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The products or services listed have been independently tested by our journalists. We earn a commission from the affiliate links in this article. Read more >
Lebara is grinding out a reputation for being one of the cheapest mobile network providers in the UK. It piggybacks on the Vodafone network, so it doesn’t have the cost of installing masts or running high street stores, and that means it can offer some of the best-value packages you’ll find from any network.
It’s the joint winner of our best value award with Tesco Mobile, and one look at its simple set of tariffs is enough to confirm why. Its cheapest SIM-only deal costs only £4.50 per month (if bought on a 12-month contract) and that gives you a reasonable 5GB of data and 1,000 minutes and texts, which will be plenty for many smartphone users. Tesco’s cheapest deal costs 50p more, has only half the minutes/texts and a tenth of the data.
Those low-cost tariffs don’t come at the cost of reliability, either. It shares our reliability award with Tesco Mobile and Giffgaff. Even on Lebara’s cheapest tariffs, you can use your data/minutes/text allowance abroad, which is one of the reasons why it claims our best for roaming award, too.
All in, there’s a lot to like about Lebara, but there are still some limits to its service.
We surveyed 1,022 Telegraph readers across the UK* to find out who provided their mobile network and what they thought about the service. Readers provided their verdicts for the three master brands (EE, O2 and VodafoneThree), as well as virtual networks (MVNOs): Tesco Mobile, Lebara, Sky Mobile, BT Mobile and Giffgaff.
We excluded any provider used by fewer than 20 per cent of our readers. In addition, we categorised providers with an average rating of three stars or lower as “below average”.
As well as speed, reliability, value for money and ease of contact, we asked our readers how helpful their providers were once they got through to them, as well as their experiences using data roaming while abroad.
Score: 5/5
Given you can buy a SIM-only monthly mobile tariff, with plenty of data and minutes, for less than the cost of a pint in your local, it’s hard to argue with the value on offer from Lebara. Little wonder then, that Telegraph readers voted it the joint best value award winner with Tesco Mobile.
The sweet spot tariff is the £9 a month 30GB deal, which you can get for £10 a month if you only want a month-to-month contract. Only the most TikTok-hungry teenager would burn through more than 30GB of data, and the fact that you can get that for less than a tenner is remarkable. For comparison, parent network Vodafone charges £15 per month for only 1GB of data.
To sweeten the deal further, Lebara throws in some international calling minutes with every tariff, which is great for reaching family abroad.
It’s worth noting here that Lebara doesn’t offer any tariffs that include a smartphone. While it does sell phones, it sells them on a SIM-free basis. Given its prices, it’s often cheaper than the phone/airtime bundle deals offered by other networks, and you can still spread the cost of buying phones on finance if you wish.
Score: 4.5/5
Lebara customers are happy with the speeds they’re receiving, with an 85 per cent satisfaction rating from the customers we surveyed. Only Tesco Mobile and Giffgaff posted (slightly) higher scores.
All Lebara plans now include 5G, although parent network Vodafone has some catching up to do with its 5G coverage, according to regulator Ofcom. Its outdoor 5G coverage reaches between 51 per cent and 64 per cent of UK premises according to Ofcom’s latest figures. This is a long way behind EE, which has 86 per cent coverage. Vodafone recently merged with Three, which could improve things.
Score: 5/5
Reliability on Lebara is right up there with the best of them, according to Telegraph readers. A score of 94 per cent for network reliability means you can expect few dropouts or downtime, although it’s worth noting the 5G coverage numbers above if you need the fastest possible data wherever you might travel in the UK.
Score: 4/5
One way in which Lebara keeps costs down is by providing support from its website, although you can get through on the phone if there’s an issue you can’t resolve with the online chat. Lebara is second only to Tesco Mobile in terms of the quality of its customer support, with the supermarket chain having the benefit of staff available in stores to help boost its customer service scores.
Score: 5/5
Roaming is included with all of Lebara’s plans. This means that when you’re travelling to an EU country or India, you can use the data allowance, minutes and texts that are included in your plan, as if you were still in the UK. For other countries, you can buy roaming add-ons. In the US, for example, you can get an eight-day roaming add-on providing 3GB of data for £5. Of those we surveyed, 92 per cent were happy with the roaming value on offer, which is the best score of any network.
(Note: this is just a sample of the SIM-only deals available from Lebara)
Yes, if:
No, if:
The Research Method
*Online survey of adult Telegraph readers conducted on The Telegraph Contributors Panel, 27th November - 11th December 2025, conducted by Strat7 Researchbods. Survey sample: 1,022 total respondents. Respondents consisted of:
Providers with fewer than 40 respondents were excluded from the individual analysis as their sample sizes were not significant.
Respondents rated their mobile network providers across 13 key attributes using a 10-point scale. These individual ratings were then aggregated to produce an overall performance score based on our proprietary benchmark.
The key attributes evaluated were:
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