Average monthly broadband cost in the UK: the three numbers that are all true

The three numbers, and which one is yours

Direct answer: Ofcom measures average monthly spend on broadband alone at £31.05 a month and on broadband with a landline at £39.20, for Q2 2025. But in-contract customers pay £28.66 and out-of-contract customers pay £35.86, so the average describes neither group.

Almost every page on this subject answers the question with one number. The trouble is that the number is an average of two populations who are paying for the same thing at very different prices, and nothing on the page tells you which one you are in.

Ofcom's figures come from the operators themselves rather than from a survey, which matters: they are what left people's bank accounts, not what people remembered when asked. The provider base is BT (incl. EE and Plusnet), KCOM, Sky, TalkTalk, Three, Virgin Media O2 and Vodafone, so the smaller full fibre networks are not in it, and those are generally cheaper.

Two qualifications travel with these numbers and almost nobody prints them. The first is that “standalone” means broadband with no landline, no TV and no mobile: add a landline and the figure is £39.20. The second is that Ofcom's spend figures are per broadband line, not per household. Ofcom's own word is “customers”, and a house with two lines counts twice.

There is one more thing in the data that cuts against the story this page is telling, so it belongs here rather than buried. In real terms, average spend fell slightly over the year. Ofcom's own conclusion is: “This suggests that while spend rose, the increase was below the rate of inflation.” Bills went up in cash and down after inflation, and both halves are true.

Is your bill reasonable? A straight answer

Direct answer: Three questions, no postcode and no email. The verdict is measured against Ofcom's published figures and it names which one it used.

The checker compares what you pay against what Ofcom measured people in your position actually paying, and against what a new customer is advertised at your speed. Those are two different questions and it answers both, because a bill can be fine against the first and poor against the second.

What it deliberately does not do is tell you to switch. Whether a better price exists depends on which networks have reached your street, and nothing on this page can see your street. That is what the postcode check at the top is for.

What your price becomes when the deal ends

Direct answer: At 100 to 150 Mbit/s, Ofcom recorded BT advertising £28.99 a month against a list price of £73.99, which is 2.6 times as much. Sky ran £22.00 against £43.00 and Virgin Media £23.99 against £54.00.

This is the single most useful table in Ofcom's pricing report and we have not found it on another consumer page. It sets each provider's promoted price beside the list price the same service reverts to, at one speed tier, on one date. Ofcom's own framing is plain: “These promoted prices typically last for the service's minimum contractual period (MCP) and are lower than the standard list price.” And the footnote that makes it bite: “All promoted prices are for new customers only.”

Look at the shape rather than the individual rows. The large providers have gaps of twenty to forty five pounds a month. The smaller full fibre networks have gaps of four to ten. toob advertised £18.00 against a list price of £22.00; Trooli £24.99 against £29.99. That is a different commercial model rather than a kinder one: a business that does not plan to recover a discount later does not need a cliff.

Ofcom finds the same pattern by technology rather than by brand. Cable carried the widest gap, at a £61.38 list price against a £39.37 promoted price, with full fibre at £43.46 against £35.82 and part fibre closest together at £34.92 against £31.04.

How many people are actually sitting on the far side of that cliff? Ofcom's answer: 28% of customers with a fixed broadband service were out-of-contract for at least one service in their bundle. Those customers “spent on average £7 a month more for standalone broadband”, and across bundle types their spend was “between 11% and 25% more” than in-contract customers'. The regulator's own conclusion is the advice: “This highlights that customers can usually save money by acting when their current contract ends”.

Two honest qualifications. The first is that the penalty is shrinking: the out-of-contract penalty is narrowing, from about £11 a month in 2024 to about £7 in 2025, after inflation, on our own subtraction from Ofcom's two years of figures. The second is that it is not universal. For two bundle types that include mobile, Ofcom found “out-of-contract customers' average spend was lower than that of in-contract customers”. The rule holds reliably for the two services this page is about, and we would rather say that than overstate it.

The spring rise, in pounds and pence

Direct answer: Since 17 January 2025 a provider cannot write an inflation-linked rise, or one set as a % of your bill, into a new contract. It has to state a fixed amount before you sign. On their own sites, most are at £4 a month and Vodafone is at £3.50.

The rule is usually described as a disclosure requirement. It is mostly a ban. Ofcom's own words: “From 17 January 2025, phone, broadband and pay TV providers will be prohibited from including inflation-linked, or percentage-based, price rise terms in all new contracts.” The pounds-and-pence part is the backstop for where a rise is still written in: it “will need to be set out in pounds and pence, prominently and transparently, at the point of sale”.

The exception matters, because it is why some bills still move with inflation. Contracts signed before 17 January 2025 can still carry inflation-linked rises. Virgin Media's own help page still runs three groups of customers, and the oldest is on “the Retail Price Index (RPI) rate of inflation, plus an additional 3.9%”. If you signed before the ban and have not renewed since, you are in that group.

Here is what the large providers published on their own sites on 13 October 2026. BT, EE, Plusnet, Virgin Media, TalkTalk and Hyperoptic were all at £4 a month. Vodafone was at £3.50, the lowest of the large providers. toob was at £2, the lowest found anywhere. Zen and YouFibre publish a price lock instead. Zen's wording: “Guaranteed no in-contract price increases.” YouFibre's: “Prices are fixed for the initial term of the 24-month contract.”

One gap is worth stating as a gap. Sky publishes no pounds-and-pence annual increase amount on its own site. Sky is one of the three largest providers in the country, and we could not find the figure on any page it publishes, so this guide does not give one. The same is true of NOW, which Sky owns, and of Gigaclear.

Now the part nobody mentions. A fixed amount is transparent, but it is not even, and the arithmetic below is ours from the providers' own published prices. The same £4 is 21.1% of Hyperoptic's £19 entry deal and 9.3% of EE's £42.99 top tier. Our own arithmetic on this is simple: a flat pounds-and-pence rise takes a much bigger share of a cheap deal than of an expensive one, and the cheapest deals are the ones bought by the households with the least room to absorb it.

The rise is visible in the national statistics too, which is the cleanest proof that it happens to the whole market in one month. ONS publishes an index called “CPI INDEX 08.3.0.3 Internet access provision services 2015=100”. It sat at 174.0 through January, February and March 2026, stepped to 195.1 in April, and has not moved since. That step is 12.1%, which is our calculation from the published index rather than an ONS statistic: ONS publishes the index, not that figure.

Why full fibre got cheaper and copper got dearer

Direct answer: In the year to July 2025 the average price advertised to new customers fell at four of the five speed tiers Ofcom tracks. The slowest tier, under 30 Mbit/s, was the only one that rose, and it rose 17% in real terms.

Ofcom's figures here are prices rather than spend, and the distinction is the whole reason this page exists. The notes on the figure say so plainly: “analysis is based on tariffs available to a new customer who signs up and excludes the impact of any annual price rises”. So this is the shop window, not the bank statement.

Across the five tiers, “there was a 6% decrease in price in real terms (2% nominal) across these five connections in the year to July 2025”. The 300 to 999 Mbit/s tier fell furthest, “down by £7.16 per month and 16% in real terms compared to July 2024”. The 100 to 299 Mbit/s tier was next, “which fell by 12% in real terms (9% nominal)”. And then the exception: “The lowest speed connection (of less than 30 Mbit/s) was the only one for which the price increased year on year”, “up by 17% in real terms (22% nominal) compared to July 2024.”

Put those two facts together and you get the finding that nobody in this topic has published: full fibre got cheaper and copper got dearer. The tier that got dearer is the one a copper line leaves you on, and it is where older households and households in areas full fibre has not reached are most likely to be sitting. Price competition arrived everywhere except the places that could not take part in it.

There is a practical consequence, and it is the most immediately useful line on this page. 100 to 299 Mbit/s full fibre is advertised cheaper than 30 to 99 Mbit/s part fibre: £31.52 against £34.41. If you are on a part fibre package of about 35 to 70 Mbit/s, a full fibre deal may well be both faster and cheaper. It is worth checking before you assume that paying less means getting less.

What is not in the monthly price

Direct answer: Activation, router delivery, an engineer visit, a surcharge for not paying by direct debit, paper billing, and an exit charge if you leave early. The last one is the only cost no provider in this research publishes before you sign.

The best page on the internet about hidden broadband charges was published in February 2010. We checked, because we wanted to cite something current, and there is nothing current to cite. So here is what the providers published on their own sites on 13 October 2026.

Set-up fees vary more than you would expect for a line that gets installed the same way. BT advertised no activation fee. Plusnet published “£9.99 one-off activation fee”, with a first-month total of £34.98 that is how we confirmed its monthly price. EE published “£30 activation fee”, discounted to £10 on one package. Gigaclear charged £30 on its entry tier and nothing on the two above it. TalkTalk, toob and Hyperoptic advertised no set-up fee at all.

NOW is worth singling out, because its own two pages disagree. Its shop page says “£0 activation fee. £0 delivery fee.” Its terms page says “Set-up fee of £9.95 router delivery plus £10 activation fee may be required.” Both are NOW's own pages and we are not going to pick one for you, but it is the kind of thing to read the terms for before you order.

And then the one that actually costs people money. No provider in this research publishes how its early termination charge is calculated on a page a customer can read before signing. Seventeen were checked. So the single largest cost of leaving early is the one you cannot weigh while you are choosing, and the only way to find it is to ask before you order rather than after.

If you claim a benefit, the cheapest price is a different price

Direct answer: Ofcom's own list carried 37 social tariffs when we read it on 2 October 2026, from £12 a month to £24 a month. Against average spend of £31.05 a month, the cheapest is well under half price, and “70% of eligible households were unaware of social tariffs in October 2025”.

This is the largest single saving available to anyone on this page, and it is the one least likely to be taken. Ofcom's figures: “In June 2025, 532,000 customers were using a fixed or mobile broadband social tariff.” “take-up is low as a proportion of eligible households (less than 9%)”. And the reason, in Ofcom's own words: “70% of eligible households were unaware of social tariffs in October 2025”. The saving is not hard to claim. It is simply not known about.

The market has grown fast. “Broadband social tariff options had grown from just three in 2020 to more than 30 by December 2025.” The cheapest on Ofcom's current list is Hyperoptic Fair Fibre Fast at £12 a month for 50 Mbit/s, and the dearest is £24 a month. Set that against £31.05 a month of average spend, or £35.86 if your contract has lapsed, and the difference over a year is substantial.

Who qualifies? Ofcom puts it plainly: “If you or someone in your household claims Universal Credit, you could switch to any of the tariffs available.” “All major providers also include people on Pension Credit, Employment and Support Allowance, Jobseeker's Allowance and Income Support.” “Some providers might include additional benefits, like Personal Independence Payment and Attendance Allowance.” And the condition that catches people out most often: “The person receiving the benefit needs to be the main person on the contract.” If the benefit is in your partner's name, the contract usually has to be too.

One caution, and it is Ofcom’s own rather than ours: “Low-cost standard SIM-only deals are also available and in some cases are cheaper than the available social tariffs.” A social tariff is not automatically the cheapest thing available to you, and on a full fibre street an ordinary altnet deal can undercut one. Check both. There is more detail in our guide to social tariffs and who qualifies.

Why every page gives you a different number

Direct answer: there is no single average UK broadband cost, and the reason the published figures disagree is that they measure different things. We found thirteen figures published as “the average UK broadband cost”, running from £22.63 to £36.15.

Four of those thirteen are Ofcom's, and all four are correct. They are simply measuring different things. Average spend on broadband alone is £31.05 a month. In-contract spend is £28.66. Out-of-contract spend is £35.86. And the average price ADVERTISED to a new customer at 100 to 299 Mbit/s is £31.52. Quote any one of those as “the average broadband cost” and you have said something true and misleading at the same time.

The rest are comparison sites, and they are on the chart so you can see where the number you met elsewhere sits, not as evidence. None of them can be traced to a primary source. Two deserve a note. Which?'s £28 is not an average at all, it is a ceiling the magazine recommends, derived from the deals it sells through its own switching service. And one comparison site publishes £26.90 on one page and £35.90 on another, a nine pound contradiction inside a single brand.

There is a fifth Ofcom number that gets misquoted more than any of these, and it is worth naming so you can discount it on sight. Ofcom publishes “household baskets” running from £43.44 to £129.21 a month. Those cover fixed phone, mobile, broadband and pay TV together. They are not broadband bills, and a page quoting £43 to £142 as the cost of broadband has misread a table.

One number this page used to carry has gone entirely. It led with £34.50 from a comparison site's survey, which is about three and a half pounds above what Ofcom measured people actually paying and much closer to the out-of-contract figure. It is on the chart now, where it belongs, with everything else.

How to actually bring the bill down

Direct answer: In order of how much they save: check whether you qualify for a social tariff, find out whether you are out of contract, then compare full fibre against what you are on now rather than assuming faster costs more.

Check eligibility first. If anyone in your household claims Universal Credit, Pension Credit, Employment and Support Allowance, Jobseeker's Allowance or Income Support, a social tariff from £12 a month is probably open to you, and some providers also accept Personal Independence Payment and Attendance Allowance. Remember the condition: “The person receiving the benefit needs to be the main person on the contract.”

Then find your contract end date. It decides more than your choice of provider does. Ofcom's gap between in-contract and out-of-contract spend is £7.20 a month on our own subtraction, and the gap between a promoted price and a list price is much wider than that. Your provider has to tell you when your term ends, and the account page usually shows it.

Then compare on the total, not the headline. Almost every deal advertised today carries its own 2027 and 2028 prices on the same page, because Ofcom requires it. A deal that is two pounds cheaper today and rises by £4 where another rises by £2 is not the cheaper deal over two years. Add the set-up fee and divide by the length of the contract.

And do not assume faster means dearer. 100 to 299 Mbit/s full fibre is advertised cheaper than 30 to 99 Mbit/s part fibre, so if you are on an old part fibre package the upgrade may be the saving. Our guides to full fibre against standard broadband and to what speed you actually need cover that decision properly, and dropping the landline you no longer use is worth about £8 a month on Ofcom’s figures.

What this page used to say

Direct answer: Five things on the previous version of this page were wrong or undated, including the headline figure. Here is each one, what replaced it and why.

Corrections are published rather than quietly edited, with the date each source was read. If you think something here is still wrong, tell us and a person will check it against the source.

In short

1. Ofcom measures average monthly spend on broadband alone at £31.05 a month and broadband with a landline at “£39.20”, for Q2 2025.
2. That average hides the thing that matters: £28.66 a month in contract against £35.86 once the contract has ended, a gap of £7.20 a month on our own subtraction.
3. Ofcom found that 28% of customers with a fixed broadband service were out-of-contract for at least one service in their bundle, and in its own words those customers “spent on average £7 a month more for standalone broadband”.
4. The gap between an advertised price and a standing price is far wider than either average suggests. At 100 to 150 Mbit/s Ofcom recorded BT advertising £28.99 where its list price was £73.99, which is 2.6 times as much.
5. Four of the five speed tiers Ofcom tracks got cheaper for new customers in the year to July 2025. The only one that rose was the slowest: “up by 17% in real terms (22% nominal) compared to July 2024.”
6. The spring rise is now a fixed amount rather than a % of the bill, which made it transparent rather than even. The same £4 is 21.1% of Hyperoptic’s cheapest deal and 9.3% of EE’s dearest.
7. If you claim a qualifying benefit, Ofcom’s own list carries 37 social tariffs from £12 a month, and “70% of eligible households were unaware of social tariffs in October 2025”.

Each line stands on its own and carries its date. Reviewed by a person at least quarterly, last on 13 October 2026.