Cellular12.12.2023

Vodacom PowerFlex vs MTN SuperFlex — Best unlimited mobile calling and big data products in South Africa

South Africa’s two biggest mobile networks recently launched affordable month-to-month unlimited calling plans paired with large data allocations.

These plans allow customers to spend as much time talking over the phone as they would like while also being able to consume lots of online content.

Although both operators previously offered unlimited calling plans, these were generally expensive and restricted to long-term contracts.

In addition to Vodacom and MTN, MVNOs FNB Connect and Melon Mobile now also offer unlimited calling plans on a month-to-month basis.

Melon’s options launched shortly after MTN’s SuperFlex and run on MTN’s network.

Two of its packages are identical to SuperFlex, but it also offers a cheaper unlimited calling plan with less data and two products with higher data allocations than its competitors.

FNB Connect’s Talk Max plan has been around for much longer than the rest, having launched in October 2019.

However, this product is far more restricted than the packages from the other operators.

Firstly, it limits how many unique numbers a customer can call every month. In addition, customers have to maintain a certain ratio of incoming to outgoing calls.

The product also has a limited SMS allocation and very little mobile data.

How monthly and per-GB prices stack up

We compared the prices of the unlimited calling packages from these four operators to see which offered the best value.

The most affordable option was the Melon Mobile Unlimited plan with 5GB data for R199 per month.

On a per-GB basis, it was more expensive than the other packages, as is typically the case at the entry level.

The MTN SuperFlex or Melon Mobile Unlimited 10GB options were the next-most affordable packages, priced at R299 per month or R29.90 per GB. These were much closer to the per-GB prices of most of the other plans.

Vodacom’s entry-level PowerFlex 17GB option fell between that of the MTN SuperFlex 15GB and 20GB products.

However, on a per-GB basis, the Vodacom plan was not much more affordable than the 15GB SuperFlex package.

The SuperFlex 20GB package was also substantially more affordable than Vodacom’s package on a per-GB basis.

While the per-GB price should come down as the data allocations increase, the SuperFlex 20GB plan was just R20 more expensive than Vodacom’s 17GB product.

Vodacom’s PowerFlex 22GB option offered more data than MTN’s biggest SuperFlex data allocation — which tops out at 20GB.

If you are willing to use a smaller provider, then Melon Mobile’s 25GB option is R80 cheaper than Vodacom’s PowerFlex 22GB package, with 3GB more data.

At R499 per month, you will be paying R19.96 per GB instead of R26.31 on the Vodacom plan.

Melon Mobile also offers a 50GB package for R20 more than Vodacom’s top-end PowerFlex option. That gives users over double the data at a per-GB price of R11.98, the cheapest of all the plans.

The table below compares the data allocations and prices of affordable unlimited calling products available from Vodacom, MTN, FNB Connect, and Melon Mobile.

Unlimited calling plans compared
Vodacom MTN
Package Data Price Package Data Price
Melon Mobile Unlimited 5GB R199
MTN SuperFlex Melon Mobile Unlimited 10GB R299
Vodacom PowerFlex 17GB R449 MTN SuperFlex Melon Mobile Unlimited 15GB R399
Vodacom PowerFlex 22GB R579 MTN SuperFlex 20GB R479
Melon Mobile Unlimited 25GB R499
Melon Mobile Unlimited 50GB R599
Melon Mobile is an MTN MVNO.

Now read: Cell C wants to take back control of its contract customers

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