Best fibre plans under R500 — with speeds up to 75Mbps

South African households have many fibre-to-the-home (FTTH) plans available for under R500, with download speeds ranging from 4Mbps to 75Mbps.
MyBroadband assembled 55 such FTTH packages from five major Internet service providers (ISPs) — Afrihost, Axxess, Cool Ideas, RSAWeb, Telkom, and Webafrica.
We found that 15 fibre network operators (FNOs) had at least one option available from these ISPs below our targeted price point.
Unfortunately, most households with FTTH coverage have just one FNO to choose from, so the actual options available will be more limited.
For example, those in areas with only Balwin Fibre coverage have just two packages and prices available to them.
Those who use one of the big four networks — Vumatel, Openserve, MetroFibre, or Frogfoot — have far more choice.
Pricing and speeds on the packages varied greatly.
To help households looking for the best-value products available for under R500, we also calculated the price per Mbps of download speed of each package and used this as our main performance metric.
Most Internet applications rely on download rates, so we gave this factor preference in our assessment.
RSAWeb’s 75/75Mbps MetroFibre Nexus product for R495 per month came out on top, with an effective per-Mbps price of R6.60.
Four more products had effective per-Mbps prices below R10. These were only available on the lower-income focused networks of Frogfoot Air and Openserve Web Connect, however.
The worst-value sub-R500 FTTH package was Balwin Fibre’s 4/1Mbps product.
Of the five ISPs, only Cool Ideas and Webafrica had this package for less than our targeted price point. In both instances, the effective price per Mbps of Balwin’s entry-level offering was over R100.
The most affordable package under R500 was also available from RSAWeb.
For R247 per month, those in a Vuma Reach area can get a 10/10Mbps package from the ISP.
The table below summarises some of the sub-R500 FTTH packages available in South Africa in January 2025.
The amounts marked in blue are for the cheapest monthly price and effective price per Mbps.
ISP | FNO | Download/upload speeds | Monthly price | Price per Mbps of download speed |
---|---|---|---|---|
RSAWeb | MetroFibre Nexus | 75/75Mbps | R495 | R6.60 |
Cool Ideas | Frogfoot Air | 50/10Mbps | R449 | R8.98 |
Axxess | Openserve Web Connect | 40/20Mbps | R369 | R9.23 |
Telkom | Openserve Web Connect | 40/20Mbps | R385 | R9.63 |
Afrihost | Openserve Web Connect | 40/20Mbps | R389 | R9.73 |
RSAWeb | Openserve Web Connect | 40/20Mbps | R395 | R9.88 |
Cool Ideas | Zoom Fibre | 20/20Mbps | R279 | R13.95 |
Cool Ideas | Zoom Fibre | 30/30Mbps | R429 | R14.30 |
RSAWeb | Vuma Reach | 30/10Mbps | R437 | R14.57 |
Afrihost | Zoom Fibre | 20/20Mbps | R297 | R14.85 |
Axxess | Openserve Web Connect | 20/10Mbps | R299 | R14.95 |
RSAWeb | Openserve Web Connect | 20/10Mbps | R313 | R15.65 |
Telkom | Openserve Web Connect | 20/10Mbps | R315 | R15.75 |
Webafrica | Zoom Fibre | 20/20Mbps | R319 | R15.95 |
Axxess | Frogfoot Air | 25/10Mbps | R425 | R15.96 |
Axxess | Zoom Fibre | 30/30Mbps | R485 | R16.17 |
Afrihost | Zoom Fibre | 30/30Mbps | R487 | R16.23 |
Axxess | Zoom Fibre | 20/20Mbps | R325 | R16.25 |
Cool Ideas | Link Layer | 30/30Mbps | R489 | R16.30 |
Afrihost | Openserve Web Connect | 20/10Mbps | R329 | R16.45 |
Afrihost | Link Layer | 30/30Mbps | R497 | R16.57 |
Cool Ideas | Vumatel | 25/25Mbps | R429 | R17.16 |
RSAWeb | Demux | 25/25Mbps | R445 | R17.80 |
RSAWeb | Vumatel | 25/25Mbps | R447 | R17.88 |
Afrihost | Frogfoot Air | 25/10Mbps | R447 | R17.88 |
Afrihost | Octotel | 25/25Mbps | R449 | R17.96 |
Axxess | Vumatel | 25/25Mbps | R449 | R17.96 |
Telkom | Vumatel | 25/25Mbps | R449 | R17.96 |
Webafrica | Vumatel | 25/25Mbps | R469 | R18.76 |
Cool Ideas | Vuma Reach | 20/10Mbps | R389 | R19.45 |
Afrihost | Vuma Reach | 20/20Mbps | R399 | R19.56 |
RSAWeb | Vuma Reach | 20/10Mbps | R397 | R19.85 |
Afrihost | Vumatel Reach | 20/10Mbps | R399 | R19.95 |
Webafrica | Fibre Geeks | 20/10Mbps | R409 | R20.45 |
Cool Ideas | NetX | 20/5Mbps | R440 | R22.00 |
RSAWeb | Octotel Flexi Connect | 20/10Mbps | R449 | R22.45 |
Cool Ideas | MetroFibre Nova | 20/20Mbps | R454 | R22.70 |
RSAWeb | Fibre Geeks | 20/10Mbps | R475 | R23.75 |
RSAWeb | Vuma Reach | 10/10Mbps | R247 | R24.70 |
Afrihost | MetroFibre Nova | 20/20Mbps | R497 | R24.85 |
Cool Ideas | Frogfoot Air | 10/1Mbps | R329 | R32.90 |
RSAWeb | Demux | 10/10Mbps | R365 | R36.50 |
RSAWeb | ThinkSpeed | 10/5Mbps | R395 | R39.50 |
Cool Ideas | Red Networks | 10/10Mbps | R399 | R39.90 |
Cool Ideas | Gaia Fibonacci | 10/10Mbps | R409 | R40.90 |
Cool Ideas | Comtel | 10/10Mbps | R418 | R41.80 |
Afrihost | Gaia Fibonacci | 10/10Mbps | R427 | R42.70 |
Afrihost | Comtel | 10/10Mbps | R457 | R45.70 |
Webafrica | Comtel | 10/10Mbps | R479 | R47.90 |
Cool Ideas | Fibre Suburb Networks | 10/10Mbps | R489 | R48.90 |
Afrihost | Fibre Suburb Networks | 10/10Mbps | R497 | R49.70 |
Webafrica | Comtel | 5/5Mbps | R349 | R69.80 |
Cool Ideas | Balwin Fibre | 4/1Mbps | R459 | R114.75 |
Webafrica | Balwin Fibre | 4/1Mbps | R489 | R122.25 |