Broadband Deals for Existing Customers: What Providers Offer and What Loyalty Costs

If you have typed "broadband deals for existing customers" hoping your loyalty is about to be rewarded, here is the truthful version: your provider probably does have offers for you, and they are probably not its best offers. This guide shows what each of the seven biggest providers publicly promises existing customers, in its own words, what staying put genuinely costs using Ofcom's February 2026 figures, the notification rights most customers never use, the evidence that those rights work when used, and the three-way choice, retention deal, recontract or switch, that turns the pricing game back in your favour.

Do broadband providers offer deals for existing customers?

Direct answer: yes, six of the seven biggest do, publicly and in writing, and the seventh publishes something arguably more useful. Here is what each one says on its own website.

We opened every major provider's pages on 8 August 2026. The table quotes their own words, so you can see exactly what is being promised, and what is not. Notice what none of them says: that the offer is their best price.

Three patterns worth noticing. Almost everything sits behind a log-in, because providers price existing-customer offers person by person. The language is upgrade language, faster speed, more channels, rather than price-cut language. And Sky's row deserves a second look: it is the only major provider whose public pages state the after-contract uplift as a formula. A published "plus £5" is unusually honest, and it is also £60 a year for doing nothing, on top of whatever your promotional discount was. An upgrade offer can be a genuinely good deal; it is also how a £2 saving gets presented as generosity while the market price for your current speed has fallen by £8. The only defence is knowing the market price, which takes thirty seconds on our postcode comparison.

Why do new customers get the better prices?

Direct answer: because the industry prices to win switchers, and recovers the money from people who stay.

Ofcom's pricing report, published 26 February 2026, measures the machinery precisely: "the difference between the promoted prices (paid by in-contract customers) and list prices (paid by out-of-contract customers) for dual-play bundles ranged from £4 for those with standard broadband to £8 for those with ultrafast broadband". The promoted price is the shop window. The list price is what your direct debit quietly becomes when the minimum term ends and you do nothing. Sky's "plus £5" is simply the same machinery written down.

This is not a scandal unearthed by us; it is the documented structure of the market, and it has a name. The Competition and Markets Authority put it on the record back in 2018: "there is a total loyalty penalty of around £4 billion a year" across the five markets in the Citizens Advice super-complaint, broadband among them. Seven years on, Citizens Advice reported in September 2025 that "instead of automatically offering existing customers their most competitive price, providers are penalising consumers, with three million people paying over the odds for their contracts", and its survey found out-of-term broadband customers' costs had increased "by an average of £10.51 per month".

Our own research report, The Loyalty Penalty, Report No. 28, works through the whole mechanism with every figure sourced and graded, if you want the full picture.

What staying loyal actually costs

Direct answer: £7 to £9 a month on Ofcom's February 2026 numbers, which is roughly £84 to £108 a year, and 28% of broadband customers are paying it.

Scale matters as much as size. Ofcom's data from the UK's largest operators "shows that 28% of customers with a fixed broadband service were out-of-contract for at least one service in their bundle at the end of June 2025, unchanged year on year". How many millions is that? Honestly: nobody publishes a current count. The last one was 7.4 million customers (35%) in September 2020, and Ofcom confirmed in a freedom of information response of October 2025 that it does not hold newer counts. The same response shows the 28% blends two very different groups: in June 2024, only 16% of standalone broadband customers were out of contract, against 36% of those with dual-play broadband and landline bundles. If your broadband still shares a bill with a landline, you are in the group most likely to be drifting.

If you have just realised you might be in the 28%, that is not a failure, it is the system working as designed. The next two sections are the fix.

The rights your provider hopes you have forgotten

Direct answer: since 15 February 2020, your provider must warn you your contract is ending, tell you what you will pay next, and show you its best deals, including prices only available to new customers.

Ofcom's rules are specific about what the end-of-contract notification must contain. In Ofcom's words, these alerts "must include: when your contract is up; what you've been paying until now, and what you'll pay when your contract is up; any notice period for leaving your provider; and your provider's best deals, including any prices only available to new customers."

And the protection does not expire when you ignore the first letter: "Anyone who is already out of contract must also be reminded they are out of contract, and told every year about their firm's best deals."

Read those again, because together they mean the information asymmetry is illegal. Your provider is required to put its best deal in front of you. What the rules do not do is force the provider to apply that price automatically, so the notification is a starting gun, not a settlement. Our broadband renewal checklist turns it into a five-minute routine.

Did the letters work? Ofcom checked

Direct answer: yes, measurably, for the people who read them. Out-of-contract numbers fell by around 1.3 million in the rules' first year, and responders saved an average of more than £110.

This is the evidence trail no competitor page carries, and it is the best argument for opening the next letter your provider sends. Ofcom's follow-up research, published November 2021, found "the number of broadband customers who were out-of-contract fell from 8.7 million (40%) in 2019 to 7.4 million (35%) in 2020", a fall it describes as "around 1.3 million from the previous year". Its May 2022 evaluation measured what responding is worth: "We found that some customers were able to save an average of more than £110 a year when taking out a new contract in response to an alert." The alerts moved behaviour at every big provider: "Plusnet saw the biggest increase (13 percentage points) in the number of customers taking out a new deal as a result of receiving one of these alerts. BT, EE and Virgin Media saw similar (10-percentage point) increases."

The last box is the unfinished business. Six years of letters, and more than a quarter of the country still drifts. The mechanism is proven; the missing ingredient is the two minutes of attention, which is exactly what the playbook below is for.

How to get a better deal from your current provider: five steps in order

Direct answer: benchmark, then log in, then call, then choose between the three Rs: retention deal, recontract, or replace them.

Two more evidence points for calibration. Which?'s per-provider findings show the spread: "The average Virgin Media broadband customer saved £92 per year by haggling, for example, and the typical Sky TV and broadband customer saved a whopping £127 per year thanks to a little bargaining." And for anyone nervous that negotiating is confrontational: Citizens Advice found "Almost one in five people (18%) don't negotiate or switch at all". The £7 to £9 a month gap is, in large part, funded by that 18%. Politely declining to be in it is not rudeness, it is arithmetic. If your provider is Virgin Media, our Virgin Media retention deals guide covers that negotiation's particular rhythms.

When switching beats any existing customer deal

Direct answer: when the network at your address has overtaken your provider, when the retention offer will not close the gap, or when a switching credit pays your way out.

Four developments have tilted this decision since the last time most people checked.

Switching became one contact. Since 12 September 2024, under One Touch Switch, "landline and broadband customers only need to contact their new provider to make the change. The new provider then manages the switch." That includes moves to and from Virgin Media's network. Ofcom's February 2026 report records that "From its launch in September 2024 to the end of 2025, over two million customers used OTS to switch their broadband", and the scheme operator TOTSCo announced in June 2026: "Having now passed 3 million completed switches, our focus stays firmly on the future." This is now a thoroughly ordinary thing to do.

Price rises became visible upfront. From 17 January 2025, Ofcom banned inflation-linked and percentage price rise terms in new contracts: "Any price rise written into a customer's contract from January 2025 will need to be set out in pounds and pence, prominently and transparently, at the point of sale." A new contract today shows you its whole cost story before you sign; our price rises guide tracks every provider's figures.

Providers will now pay your exit fee to poach you. Switching credits, where the new provider contributes towards your old early-exit charge, have become a live battleground: ISPreview reported on 7 August 2026 that EE cut its contract buyout to £200 for broadband-only switchers (£300 with a TV bundle), while noting "Virgin Media did recently increase their buyout from £250 and now maxes out at up to £300". If an exit fee is the only thing keeping you loyal, check our switching credit guide before assuming you are stuck.

Your address may have changed underneath you. Full fibre reached 82% of UK homes by January 2026. If a full fibre network arrived on your street since you last signed, the fastest deal at your address may be from a provider your retention agent will not mention. That is the moment loyalty maths collapses, because you are not comparing like for like any more.

One bundling footnote, because bundles are where loyalty pricing hides best. Ofcom's February 2026 analysis found "most households who bundle their telecoms services together benefit from lower prices, compared to those who buy them separately, with savings ranging from £26 to £48 a month", with bundled pay TV averaging £12 a month after a 23% real-terms fall. Bundles are genuinely good value on day one; they are also the products with the biggest out-of-contract drift (36% of dual-play customers out of contract against 16% standalone, per Ofcom's FOI data), so the discount only survives if you re-shop it. Two practical fears, both solvable: keeping your provider email address and timing the move so you are never offline, which One Touch Switch is designed to handle.

The escape hatch almost nobody uses: social tariffs

Direct answer: if anyone in the household claims Universal Credit, Pension Credit or certain other benefits, cheaper official tariffs from £10 to £24 a month exist, and take-up is under 9%.

Ofcom's definition: "Social tariffs are cheaper broadband and phone packages for people claiming Universal Credit, Pension Credit and some other benefits." Its current price range: "Current prices range from £10 to £24." And its take-up finding is the quiet scandal of this whole subject: "In June 2025, 532,000 customers were using a fixed or mobile broadband social tariff", which Ofcom notes "is low as a proportion of eligible households (less than 9%)", while "70% of eligible households were unaware of social tariffs in October 2025".

If that is you or someone you help with bills, start with our social tariffs guide. No haggling required; eligibility is the whole negotiation.

Frequently asked questions

Do broadband providers offer deals for existing customers?

Most do. When we checked on 8 August 2026, BT, Virgin Media, Vodafone, TalkTalk, EE and Plusnet all ran public pages offering deals or upgrades to existing customers, usually behind a log-in. Sky takes a different approach: its public pages sell to new customers and invite existing customers to sign in for exclusive deals, while its Sky VIP scheme covers all customers. The catch across the board is that existing customer deals are rarely the provider's best price, which is typically reserved for new customers.

Does Sky do deals for existing customers?

Not through a public deals page. Sky's broadband pages state that Sky TV customers get exclusive deals behind a sign-in, its help pages route package changes through an upgrade hub, and Sky VIP is described by Sky as an extra benefit for just being a Sky customer. Most usefully, Sky publishes its after-contract formula in plain sight: at the end of your 24-month minimum term, your monthly price will be the price you are paying immediately before your minimum term ends, plus £5.

Why do new customers get better broadband deals than existing customers?

Providers price aggressively to win new customers, then move people to higher standard pricing when the introductory deal ends. Ofcom's February 2026 pricing report found the difference between promoted prices paid by in-contract customers and list prices paid by out-of-contract customers ranged from £4 a month for standard broadband to £8 for ultrafast on dual-play bundles. Staying put on the list price is what the loyalty penalty means.

How much more do out-of-contract broadband customers pay?

Ofcom research published on 26 February 2026 found that customers who are in contract spend between £7 and £9 a month less than out-of-contract customers, which is roughly £84 to £108 a year. Ofcom's data also shows 28% of customers with fixed broadband were out of contract for at least one service in their bundle at the end of June 2025.

How many UK households are out of contract on broadband?

Ofcom's newest published measure is a share, not a count: 28% at the end of June 2025. The last published count was 7.4 million customers (35%) in September 2020, down from 8.7 million (40%) in 2019, and Ofcom confirmed in a 2025 freedom of information response that it does not hold a newer count. Applying 28% to today's 29.4 million broadband lines suggests several million households, but that is arithmetic, not an Ofcom figure.

Did the end-of-contract notification rules actually work?

Measurably, yes. Ofcom's follow-up research found the number of out-of-contract broadband customers fell from 8.7 million in 2019 to 7.4 million in 2020, a drop of around 1.3 million, and its 2022 evaluation found some customers saved an average of more than £110 a year by taking out a new contract in response to an alert. The letters only work if you open them, which is the whole argument of this page.

Can existing customers get new customer prices?

Sometimes, in effect if not in name. Retentions teams can offer unadvertised prices when you are ready to leave, and Ofcom rules require your provider to tell you its best deals, including prices only available to new customers, when your contract is ending. If your provider will not close the gap, switching makes you a new customer somewhere else, and One Touch Switch means the new provider handles the whole move.

How do I find out when my broadband contract ends?

Check your online account or ask your provider directly; they must tell you. Under Ofcom rules in force since 15 February 2020, providers must also send you an end-of-contract notification by text, email or letter telling you when your contract is up, what you pay now, what you will pay afterwards, and their best deals.

How much can I save by haggling with my broadband provider?

The reported evidence clusters usefully. Which?'s survey of more than 5,000 people whose contracts had just ended found broadband hagglers saved an average of £65 a year, with Virgin Media customers averaging £92 and Sky TV and broadband customers £127. MoneySavingExpert's January 2026 poll found 69% of broadband hagglers succeeded. Citizens Advice found out-of-term broadband customers' bills had risen by an average of £10.51 a month, which is the sum haggling exists to claw back.

Is it better to haggle or to switch broadband?

Benchmark first, then decide. Haggling wins when your provider's network still suits you and the retention offer lands at or under the market price. Switching wins when a faster network has reached your address, when new-customer pricing elsewhere is far below any retention offer, or when a switching credit covers your exit fee: EE currently offers up to £200 towards leaving your old provider, Virgin Media up to £300, as reported by ISPreview in August 2026.

What is One Touch Switch?

The Ofcom-mandated process, live since 12 September 2024, under which you only contact the provider you are joining and they manage the switch, including cancelling your old service. It covers switches between different networks, including Virgin Media's. Ofcom's February 2026 report records over two million customers using it to switch broadband by the end of 2025, and the scheme's operator TOTSCo reported passing 3 million completed switches in June 2026.

Are broadband bundles cheaper for existing customers?

Ofcom's February 2026 analysis found most households who bundle their telecoms services together pay less than buying separately, with savings ranging from £26 to £48 a month, and pay TV taken in a bundle averaging £12 a month after a 23% real-terms fall. The same warning applies as everywhere else on this page: bundle prices drift after the minimum term, so the discount only survives if you re-shop it.

Will I lose my email address if I leave my provider?

It depends on the provider: some close addresses, some charge to keep them, some leave them free. It is one of the most common reasons people accept a worse deal, and it is fixable with a little planning. Our guide to keeping your email when you switch covers each provider's policy.

What is a broadband social tariff?

Cheaper broadband and phone packages for people claiming Universal Credit, Pension Credit and some other benefits, with current prices ranging from £10 to £24 a month according to Ofcom. Take-up is strikingly low: 532,000 customers in June 2025, which Ofcom puts at less than 9% of eligible households, and 70% of eligible households were unaware social tariffs existed.

References

• BT. (n.d.). Upgrade your BT Broadband. https://www.bt.com/broadband/upgrades
• Citizens Advice. (2025, September 25). Mobile and broadband companies not being upfront about better renewal deals that could save consumers £325 a year. https://www.citizensadvice.org.uk/about-us/media-centre/press-releases/mobile-and-broadband-companies-not-being-upfront-about-better-renewal-deals/
• Competition and Markets Authority. (2018, December 19). CMA tackles loyalty penalty charges. GOV.UK. https://www.gov.uk/government/news/cma-tackles-loyalty-penalty-charges
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• Fletcher, Y. (2026, July 7, last updated). How to haggle for the best broadband deal. Which?. https://www.which.co.uk/reviews/broadband/article/how-to-haggle-for-the-best-broadband-deal-aryQB6p5ziyc
• Ofcom. (2020, February 14). Companies must tell customers about their best deals. https://www.ofcom.org.uk/news-centre/2020/companies-must-tell-customers-about-their-best-deals
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• Ofcom. (2024, July 19). Ofcom bans mid-contract price rises linked to inflation. https://www.ofcom.org.uk/phones-and-broadband/bills-and-charges/ofcom-bans-mid-contract-price-rises-linked-to-inflation
• Ofcom. (2024, September 12). Simpler broadband switching is here. https://www.ofcom.org.uk/phones-and-broadband/switching-provider/simpler-broadband-switching-is-here
• Ofcom. (2025, October 13). Freedom of information response: Broadband and mobile phone out-of-contract customers. https://www.ofcom.org.uk/siteassets/resources/documents/about-ofcom/foi/2025/october/broadband-and-mobile-phone-out-of-contract-customers.pdf?v=405837
• Ofcom. (2026, February 26). New Ofcom research reveals how to cut phone and internet bills. https://www.ofcom.org.uk/phones-and-broadband/bills-and-charges/new-ofcom-research-reveals-how-to-cut-phone-and-internet-bills
• Ofcom. (2026, February 26). Pricing and consumer engagement: Trends in the UK communications sector. https://www.ofcom.org.uk/siteassets/resources/documents/research-and-data/multi-sector/pricing/2025/pricing-and-consumer-engagement-report.pdf?v=413104
• Ofcom. (2026, June 22, last updated). Social tariffs: Cheaper broadband and phone packages. https://www.ofcom.org.uk/phones-and-broadband/saving-money/social-tariffs/
• Plusnet. (n.d.). Broadband deals for existing customers. https://www.plus.net/broadband/home/
• Sky. (n.d.). Sky's best broadband deals and WiFi packages. https://www.sky.com/broadband
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• Sky. (n.d.). Welcome to Sky VIP. https://www.sky.com/discover/vip
• TalkTalk. (n.d.). Deals for existing customers. https://www.talktalk.co.uk/broadband/deals-existing-customer
• TOTSCo. (2026, June 12). 3 million switches: A milestone achieved together. https://totsco.org.uk/262598-2/
• Virgin Media. (n.d.). Best Virgin Media deals for existing customers. https://www.virginmedia.com/myvmo2/your-offers
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Written by Adrian James, Broadband Editor at BroadbandSwitch.uk (LinkedIn). Reviewed by Dr Alex J. Martin-Smith (LinkedIn). Published 9 August 2026, provider pages and figures last verified 8 August 2026, with EE's buyout figure re-confirmed on 9 August 2026. Provider offers change constantly and are personalised behind log-ins. Haggling outcomes are reported surveys and polls, not guarantees. This guide is information, not advice.