BT broadband deals: this month's prices, the real 24-month cost, and what else your line can get

What does BT broadband cost in September 2026?

Direct answer: BT's standard broadband plans cost between £26.99 and £31.99 a month on 15 September 2026, every one of them on a 24-month contract that rises by £4 a month on 31 March 2027 and again on 31 March 2028.

BT sells three part-fibre plans over Openreach's older fibre-to-the-cabinet network and three full fibre plans over its FTTP network. The two full fibre tiers BT is pushing hardest, Full Fibre 300 and Full Fibre 500, carry the same £29.99 monthly price, which makes the 500 plan the obvious pick between them because its activation fee is £20 lower. BT's website was also promoting Full Fibre 500 with £200 of bill credit on 15 September 2026, which, if you receive it in full, brings the 24-month average down from £34.41 to £26.07 a month. Bill credits are offers rather than list prices, so check the exact terms before you count on one.

The column that matters is the last one. BT's £4 annual rise lands twice inside a 24-month contract, so the average you pay is £4 to £5 a month above the number in the advert. That is not unique to BT: Plusnet and EE, both BT Group brands, add the same £4, and Ofcom's rules only require that the rise is stated in pounds and pence at sign-up, not that it is small. Our April 2027 price rise tracker lists what every major provider has confirmed.

BT's own website did not list a Full Fibre 150 plan on 15 September 2026. Our hand-checked deals table of 1 September 2026 recorded BT Full Fibre 150 at £23.99 a month with a £100 reward card through the comparison channel, which is one reason the live feed below is worth a look even if you have already priced BT direct.

How does BT's £4 annual price rise work?

Direct answer: BT adds £4 a month to every broadband plan on 31 March each year while you are in contract, and on 1 March each year once you are out of it, with TV plans rising by £2 and landline-only plans by £1.

Since 17 January 2025, Ofcom has required providers to state any mid-contract rise in pounds and pence at the point of sale, ending the inflation-plus-3.9% formula that BT and most rivals used before. BT's version of the rule is simple: broadband up £4 a month, EE TV up £2, landline-only up £1, mobile SIM plans up £2.50, applied on 31 March during your minimum term. BT's price changes help page says that customers who signed before the pounds-and-pence terms and are now out of contract are being moved onto them. BT Home Essentials customers are exempt from the broadband rise.

The practical rule is the one we use across this site: when you compare a September deal, count both rises, because a September joiner sees the first one within seven months. Our price and contract checker does the arithmetic for any provider, and our guide to the BT price rise and your rights covers what you can and cannot do about it.

Is BT the cheapest way to get an Openreach line?

Direct answer: No. On 15 September 2026 Plusnet listed full fibre from £22.99 a month and EE listed Full Fibre 150 at £25.99, both on the same Openreach network as BT and both owned by BT Group, against BT's own entry full fibre price of £29.99.

Openreach, the BT Group company that builds and repairs the line into your home, sells access to it wholesale. BT Consumer is one retail customer of Openreach among many. Plusnet, EE, Sky, TalkTalk, Vodafone, NOW, Zen and dozens of smaller providers buy the same wholesale product, connect the same fibre, and set their own prices, routers and service levels on top. That is why a comparison of BT deals has to include the providers that are not BT.

The wider market is cheaper still. When we hand-checked every deal on 1 September 2026, the 373 broadband-only deals from the 28 providers we can switch you to ran from £13.50 a month (4th Utility, 150 Mbps on CityFibre) upwards, and good full fibre on a 24-month contract clustered between £23 and £34 a month with a median of £28. BT's £29.99 sits a little above that median before its rises and comfortably above it after them. The full list, with first-year cost including the March rise, is on our verified deals page.

Two things decide which of these you can actually order. The first is whether full fibre has reached your address at all: Ofcom's Spring 2026 data puts full fibre availability at 82% of UK premises and gigabit-capable availability at 89%, and Openreach's own footprint stood at 23.4 million premises on 30 June 2026. The second is whether a second network reaches you too. Where CityFibre, Virgin Media, YouFibre, Hyperoptic, Community Fibre or another builder has laid its own fibre, you have a genuinely different product to weigh against BT, not just a different logo on the same line. Our guide to Openreach against CityFibre explains the difference.

What does BT give you that a cheaper Openreach reseller may not?

Direct answer: The line is identical, so what BT's extra money buys is the retail layer: the Smart Hub 3 router, Cyber Threat Protect security included as standard, call centres in the UK and Ireland, EE TV with TNT Sports, and paid options for whole-home Wi-Fi and mobile backup.

Each item below was checked against BT's own pages on 15 September 2026. Where BT only shows a price after a postcode check, we say so rather than guess.

Two claims that circulate about BT do not hold on BT's current pages, so they are not on this one: Complete Wi-Fi is not included with Full Fibre plans as standard, and BT does not publish a 24-hour support line. If either matters to you, price the add-on and check the hours before you order.

Who should choose BT, and who should not?

Direct answer: Choose BT if you want the security software, the newer hub and TNT Sports in one bill and are happy to pay £4 to £7 a month more than the same line costs elsewhere; choose a cheaper Openreach provider if you mainly want a reliable connection at the lowest total cost.

The head-to-head pages cover the pairings people search for most: BT against Sky, BT against Virgin Media, BT against TalkTalk, EE against BT and Vodafone against BT. For the whole market at once, use your postcode.

Does BT do a social tariff?

Direct answer: Yes. BT Home Essentials starts at £16.50 a month for fibre broadband with no set-up fee, on a 12-month contract you can cancel at any time without early exit fees, and its price does not rise each March.

You qualify if you receive Universal Credit (all claimants), Pension Credit (Guarantee Credit), Employment and Support Allowance, Jobseeker's Allowance or Income Support, and new and existing BT customers can apply. BT checks eligibility using your National Insurance number, and a separate No Income plan exists with additional checks. Optional call plans can be added. If you take TV alongside it, the TV part still rises by £2 each March.

Home Essentials is not the cheapest social tariff on the market: our September 2026 deals check listed social tariffs from £12.50 a month across the providers we compare. It is, however, cheaper than any standard BT plan by more than £10 a month, and it is the only BT plan without the annual rise. Our social tariffs guide lists every provider's tariff and who qualifies, and our insight on how social tariff broadband works covers the application steps.

How does BT score on complaints and reviews?

Direct answer: BT drew 7 broadband complaints per 100,000 customers in Ofcom's January to March 2026 data, one above the industry average of 6, behind Plusnet (4), Sky (5), EE and Virgin Media (6) and ahead of Vodafone (8) and TalkTalk (10).

Ofcom described the Q1 2026 industry figure of 6 per 100,000 as an all-time low, down from 40 per 100,000 at the 2011 peak. BT's landline figure for the same quarter was 4 per 100,000 against an average of 3. On our reading of the longer series, BT's broadband figure has fallen from 11 in Q1 2025 to 8 in Q4 2025 and 7 in Q1 2026, a steady improvement rather than a spike. The Complaints Floor, our Report No. 30, sets out the full series and Ofcom's comparability rules.

If you do need to complain, the rules changed on 8 April 2026: a complaint that BT has not resolved after six weeks, down from eight, can go free of charge to the independent ombudsman scheme BT belongs to. Our complaints and your rights guide walks through the steps and the compensation you may be owed. For customer reviews, BT's Trustpilot profile is independent of us and moves daily; our Complaints Floor report captured it at 3.9 out of 5 from 30,460 reviews on 26 July 2026.

What should you check before you order BT?

Direct answer: Six checks, five minutes: address-level availability, Home Essentials eligibility, the same line priced elsewhere, both £4 rises, the terms behind any credit or reward card, and the equipment and cancellation rules.

Related reading: exit fees and set-up fees by provider, how One Touch Switch works, and keeping your phone number when you switch.

Live BT broadband deals at your postcode