small.

You can add new plans when you want. And you don’t need to be a family, you could be a group of uni friends or existing SMARTY users who want a bit of money off their bill. It’s a flexible and handy scheme overall.

Useful link: Our guide to the best family plan networks

It’s convenient to keep your plans under one roof

On top of the discount you get for adding extra plans to your account, you also get the convenience of having all your plans in the same place. No need to remember different logins for different websites.

You can see all your plans, how much data each has left and any extras they have on your account. And you can give each user view-only access, letting them see their plan without them being able to change anything.

Only the account holder can buy extra data for each SIM, stopping your kids from buying loads of data without you knowing. And they can only use what you’ve paid for, so they can’t rack up a huge bill on accident.

If you’re the account holder and want to end your deal, you can do so without breaking up the group plan. The deals will still be managed on your account and the discount still applies, you just won’t have a plan.

It’s worth noting that you don’t need to pass a credit check for SMARTY’s plans. So that won’t stop you from adding the full 7 extra plans if you need. This all adds to the convenience of SMARTY’s scheme.

Useful link: The best networks for extra data charges

A few missing benefits that you do get with other networks

While we like SMARTY’s scheme, there are some downsides that can be a bit frustrating. You won’t get a discount if you join on a ‘promotional plan’ - one that’s already discounted for temporary period.

Also, each plan you add will have a separate bill date rather than them all being billed at the beginning of the month.

It can be annoying to remember different billing dates and most other networks with similar schemes bill all of your plans together. And there’s also no way to buy all of your plans in one transaction.

That means you might not see it as worth the time to set up a family plan, especially since the amount you’re saving isn’t that high. It depends how much the savings are really worth to you.

And there’s no way to gift data between users. While extra data is cheap, if a user runs out of data it’d be handy to just send 1GB to tide them over. EE let you do this and Sky offer something similar.

We don’t think these downsides ruin the scheme at all, but they’re worth keeping in mind before joining up.

Useful link: Sky’s guide to their piggybank scheme