PAYG - Yomojo

There is an uncomfortable truth about mobile services: no usage does not mean no cost.

From 1 October 2026, Yomojo will retire its standalone Pay As You Go service. I know this will disappoint some customers. Many have kept the same mobile number for years and use it only occasionally. Some keep their phone for emergencies, family contact or simply for peace of mind.

From their perspective, if they make no calls, send no messages and use no data, it can appear as though the service costs almost nothing to maintain. Unfortunately, that is not how a mobile service works.

There is an uncomfortable truth about mobile services: no usage does not mean no cost.

From 1 October 2026, Yomojo will retire its standalone Pay As You Go service. I know this will disappoint some customers. Many have kept the same mobile number for years and use it only occasionally. Some keep their phone for emergencies, family contact or simply for peace of mind.

From their perspective, if they make no calls, send no messages and use no data, it can appear as though the service costs almost nothing to maintain. Unfortunately, that is not how a mobile service works.

Keeping a mobile number active still has a cost

An active mobile number still needs to remain provisioned and available every second of every day. It must remain connected to the network and be capable of receiving calls and messages, making emergency calls, passing through fraud and security controls, sitting within billing and customer support systems, and continuing to operate as network technology and regulatory requirements change.

PAYG makes intuitive sense: use a little, pay a little. The difficulty is that the cost of providing a mobile service is not limited to the minutes, messages or megabytes a customer consumes. There is also a cost to keeping the service active and ready to use.

Australia’s three national mobile network operators, Telstra, Optus and TPG/Vodafone, carry the enormous costs of spectrum, towers, radio equipment, fibre, power, software, cyber security, engineers, upgrades and ongoing maintenance. The network cannot be built only for the five minutes someone might use it every few months. It has to be ready at the exact moment they need it.

Yomojo purchases wholesale access to the Optus mobile network. That access has a cost whether a customer uses 29GB in a month or leaves their phone sitting untouched in a drawer.

An active mobile number still needs to remain provisioned and available every second of every day. It must remain connected to the network and be capable of receiving calls and messages, making emergency calls, passing through fraud and security controls, sitting within billing and customer support systems, and continuing to operate as network technology and regulatory requirements change.

PAYG makes intuitive sense: use a little, pay a little. The difficulty is that the cost of providing a mobile service is not limited to the minutes, messages or megabytes a customer consumes. There is also a cost to keeping the service active and ready to use.

Australia’s three national mobile network operators, Telstra, Optus and TPG/Vodafone, carry the enormous costs of spectrum, towers, radio equipment, fibre, power, software, cyber security, engineers, upgrades and ongoing maintenance. The network cannot be built only for the five minutes someone might use it every few months. It has to be ready at the exact moment they need it.

Yomojo purchases wholesale access to the Optus mobile network. That access has a cost whether a customer uses 29GB in a month or leaves their phone sitting untouched in a drawer.

Why we cannot offer a sustainable low-usage plan

I genuinely wish we could offer a sustainable $5 or $10 low-usage mobile plan. There is clearly a group of customers who would value one. However, at the current cost of keeping a mobile service active, we cannot offer such a plan sustainably. Selling it below the underlying access cost would simply mean customers on other plans subsidise it, or that the product would eventually have to be withdrawn anyway.

Neither outcome is particularly honest, and we have therefore made the difficult decision to close standalone PAYG and simplify our mobile range around current plans with clear inclusions, pricing and renewal dates.

I genuinely wish we could offer a sustainable $5 or $10 low-usage mobile plan. There is clearly a group of customers who would value one. However, at the current cost of keeping a mobile service active, we cannot offer such a plan sustainably. Selling it below the underlying access cost would simply mean customers on other plans subsidise it, or that the product would eventually have to be withdrawn anyway.

Neither outcome is particularly honest, and we have therefore made the difficult decision to close standalone PAYG and simplify our mobile range around current plans with clear inclusions, pricing and renewal dates.

What happens from 1 October 2026

From 1 October, customers who take no action will move to our 29GB Starter Plan for $24.90 every 30 days, including unlimited standard national calls, SMS and MMS. Customers can also choose another Yomojo plan, transfer their number to another provider or cancel the service.

Any unexpired purchased PAYG credit will transfer to account credit for customers who stay with Yomojo. Customers who transfer or cancel will have their remaining purchased PAYG credit refunded to the payment method on file.

From 1 October, customers who take no action will move to our 29GB Starter Plan for $24.90 every 30 days, including unlimited standard national calls, SMS and MMS. Customers can also choose another Yomojo plan, transfer their number to another provider or cancel the service.

Any unexpired purchased PAYG credit will transfer to account credit for customers who stay with Yomojo. Customers who transfer or cancel will have their remaining purchased PAYG credit refunded to the payment method on file.

Supporting affected customers

We are giving affected customers 30 days’ notice, and our team will help anyone who needs assistance understanding the change or deciding what to do next. This is not a decision I expect every affected customer to like, but I would rather explain the uncomfortable economics clearly than hide behind phrases such as product rationalisation.

A mobile service that appears unused is still a live service on a real network, with real costs behind it. I wish the economics were different, but pretending they are would not make them so.