The Best Phone Plans in Switzerland in 2023

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Everybody wants to pay as little as possible for their phone bills. Even though you may think your current phone plan is the cheapest available, there could be new deals since you started using your plan. It is always essential to keep up to date with the latest offers.

The Swiss Phone plan market is quite diverse these days. Fifteen years ago, it was only Swisscom, and everybody was content with it. Now, many other providers are using one of the three major networks.

In this article, I compare the phone plans and prepaid cards for seven standard phone usages. For each of them, I will show the cheapest options available. Keep reading if you want to save money on your phone bill!

These options are up-to-date as of December 2021!

Prepaid vs Plan

You have two options to pay for your phone bills:

1. A proper plan where you pay month after month based on what you used.
2. A prepaid card where you have to charge your card in advance.

Most people prefer to use a plan because it is much easier. Having a plan means that you will always be able to use your phone. On the contrary, if you use a prepaid card and forget to charge your card, you may not use your phone.

Using a prepaid card is a bit more work. But it may be cheaper. Before I did the first version of this article, I did not want to use a prepaid card. But this is too lazy. I know I have the discipline to charge my phone regularly. Therefore, I will consider using a prepaid card if it is a cheaper option for me.

Which mobile phone network?

In Switzerland, there are three large mobile networks:

1. Swisscom
2. Salt
3. Sunrise

They are all operating their own devices and antennas. Each prepaid or plan is working on some specific network.

In the beginning, the Swisscom network was by far the best in Switzerland. Today, Sunrise and Swisscom are probably in a draw. However, it is challenging to find an unbiased comparison of these networks today. Most of the comparisons available are made by network providers and, as such, are biased.

I am using the Swisscom network. I always had excellent coverage and excellent internet speed. I had the Sunrise network for less than two years, about ten years ago. I was very dissatisfied with the network and quickly moved back to the Swisscom network. Today, I would not want to change the network. But I am biased as well.

These days, non-Swisscom networks have become much better. For most people, any network should work just fine.

Your Phone Usage

Now, no single plan or prepaid card is the cheapest for each possible case. You need to know your usage of your phone:

• How many SMS and MMS per month?
• How many calls per month?
• The length of these calls in minutes?
• How many MB of data per month?

If you do not know this, you can look at your last three phone bills and make the average of your usage. This average should be enough to give you an idea of how much you need on average. Generally, you should round minutes higher. A 1 minute 30 seconds call should be counted as two minutes. This rounding is how operators are counting for the price.

For each of the cases, I will list the main cheapest options. For the sake of comparison, I will exclude youth offers and special offers from the pack. If the same provider has several options in the top three, I will generally take the best one. It would not make sense to take the other one anyway. Finally, I will compare the monthly price of the offers. I do not include activation fees since we talk about long-term usage here.

My Phone Usage

I checked my phone bills for the last four months, and I came up with this average usage:

• 1 SMS per month
• 0 MMS per month
• 8 calls per month with about 28 minutes in total
• 600 MB per month of mobile data (can be tuned down to 500 MB easily)

I realize that I am not a very common user. Indeed, most people use their phones a lot more than I do. For instance, most people use several gigabytes (GB) of data every month. I do not like using my phone. And generally, I use the internet when I have Wifi at home. Unfortunately, I do not have Wifi at work. Otherwise, I would be able to keep below 100 MB.

User 1: Mr. The Poor Swiss

Let’s start the first case with my case: 1 SMS per month, 8 calls per month, about 4 minutes per call, and 500 MB of mobile data.

Here are the cheapest options:

1. Mucho Duo Nano (prepaid, Swisscom network): 4.90 CHF per month
2. Lidl Connect Smart Prepaid (prepaid, Salt network): 8.70 CHF per month
   1. With Data Package 500MB
3. Mucho Duo Micro (prepaid, Swisscom network): 9.90 CHF per month
4. Coop Mobile Prepaid (prepaid, Swisscom network): 10.50 CHF per month
   1. With Surf Package and 15 Cents package

For me, the best offer would be the Mucho Duo Nano. At only 4.90 CHF per month, it is very cheap.

As you can see, there are options at less than 5 CHF per month for my usage. It is really impressive. A lot of people spend much more than that. I used to spend more than four times that.

For very light phone users, prepaid plans are shining.

I currently do not have the best offer since I have the Coop Mobile Prepaid and not the Mucho offer. However, I will not change it because there is a

significant advantage to Coop Mobile Prepaid. Indeed, the packs have no duration. So, if you buy a pack of 1GB of data, you can use it for a long-time. So, if you use less data for one month, you can save data in the next month. Most packs have a 30-day duration. This advantage makes the Coop Mobile Prepaid offer excellent.

However, I could probably save money by switching to Mucho. But it is not worth the trouble to save 5 CHF per month. 

User 2: Light Phone User

But most people use their phones more than me. Let’s see what happens with a more realistic small user:

• 50 SMS per month
• 60 minutes per month (12 times 5 minutes calls)
• 1 GB of data

I think this is pretty much a basic user in Switzerland.

Here are the cheapest options for this user:

1. Much Duo Micro (Prepaid, Swisscom network): 9.90 CHF per month
2. Aldi Suisse Mobile Smart S (Prepaid, Sunrise network): 14.90 CHF per month
3. M-Budget Mobile Mini (plan, Swisscom network): 19 CHF per month
4. Lidl Connect Smart Abo (plan, Salt network): 19.95 CHF per month

Once again, the best option is from Mucho. But there are some attractive options here. And some of these options have much more monthly data than others.

User 3: Medium User

Let’s take it up a notch with our third user:

• 100 SMS per month
• 240 minutes of calls (24 times 10 minutes calls)
• 2 GB of data

Here are the three best options:

1. Aldi Suisse Mobile Smart S (Prepaid, Sunrise network): 14.90 CHF per month
2. Mucho Duo Mini (prepaid, Swisscom network): 17.90 CHF per month
3. Lidl Connect Smart Abo (plan, Salt network): 19.95 CHF per month

This time, Aldi is shining in the first place! The prepaid offer from Aldi is outstanding. The plan from Lidl is quite good as well.

User 4: Heavy Data user

Our user 4 uses the same as user 3, but with more data:

• 100 SMS per month
• 240 minutes of calls (24 times 10 minutes calls)
• 5 GB of data

Let’s see what the options for this user are:

1. Mucho Duo Mini (prepaid, Swisscom network): 17.90 CHF per month
2. Lidl Connect Smart Abo (plan, Salt network): 19.95 CHF per month
3. yallo Swype Swiss (plan, Sunrise network): 20 CHF per month
4. Aldi Suisse Mobile Smart M (prepaid, Sunrise Network): 24.90 CHF per month

Once again, the Mucho offer is quite cheap. And we find the offers from Lidl and Aldi again. We also see yallo in the top offers.

User 5: Heavier Data only user

User 5 only uses mobile data, no calls, and no SMS. This usage is not uncommon since you can easily use internet apps for calls and messages. Our user 5 uses 10 GB of data per month. Such a user will want at least 100Mbps in speed as well.

Here are the three cheapest options for user 5:

1. yallo Swype Surf (plan, Sunrise network): 15 CHF per month
2. Sunrise We Connect Surf (Plan, Sunrise network): 20 CHF per month
3. yallo Swype Swiss (plan, Sunrise network): 20 CHF per month
4. Salt Surf 50 GB (Plan, Salt network): 24.95 CHF per month

For such a user, it becomes essential to check the plan’s speed. If you use the internet a lot and watch videos, you will want between 50Mbps and 100Mbps in speed.

The yallo Swype Surf offer is great at only 15 CHF per month.

User 6: Unlimited Data only user

Now, some people need even more data. Our user 5 needs 500 GB per month on its phone. Granted, this is not unlimited. But who uses more than that per month on the phone? And this user wants 200Mbps in speed.

So, here are two good options:

1. Lidl Connect Smart Abo Unlimited (Plan, Salt network): 29.95 CHF per month
2. Yallo Slim Plus (Plan, Sunrise network): 40 CHF per month

At this speed and unlimited, options are becoming more expensive. But less than 30 CHF per month on that user is a great choice.

User 7: Frequent User Roaming

Roaming is costly in Switzerland. You have to be careful about that. Unfortunately, I do not know of a very good comparator for Roaming. Moreover, the roaming rates are different for every country. So it is challenging to compare different plans without having an exact situation.

When I travel to other countries, my strategy is straightforward: I let my phone in airplane mode the whole time. If I find a Wifi, I will use it, but otherwise, I will not allow myself to use any data. I think that most people can disconnect from their phones. It could do them some good.

For this comparison, I used the Frequent User profile from moneyland (later on) with France as a destination. For Switzerland, this user has the same national usage as user 3. The Frequent Profile is as follows:

• 38 calls from Switzerland while abroad
• 1.4 GB of mobile data while abroad
• 38 calls to Switzerland while abroad, 2.5 minutes per call
• 38 calls to France while in France, 2.5 minutes per call

I think it is already pretty heavy usage of Roaming. Here are the three cheapest options for this usage:

1. Mucho Plus (Prepaid, Swisscom network): 84.35 CHF per year
   1. With options Talk Mini Roam and Data Mini Roam
2. Aldi Suisse Mobile (prepaid, Sunrise network): 84.40 CHF per year
   1. With options Roaming Voice, Roaming 1000 MB, and Roaming 500 Mo
3. Swisscom inOne Prepaid (prepaid, Swisscom network): 123.70 CHF per year
   1. With options Travel Voice and Data Travel

We can see that this makes it significantly more expensive than User 3. However, it is more reasonable than I thought. I would not have thought that prepaid plans were interesting for Roaming.

These options are all very reasonable. And I am surprised to see Swisscom arrive in the top three.

Of course, the best course of action is not to use Roaming!

Best prepaid for light users: Coop Mobile

My favorite prepaid offer is the Coop Mobile Prepaid. The base prices are fair:

• 0.29 CHF per minute on call
• 0.15 CHF per SMS

But the great thing about this offer is the packages Coop Mobile Prepaid has!

• The 15 Cents offer that gives 100 units of calls and SMS (1 SMS = 1 unit and 1 minute of call = 1 unit) at 15 CHF
• Surf 250: 250MB at 4.90 CHF
• Surf 750: 750MB at 9.90 CHF
• Surf 1500: 1500MB at 14.90 CHF

The best thing about these offers is that they do not have an expiration date. So, you can buy a pack and use it for a year if you want. So, this is the best prepaid offer for light users, like me.

I currently have the Coop Mobile Prepaid offer, and I am pleased with it. Since I started using it, I have used an average of 5 CHF per month!

If you are using your phone more than me (very likely), you should look at the prepaid offers from Mucho and Aldi.

Having a cheap phone plan is one of the ways I use to save a lot of money in Switzerland. But there are others!

Best Overall Plan: Lidl Connect Smart Abo

My favorite phone plan is the Lidl Connect Smart Abo plan. It gives you unlimited SMS and calls and 5 GB of data per month. It only costs 19.95 CHF per month. And at the time of this writing, there is an offer to get it at 11.95 CHF per month.

The only thing I do not like about this plan is that it is on the Salt network. But if you are not against other networks like me, this network should be perfectly fine for you.

Mobile Plans Comparators

Moneyland Comparators

Moneyland offers independent comparators for many services: telecom, mortgages, insurances!

Find exactly what you need with Moneyland!

Try now!

There are plenty of comparators in Switzerland for mobile prepaid and plans. However, many of them are limited.

The first one and the best one is the mobile comparator from moneyland. You can configure all the numbers precisely, and the results are detailed. This comparator is the one I have used for most of the comparisons in this article. The problem is that they are considering many offers that are only valid for some time. And the way they compare it is using the activation costs and one-time costs. I much prefer to see the long-time costs.

If you want something simpler and more user-friendly, you can use the mobile comparator from besteabos. They do not have prepaid cards, but they have an excellent offer on mobile plans and present the information in a great way with a lot of information on how to choose.

Conclusion

I have to say that I am surprised by the comparison results. Over the last decade, phone plans and prepaid offers have become much more affordable.

When I was young, I remember that a good Swisscom plan was costing 69 CHF per month, and it was not considered that bad. Fortunately, we have many more options now.

We can see that there is a lot of competition in this field. There are many actors. And even German discounters, Lidl and Aldi, offer excellent mobile plans. And Mucho has extremely cheap offers.

If you have never considered prepaid before, I strongly encourage you to do so now. There are many great options, and they can be much cheaper than phone plans.

And you should not forget to rethink your plans every few years. For instance, the Lid Connect Smart Abo was not in the first version of this article. But it is now an excellent plan. But you should not change every year since you would then pay heavy activation fees.

If you are in the best value for money, you may also be interested in the best internet plans in Switzerland.

What about you? Which phone plan or prepaid card do you use?

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