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Business phone plans

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In this guide

What is a business phone plan?

Is it worth getting a business mobile plan, how do i compare business phone plans, what is the best business mobile plan in australia, telstra business mobile plans, optus business mobile plans, vodafone business phone plans.

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Business phone plans are designed for businesses to give to their employees, so they can keep in touch with clients and co-workers.

If you're running a business with multiple employees that need work numbers, it makes sense to look at getting a business mobile plan to make it easier for organisational or tax purposes.

They have different inclusions to personal mobile plans because people tend to use their phones differently for business than they would for recreation.

Business plans are also designed for lots of employees to share inclusions.

They also often have better access to support , because the consequences of a business phone being down are much harsher than that of a personal phone.

• Keep in mind: SME's and larger enterprises reap the most rewards with a business mobile plan. Business phone plans won't really benefit sole traders (depending on how you handle tax).

Depending on the size of your business, a mobile plan specifically designed for work may or may not benefit your organisation.

• Designed specifically for business. Many also allow you to tailor the plans specifically to suit your business needs. For example, if you need international call inclusions to keep in touch with international clients, or have multiple employees who can share a data pool.
• Lots of options available. Businesses come in so many different flavours – a cheese factory and game development studio would have vastly different calling and data needs, so providers have plenty of options to make sure you get the right plan.
• Extra value. Because most businesses are signing up for a bunch of mobile plans at once, providers will often kick in extra perks like international call inclusions, or discounts.
• Cost and contracts. These plans tend to be more expensive than regular mobile plans and often have long contracts. Think carefully about whether a business plan or a regular account with multiple personal plans is better for you.

Note for sole traders:

You don't need to have a business phone plan to be able to claim your phone on tax . You can claim the portion you use for business on a regular, personal phone plan. This will be the most cost-effective choice for most sole traders who only have 1 phone.

There are a lot of options in the business mobile world, and your needs will be different from other businesses. Here are some things to consider besides the cost of your plan.

Business support

This is the main thing business plans offer over personal ones. If this is something that's important to you, make sure you're being offered tech support and personalised service in the way you prefer.

Network coverage

Telstra covers the most places in Australia, so if your business will take your employees out into rural and regional areas, a plan on the Telstra network may be worth the extra dollars it costs.

Flexibility

What you need this quarter might not be the same as what you need next quarter. In many businesses, being able to reduce costs quickly can be vital. While all providers will let you add plans and upgrade to more expensive ones with more inclusions, make sure the one you choose will also let you move down to a cheaper plan and even remove plans in case of tough times.

Do you already have devices you can give to your employees? The major providers will often have device bundles available to sign up to which can be convenient, but could you get a better discount on bulk phones elsewhere?

How much data do you really need? Consider whether a large data pool shared amongst employees is a good option, or if you'd rather each employee has their own set amount of data each month.

As each business is so wildly different from the next, it's impossible to pick a mobile plan that will best suit every business.

Many businesses may prefer to sign up to a larger, more established provider, but that's not to say you won't get excellent service and cheaper prices from smaller providers too.

We've broken down the main offerings from the 3 largest business mobile providers in Australia to give you a taste of what's on offer.

Telstra's business phone plans operate in the same sizes as its general consumer plans, with Small, Medium, Large and Extra Large plans. All include:

• Data, from 40GB–180GB
• Data sharing between plans on the 1 account
• Unlimited standard national calls and texts
• Medium and above plans include the 5G network
• No excess data charges in Australia
• The option to add a phone to each plan for an added monthly cost spread over 24–36 months
• Good to know: To get the right mix of plans for your business, Telstra encourages you to book an appointment with one of the company's dedicated small business experts.

You can see Telstra's business plans here

• Compare Clear

Optus offers a huge range of plans to suit every kind of business with 1–300 plans able to be put on the same account and share data.

• Good to know: Companies that require 10+ SIMs are encouraged to talk to an account manager to tailor data allowances, monthly rates and device inclusions to suit their business.

Here are the details of the plans available to every business without negotiation:

• Plans start from $50 month-to-month or $47.50 on a 24-month plan or $45 on a 36-month plan – prices get cheaper the more SIMs you're after
• 50GB of data, which accumulates and pools with other phones on the same account
• Unlimited standard talk and text
• Unlimited international talk and text to selected countries
• Multiple service discount for total number of Business Mobile Plus services on the 1 plan, starting at 10% for 2, and up to 34% for 12+
• Option to add $10 roaming packs for business trips

For businesses that need 6+ plans with devices, there are Tech Fund plans. These plans include:

• Device credits from $300–$1,800, depending on the plan and length of contract
• Up to 10GB of included international roaming data each month
• Data ranging from 6GB–200GB (which is pooled)
• The option to blend different plans on the 1 account (such as cheaper plans with no roaming for local sales reps, and plans with 10GB roaming inclusions for regional managers)

You can see Optus business plans here

Vodafone offers the most affordable plans of the big 3 telcos, along with including some added features.

• Good to know: If your employees need to travel overseas, the $5 a day roaming add on will allow them to keep the same number without breaking the budget.

Vodafone has 3 types of business plans:

• Team plans. These allow data sharing between employees, and you can add a phone onto the individual plans. This is for when you have fewer than 10 services on the 1 account.
• SIM only Business Flex mobile plans. Best for teams of 10+, which includes the use of a personal account manager.
• Tech Fund Business Flex plans. These include credit towards buying handsets, as well as the use of a personal account manager.

You can see Vodafone's business plans here

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Alice Clarke

Alice Clarke is an award-winning freelance journalist, producer and presenter, as well as co-curator of the PAX Aus Together Lounge. In her 15 years as a journalist she’s appeared in The Age, Herald Sun Finder, Gizmodo, Kotaku, the ABC, Stevivor, Cracked, Curve and many other publications. See full profile

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Business vs personal mobile plans

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Have you ever wondered how ‘business’ mobile plans differ from ‘personal’ plans? 

Well, quite often for small businesses, the only significant difference is the name, according to our research.

We compared a number of business plans with equivalent consumer plans, and found some curious anomalies. In a couple of cases, for example, the fine print for ‘business’ mobile plans indicated they could only be used for personal use.

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At Optus, its $40 consumer plan provides unlimited standard national calls, unlimited SMS and MMS within Australia and to certain countries, and up to 300 voice minutes to those selected countries. Plus 7GB of data. 

And the $40 business plan? As far as we can see, the inclusions and terms are pretty much the same. The consumer plan rules out ‘non-ordinary’ or ‘commercial purpose use’ but bizarrely the critical information summary for the business plan makes the same exclusion.

So we turned to the Optus Fair Go policy for clarification.

“If you are a residential customer our services are for your personal use only,” the policy said.

“If you are a business customer, including a small to medium business customer, our services are for your use in the ordinary course of business.

“You may not use the service in a manner which is ‘unreasonable’ or ‘unacceptable’.”

That seems to mean that you aren't allowed to make or take business calls on a personal plan, or personal calls (“should I buy some milk on the way home?”) on a business plan.

An Optus spokesperson explained: “Our consumer plans are designed for personal use while our business plans are for use in the ordinary course of business plus some personal use where needed.

“We understand there will be certain circumstances where a customer needs to use their service outside its primary intended purpose. In these cases, we offer a level of flexibility for customers to make a judgement on what is reasonable and acceptable use of their service based on their contract.”

So the good news is that the way most of us use one plan for business and personal purposes is acceptable, providing the selected plan reflects the main use.

It might not be obvious from the everyday use of the terms, but Optus (and probably other carriers) distinguishes between ‘business’ and ‘commercial’ use. The company confirmed that ‘commercial use' refers to levels of voice or data use normally seen only in call centres, or to mobile data used to access enterprise-style services rather than those associated with micro to medium businesses.

And although the inclusions and price may be the same for consumer and business plans, “Our SMB plans offer a number of benefits for business customers including billing made out to your registered ABN for tax purposes, access to business specialists in over 120 of our retail stores, premium support from our dedicated SMB team when you bundle two or more services, and invitations to exclusive business events,” said the Optus spokesperson.

The Optus Fair Go policy does goes on to give several examples of unreasonable use, most of which seem quite reasonable, such as not allowing automatic diallers, resale and bulk messaging. But the prohibition on using a ‘mobile voice’ SIM card in a non ‘mobile voice’ device seems odd. What difference does it make to the carrier whether you tether a tablet to the phone or temporarily move the SIM from a phone to a tablet?

The reason, according to the Optus spokesperson, is that requiring separate SIMs “allows us to optimise their service for the device, the network and billing purposes”. Optus does allow data pooling between plans, but you’re up for at least $10 a month per additional device, though that does include 1GB of shareable data.

Over at Vodafone, it’s pretty much the same situation when it comes to distinctions between personal and business customers.

The $60 personal plan provides unlimited standard national calls, unlimited standard national and overseas SMSes, 120 standard international minutes to selected countries and 6GB of data (a special offer running at the time of writing boosts that to 12GB).

The $60 business plan has the same inclusions.

But the personal plan is for “personal use by approved customers only” while the business plan is for “personal use by approved customers with an ABN/ACN only”.

We asked Vodafone to explain how a business plan can be for personal use only, but received no reply more than a week later. The only interpretations we can suggest are either that it essentially the same as Optus's business/commercial dichotomy but using different words, or that you can’t use that plan on a phone that’s used by more than one person (for example, the phone carried by whichever member of a team is on call over a particular weekend).

Telstra's personal and business plans are slightly different. For example, $50 a month gets personal customers ‘$1000 worth of calls’, unlimited SMS and 2.5GB of data, while business customers pay $55 for ‘$1200 worth of calls’, unlimited SMS and 5GB of data.

Bear in mind Telstra’s call values are calculated on what we consider to be an inflated tariff of $1 per minute. By comparison, even a $19 Virgin Mobile prepaid recharge can have a rate as low as 15c per minute.

A Telstra spokesperson* said that customers must have an ACN or ABN to qualify for a business plan, but business customers can opt for consumer plans if they consider the price and inclusions are a better fit.

"For example, we provide our small business customers with more voice value, because we know they make calls more frequently than our consumer customers," the spokesperson said, adding that the business plans also allow for free calls between mobiles on the same account.

Other benefits of the Go Business Mobile plans include a free data SIM for use with a tablet or dongle, with both devices sharing the same pot of data, and the ability to put cloud services such as Office 365, Symantec Endpoint Protection and Deputy rostering and workforce management onto the same bill.

Data sharing across multiple services is available on Telstra's consumer and business plans.

Mobile virtual network operators – the companies that provide mobile services based on third-party networks such as Telstra, Optus or Vodafone – generally make a clear distinction between personal and business usage.

For example, the conditions for amaysim's Unlimited plans flatly state they are “available to individual customers only (not companies or businesses), who use their mobile phone for personal use only. If we determine that you are using Unlimited 3GB other than for personal use or if we determine that you are using the Plan in a way that does or may, in our opinion, adversely affect the network, we reserve the right (at our option) to transfer you to the amaysim As You Go Plan, or to immediately suspend or cancel your access to the Service”.

We asked amaysim what it considers ‘personal use’ to be, and its compliance and service operations manager Chad Heininger responded: “We see personal use as individuals using their amaysim service primarily for private use in a way not connected with carrying out a business activity. As per our Fair Go Policy, our customers are unable to use our service for ‘business purposes’ as this falls outside of personal use. We aren’t specific about what constitutes as business use, because we trust our customers to use their judgment and play by the rules. For example, we would not expect our customers to use our service to support a large business or organisation as this clearly would be for ‘business purposes’. We also expect our customers to use our service in a reasonable and acceptable manner.”

It sounds to us that there's a certain amount of wriggle room – if your small-business ‘business use’ is similar to that of a personal customer in terms of the number of calls and texts, how would Amaysim tell the difference, and why would it be bothered? That said, we're not encouraging anyone to breach the T&Cs.

While large organisations can receive volume pricing, the benefits of business plans for small businesses are hard to quantify. In fact, the differences between many personal and business plans in terms of inclusions and costs are so insignificant that we can’t help feeling that the distinction is mostly arbitrary.

However, that also means there’s rarely any downside to opting for a business plan rather than the corresponding personal version.

So if a phone is going to be used primarily for business purposes, you might as well opt for a business plan and be fully compliant with the plan’s terms and conditions. It’s likely to cost much the same – and it reduces the admittedly slight risk that your service will be terminated because you went outside the T&Cs. 

* Note: This article was updated on 21 April 2016 due to Telstra responding to our request for more information after the article's publication.

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Australia’s Best-Rated Business Mobile Plan Providers

See Our Ratings Methodology .

Most Satisfied Customers | Vodafone

Vodafone is our winner for the 2023 mobile plan provider ratings, with an impressive five-star score across most categories, including customer satisfaction, value for money, client service, billing and plan flexibility, while it scored four stars for network coverage.

How we rate business mobile plan providers

Our ratings compare mobile phone plan providers offering business plans, based on customer satisfaction as rated by Australians.

How many Australians do we survey for our ratings?

Canstar Blue surveyed 580 Australians with a current business mobile plan service for their feedback on mobile plan providers they’ve been signed up to. Respondents had to have a current mobile phone plan for a business and that business pays the bills.

• The outcomes reported in these ratings are measured via accredited research panels managed by Qualtrics .

What criteria are used to rate business mobile plan providers?

Survey respondents are asked to rate their satisfaction with their business mobile phone plan provider from zero to 10 , with zero meaning extremely dissatisfied and 10 meaning extremely satisfied. Business mobile plan provider satisfaction is rated on the following criteria:

• Overall satisfaction: measures consumer satisfaction with a mobile plan provider as an individual score, NOT the combined total of all criteria.
• Value for money: the price paid for the mobile phone plan was reasonable for the service experienced.
• Network coverage: the mobile network offered good and reliable coverage.
• Client service: the mobile plan provider offered good service and support, and was easy to get in touch with.
• Billing: the mobile plan billing was clear and easy to understand and pay.
• Plan flexibility: the mobile plan provider offered a reasonable amount of plan flexibility.

How do we determine the winner?

The winning brand is the brand that receives the highest Overall satisfaction rating . All the scores from the Overall satisfaction criteria are then combined and averaged to determine the overall winner.

• Overall satisfaction is asked as a specific question and represents an individual measure, not a combined total of all criteria.
• The brand with the highest number of five-star ratings within the supporting criteria will become the five-star recipient in overall satisfaction, and therefore win the award. If a clear leading brand still cannot be determined from the supporting criteria, joint winners will be declared.

Which business mobile plan providers do we rate?

To qualify in the ratings results, providers must have received a minimum of 30 responses to be included. Therefore, not all mobile phone plan providers offering business services will be compared in this survey. Providers rated in this survey are listed below in order of best overall satisfaction.

Find more information on our Most Satisfied Customers ratings .

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Best business mobile plan providers

1. vodafone, ratings result.

Vodafone came out on top for the second year in a row, scoring five stars for overall satisfaction. It also scored five stars for value for money, client service, billing and plan flexibility, while it scored four stars for network coverage.

Editor’s notes

Vodafone offers the option of SIM-only plans or plans that can be bundled with a device. All that you need to do is supply your ABN/ACN on sign up, or link it to an existing Vodafone mobile plan account, with additional business plans also able be added.

Telstra took out second place with four stars for overall satisfaction, value for money, client service, billing and plan flexibility, while it scored five stars for network coverage.

Telstra offers a range of SIM-only plans or plans with a phone, with the option to bundle services onto the one plan. Its plans and device selection are essentially the same offerings as what you’ll get if you sign up to a non-business plan. If you bundle a phone with a plan, you’ll choose from a 12, 24 or 36-month device repayment period.

Ratings results

Rounding out our ratings in third is Optus with three stars for overall satisfaction and billing, while it scored four stars in the remaining categories — value for money, network coverage, client service and plan flexibility.

Optus offer a range of options for its business phone plans. While you can pick a similar selection of SIM-only plans and devices to its non-business phone plans, Optus does offer McAfee protection on up to 20 devices on its Business Choice Plus plans. Optus also offers a ‘team plan’ which includes four SIM plans with data to share and flexibility, along with the option to add on additional SIMs for an extra cost per SIM.

Other business phone plan providers

Apart from the above-mentioned providers, there are several other telcos also offering phone plans for businesses, although many of these providers might only offer SIM-only plans and no handsets for bundling. These telcos include:

• Aussie Broadband
• Southern Phone

Choosing a phone plan provider

Access to a phone and/or phone plan for work can be an essential part of a business. Of those surveyed, 27% provide employees with a mobile phone for work use and 33% upgrade handsets every one to two years.

Despite several providers offering mobile phone services to businesses, 50% of respondents have always been with the same business phone service provider. A big reason for this could be that almost a third of respondents (31%) believe the provider offers good value, while 26% believe their provider offers the best coverage or is the only provider with coverage in the area.

When choosing a provider for your business mobile phone services, there can be a lot to consider. 17% of survey respondents claimed that they don’t find the time to compare other offers and switch providers, so it might seem like a lot to think about on top of operating a business.

However, when you break it down to a few points, comparing business mobile phone plans might be more simple than you think.

Phone with a plan or SIM-only

The first thing to consider is whether you’ll need phones bundled with a phone plan — such as an iPhone or Samsung phone — or if you simply need the phone plan on its own. If you need handsets with a plan, your provider choices will mostly be limited to the big three telcos (Telstra, Optus and Vodafone).

If you just need the SIM cards with a phone plan, then you have a wider range of options to choose from.

Additional extras

Some providers will offer business-related extras such as the ability to bundle multiple services, data sharing across plans, device security software and more. If these extras are important to you, you can then compare providers to see what is available and which telco will offer the best value for you.

How much mobile data you need for your plans is pretty important. Consider what your team will be using their phone plans for — such as working on the go, accessing emails, video conferencing, making calls, etc — will help determine whether you need a plan with lots of data or not. If phones will be used primarily for making and receiving calls and accessing emails, a smaller amount of data, or a data-sharing plan, might work best. Otherwise you’ll need bigger data plans for working on the go and video conferencing.

Mobile coverage

Of course, for some workers, a phone plan can be essential when travelling for work. If your team frequently needs to travel, especially to regional and remote areas, ensuring your choice of provider has good mobile network coverage in that area is essential.

While the Telstra, Optus and Vodafone networks all offer coverage to the majority of the country, it’s worth checking the mobile coverage map before signing up to a provider to ensure that the areas your team will be working from are covered by the mobile network.

About our telco experts

Emma bradstock: senior telco specialist.

Emma Bradstock has been an authority on consumer phone, internet, technology and streaming markets in Australia for the last 4 years, with a dedication to providing Aussies with all the information they need to make better purchasing decisions. She holds a Bachelor of Arts in Communications and Media from Macquarie University and has a decade of professional writing experience in print and digital media.

Samantha Howse: Consumer Research Specialist

Samantha Howse is Canstar Blue’s Consumer Research Specialist, coordinating the consumer research program behind our customer satisfaction awards across Canstar and Canstar Blue in Australia and New Zealand. Sam has earned a Bachelor of Business (Marketing) from Griffith University and, with seven years in market research and 2 years in marketing, she is experienced in survey design, implementation and analysis, coupled with an understanding of marketing principles and best practice.

Frequently asked questions

About this research.

Canstar Blue surveyed 2,022 Australian small business owners and key decision makers across a range of categories to measure and track customer satisfaction, via ISO 26362 accredited research panels managed by Qualtrics. The outcomes reported are the results from customers within the survey group whose business currently pays for a mobile phone plan that is used for business purposes– in this case, 580 people.

Brands must have received at least 30 responses to be included. Results are comparative and it should be noted that brands receiving three stars have still achieved a satisfaction measure of at least six out of 10. Not all brands available in the market have been compared in this survey. The ratings table is first sorted by star ratings and then by mean overall satisfaction. A rated brand may receive a ‘N/A’ (Not Applicable) rating if it does not receive the minimum number of responses for that criteria.

Past ratings

Here are past winners of Canstar Blue’s Most Satisfied Customers – Business Phone Plans Providers ratings:

• 2022: Vodafone
• 2021: Optus
• 2020: Vodafone
• 2019: Vodafone
• 2018: Optus
• 2017: Vodafone
• 2016: Optus
• 2015: Optus

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^By clicking on a shop online, compare now, buy online, more details, go to site or check latest prices button, you may leave Canstar Blue and be taken to a referral partner to compare. Canstar Blue may be paid for this referral. You agree that Canstar Blue’s  terms and conditions  apply to this referral. If you click on a brand that is not a referral partner, you will be taken to a brand page on Canstar Blue.

Canstar Blue may earn a fee for referrals from its website tables, and from sponsorship of certain products. Fees payable by product providers for referrals and sponsorship may vary between providers. Generally, sponsorship fees are payable in addition to referral fees. Sponsored products are clearly disclosed as such on website pages. They may appear in a number of areas of the website such as in comparison tables, on hub pages and in articles. Sponsored products may be displayed in a fixed position in a table, regardless of the product's rating, price or other attributes. The table position of a Sponsored product does not indicate any ranking or rating by Canstar. The table position of a Sponsored product does not change when a consumer changes the sort order of the table. For more information please see  How Are We Funded .

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Cheap plans on the Telstra network: stay connected for less

Telstra’s prices have gone up – is it time to switch?

• Best plan overall
• Best high data plan
• Telstra’s network
• Telstra MVNOs

Telstra has the largest mobile network in Australia, and it’s also the telco with the widest-reaching 5G network. Its coverage comes at a high cost though, with prices starting at AU$62 a month. We think that’s incredibly expensive, but this has been the case since Telstra increased the price of its mobile plans by as much as AU$6p/m on July 4, 2023.

Luckily, there’s a way you can get Telstra’s coverage for a cheaper price, and that’s by signing up to a Telstra mobile virtual network operator (MVNO). An MVNO is a mobile provider that doesn’t own the infrastructure it uses to provide mobile services to its customers. Instead, it leases the network of one of the major players and resells it to you – at a much cheaper price. Here, we’ll delve into the other Telstra network providers that can get you the same (or very similar) Telstra mobile coverage for less.

Best SIM-only plan on the Telstra network

Mate | 22GB data | No lock-in contract | AU$1 for first month (then AU$25p/m)

Mate is our recommendation for the best SIM-only plan on the Telstra network. Thanks to an excellent introductory offer, you’ll get your first month on this plan for just AU$1, before it increases to AU$25 a month ongoing. You’ll get 22GB a month, and any unused data will automatically roll over into the next month (up to 500GB). Use the promo code MATE1 .

Total minimum cost is AU$1 | Total cost for first year: AU$276 | Yearly cost after discount: AU$300

Best high data SIM-only plan on the Telstra network

Mate | 240GB data | No lock-in contract | AU$1 for first month (then AU$45p/m)

Mate is also our choice for a high data SIM-only plan using the Telstra network. This plan usually comes with 120GB a month, but you can currently get double data for your first six months. You’ll also pay just AU$1 for your first month on this plan, before the price reverts back to the standard AU$45 a month.

Total minimum cost is AU$1 | Total cost for first year: AU$496 | Yearly cost after discount: AU$540

Telstra’s mobile network

• Basic plan : 50GB for AU$62p/m
• Essential plan : 180GB for AU$72p/m
• Premium plan : 300GB for AU$95p/m

Telstra’s mobile plans are the most expensive in Australia, and as we’ve mentioned, its prices increased by up to AU$6p/m from July 4, 2023. Still, Telstra can be an appealing choice for many, and for some living in regional and rural areas of Australia, it may be the only choice that’ll provide them the coverage they need.

Other Telstra network providers

There’s at least 10 other providers which also offer full (or partial) access to Telstra’s mobile network, and most of them do so for a much cheaper price than Telstra. Here’s a breakdown of your alternatives for Telstra network mobile plans:

Boost Mobile

Why you can trust TechRadar We spend hours testing every product or service we review, so you can be sure you’re buying the best. Find out more about how we test.

• Uses full Telstra network

Boost Mobile is the only provider to offer full Telstra network coverage, and it’s a much cheaper alternative than going with Telstra directly. This provider, however, only offers prepaid mobile plans – some coming with a 28-day expiry while others have a 12-month expiry.

Most of Boost Mobile’s plans include full access to Telstra’s 5G network, but depending on your plan, you might have to contend with a download speed cap. The cheaper options tend to cap download speeds at 150Mbps, while a mid-range plan has capped download speeds at 250Mbps. On the most expensive plan, there’s no cap at all.

All of Boost Mobile’s 28-day expiry plans come with data rollover, provided you recharge before the expiry date. Boost Mobile’s plans include the basics of unlimited calls and texts to standard numbers in Australia, while some add inclusions such as unlimited calls to select countries, or included international minutes.

See more: Boost Mobile’s plans

• Uses parts of the Telstra network

Belong is owned by Telstra, but it’s a much cheaper alternative. Belong markets itself as Australia’s first carbon neutral telco, and it received certification by Climate Active in 2019. If you’re looking for a sustainable mobile provider, Belong is a good choice.

Each of Belong’s plans come with unlimited calls and texts to standard numbers in Australia, as well as 5G network access. Your download speeds are capped at 100Mbps on most plans, but the most expensive option caps speeds at 250Mbps.

We like that Belong’s mobile plans all come with unlimited data banking, which sets it apart from most other Telstra MVNOs that typically offer data banking up to 500GB.

See more: Belong’s plans

Woolworths Mobile

Unlike most other mobile providers on the Telstra network, Woolworths Mobile gives you the option of getting a new phone with your plan, though it currently only offers the Samsung Galaxy S23 .

If you don’t need a new phone, Woolworths Mobile offers SIM-only plans and prepaid plans, too. All plans come with unlimited calls and texts, and you can bank any of your unused data up to a maximum of 500GB. 5G access isn’t included as standard with Woolworths Mobile, but a free 5G trial is currently available on select plans.

An excellent perk of Woolworths Mobile is that it includes 10% off a grocery shop in store every month. That means if you were to get the cheapest plan at AU$25 a month, and you spend AU$250 on groceries in a month, the plan would essentially be free.

Numobile takes a fresh approach to mobile plans – along with SIM-only plans, it also offers refurbished mobiles on a plan, as well as subscriptions to brand-new devices such as the iPhone 14 . Currently, only iPhones are available from Numobile.  

Numobile’s subscription plans are essentially akin to renting the phone, and the lease period can last for 24 or 36 months. They’re SIM-free, so you’ve got the option of leasing the phone and getting your SIM plan from Numobile, or going with another telco entirely. After your subscription period has finished, you can choose to upgrade to a newer device.

If your main motivation to join Numbile is to save money, we recommend comparing the cost of Numobile’s subscription plans to those of other telcos such as Optus and Vodafone before signing up. While Numobile is almost always going to be cheaper than Telstra, you can sometimes find cheaper deals with Vodafone if it’s discounted its handsets.

See more: Numobile’s plans

You might know Superloop for its NBN plans, but the provider also offers mobile plans on the Telstra network. All of Superloop’s mobile plans are prepaid and renew every 30 days, which we consider much better than a 28-day cycle offered by some telcos.

You’ve got the option of bundling your internet with Superloop’s mobile plans, which will give you a AU$5 discount if you bundle your broadband with one mobile service. Before bundling your mobile and internet with any provider, we strongly recommend comparing the best NBN plans with the best SIM-only plans , to ensure you’re getting a genuinely good deal.

Like most other Telstra MVNOs, Superloop offers unlimited national calls and texts to standard numbers, and unused data banking up to 500GB.

See more: Superloop’s plans

Exetel is owned by Superloop, and their mobile plans are fairly similar. Like Superloop, all of Exetel’s mobile plans are prepaid and come with a 30-day expiry, with the option of auto-recharges available. 

We rate Exetel as one of the best NBN providers on the market, and it gives you the option of bundling your mobile and internet plans together. Before doing so, though, we recommend comparing plans to ensure you’re getting the best deal possible.

We’ve spotted Exetel offering double data deals on select mobile plans, so keep an eye out for these offers if you want to get more value for money out of an Exetel mobile plan.

See more: Exetel’s plans

Aldi Mobile

Aldi Mobile offers prepaid plans that come with a 30-day expiry. Its mobile plans come with unlimited data rollover, and in order to keep any of your unused data, you just need to recharge within 24 hours of expiry and choose a plan of equal or higher value. 

Aldi Mobile is unique in that it also offers family mobile plans. These plans offer shared data, and can include up to six different services on the same plan. So, if you’ve got a phone you’re happy with and you’re looking to save some money, it could be a great option using the Telstra network.

See more: Aldi Mobile’s plans

Mate offers mobile plans with parts of Telstra’s 4G and 5G network coverage, and thanks to its current offer, you can trial any plan for just AU$1 . That makes it a really appealing option if you’re looking to test out a cheaper plan on the Telstra network for the first time.

As with most other Telstra MVNOs, Mate has all your basics covered including unlimited talk and text to standard numbers in Australia, and data banking up to 500GB. Mate also offers NBN plans, and bundling your mobile and internet together will knock AU$10 off your monthly bill. As always, compare your options before bundling together services.

Aside from its excellent introductory offer, we love that Mate is Australian owned and offers an Australian-based support team. It’s also got a largely positive rating on Product Review , which is quite an impressive feat.

See more: Mate’s plans

More is an Australian-owned telco that’s part-owned by Commonwealth Bank. In fact, CommBank customers can get access to exclusive offers from More, such as discounted mobile and NBN plans.

It’s worth noting that most of More’s mobile plans cap your 4G download speeds at 100Mbps, while its most expensive plan caps speeds at 250Mbps for both 4G and 5G usage. Some of the telco’s mobile plans include a free 5G network trial.

You can bank up to 500GB of unused data on More’s mobile plans, and get the usual unlimited calls and texts to standard numbers in Australia. Some plans also include calls to selected countries.

See more: More’s plans

Tangerine is an Australian-owned telco offering much the same proposition as other providers on the Telstra network: unlimited standard calls and texts within Australia, data banking up to 500GB and a 5G network trial included with select plans.

Tangerine also caps the download speed on its 4G mobile plans at 100Mbps, while its most premium plan, which includes 5G network coverage, has downloads capped at 250Mbps.

See more: Tangerine’s plans

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Jasmine Gearie is an Ecommerce Editor at TechRadar Australia, with a primary focus on helping readers cut through the jargon to find the best mobile and internet plans for their needs. She crunches the numbers to maintain dedicated guides to the latest phones, NBN and broadband plans of all types, and covers the important telco industry news. She also hunts down tech deals on laptops, phones, gaming consoles and more, so readers know where to buy the products they want for the cheapest prices.

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As an existing customer, you do not need to pay for your upgraded fttp nbn® plan at this stage. you will still need to pay for any hardware and additional services such as a home phone or sim plan. you will be charged for your upgraded fttp plan on your first invoice following the completion of your upgrade., nbn® is available at your address.

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You can't purchase an eero device from More on a stand-alone basis or without a compatible More internet service.

Each More eero comes with an eero Secure subscription included for 12 months at no additional cost for use with a compatible More internet service. The initial 12-month subscription commences:

• if you purchase an eero device with a new compatible More internet service, on the date that service is first activated; or
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After this promotional period, your eero Secure subscription automatically converts to a paid month-to-month service. You will then be charged monthly in advance at the recommended retail price (RRP) per account (regardless of number of purchased or connected devices) as part of your standard monthly bill until your eero Secure subscription is cancelled. The price of an eero Secure subscription is currently $2.99/mth (inc GST) per account, subject to change on 30 days notice.

You cannot purchase an eero device from More without also receiving an eero Secure subscription. However, you can cancel it at any time by contacting us. Cancellation will take effect at the end of your current billing period, as long as it is requested at least 5 days before that date. Otherwise, it will take effect at the end of your next billing period. You can continue to use eero Secure until the date of cancellation.

If you cancel your eero Secure subscription, we will disassociate it from all your eero devices connected to your account and you can continue to use a disassociated device with your compatible More internet service. However, once this occurs, you cannot reactivate an eero Secure Subscription with More unless you purchase a new eero devices from us.

Your eero device and eero Secure subscription are subject to the full offer T&Cs, applicable standard terms of service and policies available on the Policies page of our website. By continuing with your eero device purchase you agree to these terms.

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* nbn® Speed Tier refers to the maximum possible speed of the relevant plan outside business peak hours. Your actual speeds will be slower and may vary due to a range of factors including the number of concurrent end-users your modem location, your equipment and software, nbn® technology type at your premises, network capacity and traffic and the type/source of content being downloaded or uploaded.

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~ We don't have enough data to provide average sampled evening download and upload speeds. We will update our documentation to include this information once available.

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NBN is available, but due to your property being a new development and not yet connected to the NBN the one-off NBN New Development Charge of $300 applies. This charge is levied by NBN and is applicable regardless of the NBN provider that you choose. So if you’re happy with that…

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More SIM only business mobile

Keep your business talking on the go..

Stay connected with your customers with our reliable 4G & 5G business mobile plans. Our great range of month to month SIM plans are eSIM enabled, meaning you can switch to More faster. Plus, you can keep your existing device and number.

500GB or 1000GB databank depending on plan

Unlimited standard calls & sms within australia^.

^Subject to More's Fair Use policy

Travel Packs available

No lock-in contracts, commbank customers can get 30% off more mobile plans for 12 months*.

*Offer available to customers that sign up with a CommBank credit or debit card by 7/06/24 and continue using an eligible CommBank online bill payment method. T&Cs apply.

More uses the Telstra Wholesale Mobile Network

Pick your business mobile plan

Hey, CommBank customer!

Until 7 June 2024, CommBank customers can receive 30% off More business plans for 12 months when you sign up using a CommBank credit or debit card and continue to use an eligible CommBank online bill payment method. T&Cs apply .

Keep your same number

• 500GB databank
• Unlimited standard calls & SMS within Aus~
• No lock-in contract
• Travel Packs Available
• Download speeds are capped at 100Mbps on 4G*

$24 .00/mth

• Calls to Top 15 Countries +

$30 .00/mth

• Download speeds are capped at 100Mbps on 4G &5G*

$36 .00/mth

• Download speeds are capped at 100Mbps on 4G & 5G*

$42 .00/mth

• 1000GB databank

$50 .00/mth

• Download speeds are capped at 250Mbps on 4G & 5G*

$64 .00/mth

+ Top 15 countries includes: Bangladesh, Canada, China, Greece, Hong Kong, India, Ireland, Japan, Malaysia, New Zealand, Singapore, South Korea, Thailand, UK & USA.

~ All More plans are subject to the More Telecom Fair Use Policy available on our policies page.

*Network Speed and Coverage Information

More uses the Telstra Wholesale Mobile Network, click  here  to learn more.

The mobile products of More provide a mobile coverage footprint of 98.8% of the Australian population, covering more than 1.6 million square kilometres.

Download speeds are capped at 100Mbps on the 12GB, 25GB, 32GB, 50GB & 80GB plans. Download speeds are capped at 250Mbps on the 150GB plan. This is the maximum potential download speed. Typical speeds may often be slower and will vary due to factors such as location, device capabilities, distance from the base station, location conditions, concurrent users, hardware and software configuration and download/upload destination.

International roaming travel packs

An International Roaming Travel Pack is a once-off service add-on which allows you to use your mobile service outside Australia in eligible countries. Each pack comes with a fixed allocation of data, standard SMS, and standard voice call minutes to be used within the pack's life span.

You can only use international roaming services if you have an active International Roaming Travel Pack, and we have two packs to choose from:

Eligible countries: Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Bulgaria, Cambodia, Canada, Chile, China, Colombia, Croatia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Egypt, Estonia, Fiji, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Guernsey (UK), Hong Kong, Hungary, India, Indonesia, Ireland, Isle of Man, Israel, Italy, Japan, Kenya, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Macao, Macedonia, Malaysia, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand, Nigeria, Norway, Papua New Guinea, Philippines, Poland, Portugal, Qatar, Republic of Korea, Romania, Russia, Samoa, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Slovak Republic, Slovenia, South Africa, Spain, Sri Lanka, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, Thailand, Tonga, Turkey, United Arab Emirates (UAE), UK, USA, Vanuatu, Vietnam.  

What happens if I travel to a country that isn't in the listed eligible countries?

Your mobile service and an International Roaming Travel Pack service just won't work!  Will I be charged fees if I travel overseas without activating an International Roaming Travel Pack?

No, you're never at risk of any surprise international service fees when travelling. Your service won't work overseas until you've purchased and activated a travel pack. You can access your Self Care Portal while overseas without incurring any data charges, to buy and activate travel packs.  How do I purchase and activate a travel pack? 

• Log into your   Self Care Portal
• Select the 'Mobile' tab and 'Active Mobile Services' from the drop-down
• Select 'View' on your mobile service
• Select 'Add Travel Pack'
• Choose from the available travel packs, select your desired activation date from the drop-down menu and then click 'Activate'

If you choose to activate your travel pack 'Today' you will be able to start using your travel pack immediately, but the validity period for your travel pack will begin at 12.00 am (Australian Eastern Time) the following day. For example, if you purchase a pack at 2.30 pm on a Monday, Day 1 of your pack's life span will begin at 12.00 am Tuesday morning and your pack will expire at 11.59 pm (Australian Eastern Time) on the final day of your pack's life span. Any unused data, SMS or voice call minutes are forfeited at the time of expiry. Will I know how much data, SMS and voice call minutes are left?

You'll receive alerts when you have used 50%, 85% and 100% of your travel pack inclusions. Will I be charged fees if I go over the data allowance?

No, you won't. When your data allowance runs out, the service will just stop working. You can purchase another travel pack to top up. The same applies to SMS and voice call minutes allowances.  If I run out of data first, can I top up just my data allowance?

Unfortunately, no. To top up an allowance, you need to purchase a new International Roaming Travel Pack. You can purchase a new pack at any time, and the newly activated pack will replace your existing pack, forfeiting any unused data, SMS and voice call minutes.

International Calling Add-on

Included countries

Can I purchase a data add-on?

What is the pre-port verification process?

• Your current mobile provider 
• The Australian Federal Police or the relevant State or Territory Police 
• Government Services that support customers who have been the subject of fraud or scams for example Scamwatch or IDCARE. 

How do I activate my SIM card?

What mobile network does More use?

How do I check my mobile usage?

What happens to unused bonus data?

What is data gifting?

Your plan includes the ability to gift part of your standard monthly data allowance to other users with a More mobile service.

You can gift up to 50% of the standard monthly data allowance for your plan (rounded up to the nearest GB) per billing period for SIM-Only plans. A minimum data gifting volume of 1GB per transaction applies.

You cannot resell or regift any gifted data that you receive, and you cannot gift any bonus data that you receive as part of any special offer or promotion.

How do I gift data?

• Log into the More Self Care Portal using your customer account number, email and password.
• In the Self Care Portal click on the 'Mobile' drop down menu and click on 'Active Mobile Services'.
• Select the mobile service you wish to gift data from.
• From the Menu, select 'Gift Data'.
• Enter the mobile number you wish to gift data to and the amount of data you want to gift.

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Telstra mobile plans review

How does australia's biggest telco fare against the competition.

Tom's Guide Verdict

As Australia's largest provider, it should come as no surprise that Telstra's mobile coverage is unmatched. Apart from boasting the country's largest 5G network, Telstra also offers great options for those after huge amounts of data. That said, Telstra is easily the priciest major telco in Australia, and its entry-level plans aren't great value.

Most reliable network

Widest coverage

Plenty of options

Comparatively expensive

Weak value on cheaper plans

Why you can trust Tom's Guide Our writers and editors spend hours analyzing and reviewing products, services, and apps to help find what's best for you. Find out more about how we test, analyze, and rate.

As Australia's leading telecommunications provider, Telstra undoubtedly offers the most reliable mobile network in the country, not to mention the widest coverage, with its 5G network now reaching 85% of Aussies.

Telstra also provides a number of wide-ranging mobile plan options, from options which include a handset, to pre-paid and post-paid SIM-only choices for those who already have a device.

And while off-shore customer service has long been a thorn in the side of the average Telstra customer, we were pleased to discover that this has improved over the last couple of years — as of mid-2022, Telstra's support team now mostly consists of remote workers within Australia , making it easier for Aussies to communicate their issues over the phone.

That said, Telstra's premium service comes at a significant cost, with plans that are generally more expensive than the competition — particularly at the entry level. 

For the price, you do get the most consistent download speeds of any 5G mobile network in Australia (although Optus has taken OpenSignal's 5G Download Speed award for the last 4 years straight), along with huge amounts of data on the higher-priced plans.

It's also worth noting that while an internal error saw Telstra accidentally leak the personal data of some customers in the past , the company has never been the victim of a cyberattack — a claim that its biggest rival, Optus, cannot make after suffering a massive data breach in 2022.

Telstra mobile plans and pricing

• Telstra SIM Only plans significantly more expensive than competitors
• No lock-in contracts for Telstra Upfront plans

When it comes to pricing, there's no denying that Telstra's plans are among the most expensive you can sign up for in Australia. Of course, value for money is subjective, and some may consider Telstra's high prices worth paying for the best coverage in Australia.

Telstra offers its own take on SIM-only plans, dubbed 'Upfront' plans, which are named as such because they are charged ahead of time as opposed to after the fact. Thankfully, there are no lock-in contracts for any of the Upfront plans, and users can switch to another Telstra plan once a month if they find their needs have changed.

Telstra's Upfront plans start at AU$62 p/m for its Basic plan, which offers 50GB of monthly data with download speeds capped at 250Mbps. Next, Telstra's Essential plan grants users 180GB of monthly data at uncapped speeds for AU$72 p/m. 

Call us crazy, but we'd argue that there's an unreasonable gulf between the Basic and Essential plan in terms of value — the fact that only 10 bucks separates plans with 50GB of data at capped speeds and 180GB of data at uncapped speeds is honestly mind-boggling.

Rounding things out, Telstra's third and final Upfront plan offers 300GB of monthly data at uncapped speeds for AU$95 p/m. Included with each Upfront plan are unlimited calls and texts to standard Australian numbers, 30 minutes of calls to standard international numbers and unlimited texts to standard international numbers.

For the sake of comparison, Telstra's nearest competitor, Optus, offers significantly better value with its SIM-only plans — its AU$59 p/m Medium Optus Choice Plus Plan  is already AU$3 cheaper than Telstra's entry-level Basic offering, only with twice the monthly data (100GB) and with uncapped 5G download speeds.

Alternatively, Telstra also offers a range of pre-paid SIM starter kits for new customers, starting from AU$12 for 3GB of data and a 7-day expiry. 

We can't see any Australian residents choosing this option, so we'll skip ahead to the AU$35 starter kit, which has a 28-day expiry period and offers 35GB of monthly data for the first 3 months. After this, the limit drops down to 15GB.

Next, you have a AU$45 starter kit which provides 50GB of monthly data for the first 3 months, after which it drops to 25GB. From here on, Telstra's SIM starter kits are for 6 and 12-month expiry periods.

Please note, while all of Telstra's pre-paid SIM starter kits offer access to the telco's 4G and 5G networks, download speeds are capped to 150Mbps.

Telstra mobile plans: price and data comparison

Telstra mobile coverage.

• Telstra has the widest reach of the three major telcos
• Optus still holds award for fastest 5G download speeds

As we mentioned earlier, Telstra has the largest reach in Australia when it comes to coverage, with its 5G network now reaching around 87% of Australians as of February 2024 . 

That's an impressive number, and we have to assume it's still a substantial lead over Optus and Vodafone — both of which haven't yet divulged percentage figures for their Aussie 5G coverage.

But while Telstra's 5G network has the best coverage, it can't claim to be the fastest in Australia — that honour goes to Optus, which has won OpenSignal's 5G Download Speed award for the last four years in a row.

Of course, those speeds were achieved under very specific circumstances and don't necessarily reflect real-world usage for most Aussies. In fact, OpenSignal still acknowledges Telstra as the "outright winner" when it comes to 5G reach and overall reliability.

When it comes to the reach of its older 3G and 4G networks, Telstra again takes the crown for widest coverage, claiming to reach 99.6% of the Australian population. Optus isn't far behind however, and states its 3G and 4G networks cover 98.5% of the population. Things get a bit fuzzier when it comes to Vodafone. The latter claims its networks reach 96% of the 'metropolitan' population, which is quite different from Telstra and Optus's statements, which imply the Australian population as a whole.

Telstra mobile plans: Extras, perks and offers

• Telstra Plus members earn points to spend in Telstra Rewards store
• Telstra Personal customers get bonus streaming offers

All Telstra customers have the option of signing up to Telstra Plus — a rewards program that's free to join if you have a Telstra ID account and are paying for an eligible Telstra mobile or internet service.

Telstra Plus membership comes in four tiers depending on your annual spend with the telco. The entry-level tier is Member, which gets benefits like discounted tickets to movies, concerts and sporting events. Next is Silver, which gets the same, along with extra customer service attention in the My Telstra app, and 25% off points used to buy content on Telstra TV. Gold goes one step further, adding VIP customer service in the My Telstra app and Gold early access to concert pre-sales. Finally, there is the Business tier, which is reserved for businesses and offers similar value to the Member tier.

Every dollar spent on one of Telstra's eligible services also gets you Telstra Points, which can be spent in the Telstra Rewards Store. These points can be used to redeem anything from a USB charging cable, to a new iPhone. Of course, you'll need to spend upwards of 500,000 points to get your hands on the latter.

Additionally, Telstra Personal customers (excluding pre-paid) also get a range of entertainment offers, including 4 months of Spotify Premium, 2 months of Binge, 3 months of Flash, 14-days of Kayo and a month of Foxtel Now — so long as you sign up via Telstra.

Telstra mobile plans: customer service and community reviews

• Support team now almost entirely based within Australia
• Mostly negative online reviews from customers

As we mentioned earlier, Telstra's customer service received a massive upgrade in quality starting around mid-2022, with the telco drastically reducing its use of off-shore call centres in favour of a new local support team. 

When Telstra customers phone customer service now, they'll more than likely end up speaking to a support agent based locally in Australia, rather than someone overseas — a move which should minimise communication barriers.

Alternatively, customers who'd rather solve their account or service-related issues in person also have the option of visiting a Telstra retail store for face-to-face support. Telstra's retail network consists of around 270 stores across Australia, including independent licensees (in 2021, Telstra announced it would be shaking up its retail store network, with major changes expected by 2025).

Of course, not all Telstra customers are happy — the telco has received overwhelmingly negative online reviews from customers on sites like Product Review and Trustpilot , earning a score of 1.4 stars out of 5 on the former, and 1.3 stars out of 5 on the latter. 

Before you get your pitchfork out, it's worth noting that Optus and Vodafone have both received similar scores on the same sites. All those ratings are likely skewed by the fact that many customers only bother reviewing a service when they've had a bad experience, resulting in a score that's biased towards the negative, and doesn't necessarily reflect the opinion of most customers.

Furthermore, the consumer advocacy group Choice awarded Telstra as the Best SIM + handset phone plan provider in Australia last year.

Telstra mobile plans: Bottom line

Is a Telstra mobile plan worth your money? There's no denying that Telstra offers the most premium service of the three major telcos in Australia, boasting not only the largest 5G network, but also the most reliable and wide-reaching coverage. It also provides a sense of safety and dependability when it comes to your private data, as Telstra's cybersecurity has never been breached.

On top of this, Telstra has recently taken steps to radically improve its customer service, which has to be commended. Telstra Plus customers also get access to some nice benefits, including event discounts and points which can be redeemed on a variety of goodies.

But does the quality of its service justify its high pricing? All of Telstra's Upfront plans are far more expensive than equivalent offerings from other telcos, offering less monthly data for more money in every instance — particularly at the entry level. It's also worth noting that not everyone will care about the perks and extras that come with a Telstra Plus membership.

If you value reliability above all else, a Telstra mobile plan is likely your best option. However, if you're after value for money, you'll be better off choosing a plan from a Telstra network reseller , or alternatively opting for an Optus mobile plan .

• Best Australian phone plans with international roaming

Stephen Lambrechts is the Managing Editor of Tom's Guide AU and has written professionally across the categories of tech, film, television and gaming for the last 15 years. Before Tom's Guide, he spent several years as a Senior Journalist at TechRadar, had a brief stint as Editor in Chief at Official Xbox Magazine Australia, and has written for such publications as APC, TechLife Australia, T3, FilmInk, AskMen, Daily Telegraph and IGN. He's an expert when it comes to smartphones, TVs, gaming and streaming. In his spare time, he enjoys watching obscure horror movies on physical media, keeping an eye on the latest retro sneaker releases and listening to vinyl. Occasionally, he also indulges in other non-hipster stuff, like hiking.

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Mobile App Business Plan Template

Written by Dave Lavinsky

Mobile App Business Plan

Over the past 20+ years, we have helped over 5,000 entrepreneurs and business owners create business plans to start and grow their mobile app development company. On this page, we will first give you some background information with regards to the importance of business planning. We will then go through a mobile app business plan template step-by-step so you can create your plan today.

Download our Ultimate Mobile App Business Plan Template here >

What is a Mobile App Business Plan?

A business plan provides a snapshot of your mobile app as it stands today, and lays out your growth plan for the next five years. It explains your business goals and your strategy for reaching them. It also includes market research to support your plans.

Why You Need a Business Plan for an App Company

If you’re looking to launch a mobile app or grow your existing mobile app you need a business plan. A business plan will help you raise funding, if needed, and plan out the growth of your mobile app in order to improve your chances of success. Your business plan is a living document that should be updated annually as your company grows and changes.

Source of Funding for Mobile App Companies

With regards to funding, the main sources of funding for a mobile app are personal savings, credit cards, bank loans, angel investors and venture capitalists. With regards to bank loans, banks will want to review your business plan and gain confidence that you will be able to repay your loan and interest. To acquire this confidence, the loan officer will not only want to confirm that your financials are reasonable. But they will want to see a professional plan. Such a plan will give them the confidence that you can successfully and professionally operate a business.

The second most common form of funding for a mobile app is angel investors. Angel investors are wealthy individuals who will write you a check. They will either take equity in return for their funding, or, like a bank, they will give you a loan.

Venture capitalists will also fund a mobile app and will take equity in return for their funding, VC funding generally comes after you’ve received initial proof of the mobile app concept or traction with your app.

Finish Your Business Plan Today!

How to write a business plan for a mobile app development company.

A comprehensive business plan for an app company should include the 10 sections as follows:

Executive Summary

• Company Overview

Industry Analysis

Customer analysis, competitive analysis, marketing plan, operations plan, management team, financial plan.

Your executive summary provides an introduction to your business plan, but it is normally the last section you write because it provides a summary of each key section of your plan.

The goal of your Executive Summary is to quickly engage the reader. Explain to them the type of app business you are operating and the status; for example, are you a startup, do you have a mobile app that you would like to grow, or do you already have several successful app businesses?

Next, provide an overview of each of the subsequent sections of your plan. For example, give a brief overview of the mobile app industry. Discuss the type of mobile app you are operating. Detail your direct competitors. Give an overview of your target audience. Provide a snapshot of your marketing strategy. Identify the key members of your team. And offer an overview of your financial plan.

Company Analysis

In your company overview, you will provide a detailed description of your mobile app business.

For example, you might operate one of the following types:

• Business app : this type of mobile app generally helps increase productivity and/or decrease costs.
• Entertainment app : this type of mobile app includes news, social networking, music, video, etc.
• Lifestyle app : this type of mobile app includes things like fitness, shopping, dating, etc.
• Education app : this type of app must have the primary objective of advancing a user’s knowledge and overall breadth in a particular subject.
• Utility app : this type of app includes things like scanners, trackers, health-related apps, cell service providers, etc.
• Travel app : this type of app aids in planning and booking trips.
• Other app : there are a limitless number of areas in which a successful app could be created

In addition to the business description, the Company Analysis section of your business plan needs to provide background on the business.

Include answers to questions such as:

• When and why did you start the business?
• What is your company history?
• What is your mission statement?
• What is your business idea or app idea?
• What is your business model or monetization strategy (i.e., freemium, subscription, in-app purchases, affiliate marketing, crowdfunding, paid apps, sponsored content, etc.)?
• What milestones have you achieved to date? Milestones could include sales goals you’ve reached, new store openings, etc.
• Your legal structure. Are you incorporated as an S-Corp? An LLC? A sole proprietorship? Explain your legal structure here.

In your industry analysis, you need to provide an overview of your app development business.

While this may seem unnecessary, it serves multiple purposes.

First, researching the mobile app industry educates you. It helps you understand the market in which you are operating.

Secondly, market research can improve your strategy particularly if your research identifies market trends. For example, if there was a trend towards quiz apps, it would be helpful to ensure your plan incorporates gamification into your app.

The third reason for market research is to prove to readers that you are an expert in your industry. By conducting the research and presenting it in your plan, you achieve just that.

The following questions should be answered in the industry analysis section:

• How big is the app industry (in dollars)?
• Is the market declining or increasing?
• Who are the key competitors in the market?
• Who are the key suppliers in the market?
• What trends are affecting the industry?
• What is the industry’s growth forecast over the next 5 – 10 years?
• What is the relevant market size? That is, how big is the potential market for your mobile app? You can calculate this figure by multiplying the size of your target customer market by the amount they might spend per year on your app.

The customer analysis section must detail the customers you serve and/or expect to serve.

The following are examples of customer segments: business operations managers, college students, sports enthusiasts, soccer moms, techies, teens, baby boomers, etc.

As you can imagine, the customer segment(s) you choose will have a great impact on the type of mobile app you operate. Clearly, baby boomers would want different pricing and product options, and would respond to different user engagement strategies than teens.

Try to break out your target customers in terms of their demographic and psychographic profiles. With regards to demographics, include a discussion of the business types (if B2B), ages, genders, locations and income levels of the customers you seek to serve.

Psychographic profiles explain the wants and needs of your target customers. The more you can understand and define these needs, the better you will do in attracting and retaining your customers.

Finish Your Mobile App Business Plan in 1 Day!

Don’t you wish there was a faster, easier way to finish your business plan?

With Growthink’s Ultimate Mobile App Business Plan Template you can finish your plan in just 8 hours or less!

Your competitive analysis should identify the indirect and direct competitors your business faces and then focus on the latter.

Direct competitors are other app businesses in your niche.

Indirect competitors are other options that customers have to achieve similar results to what your app offers.

With regards to direct competition, you want to detail the other app development companies with which you compete. Most likely, your direct competitors will be mobile app businesses offering the same type of service or activity that yours does.

For each such competitor, provide an overview of their businesses and document their strengths and weaknesses. Unless you once worked at your competitors’ businesses, it will be impossible to know everything about them. But you should be able to find out key things about them such as:

• What types of customers do they serve?
• What products do they offer?
• What is their pricing (premium, low, etc.)?
• What are they good at?
• What are their weaknesses?

The final part of your competitive analysis section is to document your areas of competitive advantage. For example:

• Will you provide superior features?
• Will you provide better customer service?
• Will you offer better pricing?

Think about ways you will outperform your competition and document them in this section of your plan.

Traditionally, a marketing plan includes the four P’s: Product, Price, Place, and Promotion. For an app business, your marketing plan should include the following:

Product : in the product section, you should reiterate the type of mobile app that you documented in your Company Analysis. Then, detail the specific features of your app.

Price : Document how you will price your app and if there will be different pricing levels (e.g., free, entry, premium) and what those levels will be.

Place : Place refers to your distribution method. Document how customers can download your app (e.g., from your website, the Apple App Store, Google Play, etc.).

Promotions : the final part of your mobile app marketing plan is the promotions section. Here you will document how you will drive customers to your app(s). The following are some promotional methods you might consider:

• Social media marketing strategy
• Advertising in magazines, newspapers and/or trade journals
• Reaching out to local bloggers and websites
• Pay per click advertising

While the earlier sections of your business plan explained your goals, your operations plan describes how you will meet them. Your operations plan should have two distinct sections as follows.

Everyday short-term processes include all of the tasks involved in running your mobile app such as writing code, building upgrades, fixing bugs, providing customer service, etc.

Long-term goals are the milestones you hope to achieve. These could include the dates when you expect your 10,000th app install, or when you hope to reach $X in sales. It could also be when you expect to hire your Xth employee or launch a new location.

To demonstrate your mobile app’s ability to succeed as a business, a strong management team is essential. Highlight your key players’ backgrounds, emphasizing those skills and experiences that prove their ability to grow a company.

Ideally you and/or your team members have direct experience in app development business. If so, highlight this experience and expertise. But also highlight any experience that you think will help your business succeed.

If your team is lacking, consider assembling an advisory team. An advisory team would include 2 to 8 individuals who would act like mentors to your business. They would help answer questions and provide strategic guidance. If needed, look for advisory board members with experience in mobile apps and/or successfully running small businesses.

Your financial plan should include your 5-year financial statement broken out both monthly or quarterly for the first year and then annually. Your financial statements include your income statement, balance sheet and cash flow statements.

Income Statement : an income statement is more commonly called a Profit and Loss statement or P&L. It shows your revenues and then subtracts your costs to show whether you turned a profit or not.

In developing your income statement, you need to devise assumptions. For example, will you have 100 downloads per week or 200? And will sales grow by 2% or 10% per year? As you can imagine, your choice of assumptions will greatly impact the financial forecasts for your business. As much as possible, conduct research to try to root your assumptions in reality.

Balance Sheets : While balance sheets include much information, to simplify them to the key items you need to know about, balance sheets show your assets and liabilities. For instance, if you spend $100,000 on building out your mobile application, that will not give you immediate profits. Rather it is an asset that will hopefully help you generate profits for years to come. Likewise, if a bank writes you a check for $100.000, you don’t need to pay it back immediately. Rather, that is a liability you will pay back over time.

Cash Flow Statement : Your cash flow statement will help determine how much money you need to start or grow your business, and make sure you never run out of money. What most entrepreneurs and business owners don’t realize is that you can turn a profit but run out of money and go bankrupt.

In developing your Income Statement and Balance Sheets be sure to include several of the key costs needed in an app startup or growing mobile app company:

• Cost of equipment like computers, data warehousing, etc.
• Payroll or salaries paid to staff and independent contractors
• Business insurance
• Taxes and permits
• Legal expenses

Attach your full financial projections in the appendix of your plan along with any supporting documents that make your plan more compelling. For example, you might include your store design blueprint or location lease.

Free Business Plan Template for a Mobile App Business

You can download our mobile app business plan PDF template . Our sample mobile app business plan would also be a helpful resource for writing your own business plan.

Mobile App Business Plan Summary

Putting together a business plan for a mobile app will improve your company’s chances of success. The process of developing your plan will help you better understand your target audience, your competition, and your business strategy. You will also develop the marketing strategies needed to better attract and serve your target market, an operations plan to focus your efforts, and financial projections that give you business goals to strive for and keep your company focused.

Growthink’s Ultimate Mobile App Business Plan Template allows you to quickly and easily complete your Mobile App Business Plan.  

Additional Resources for a Mobile App Startup

Don’t you wish there was a faster, easier way to finish your Mobile App business plan?

OR, Let Us Develop Your Plan For You

Since 1999, Growthink has developed business plans for thousands of companies who have gone on to achieve tremendous success.   Click here to see how Growthink’s professional business planning advisors can create your business plan for you.

Other Helpful Business Plan Articles & Templates

How to Write a Mobile App Business Plan + Free Template

Anthony St. Clair

11 min. read

Updated February 7, 2024

Free Download:  Sample Mobile App Development Business Plan Template

When Apple released the first iPhone in 2008, it also launched its App Store—with about 500 apps. Nowadays, the number of apps on the Apple App Store and the Google Play Store totals about 5 million. If apps were people, they’d outnumber the population of Los Angeles.

Sure, the “gold rush” days of app development are long behind us, but building apps remains a solid way to bring useful or entertaining services to market. An app can also be part of a narrow or broader business strategy.

But with so much competition, building a profitable, successful app takes more than just an idea and a team of mobile app developers. You need a business plan to help guide your vision and implementation. This article will cover the steps to create your mobile app business plan, along with some tips to run it successfully. 

Need more guidance? Download our free mobile app development business plan for a full business plan outline that you can use to inspire your own plan.

• How to write a business plan for a mobile app

A business plan can be as short or extensive as you need it to be, and not a page more. In fact, you could launch a successful business based on even a one-page plan for your app development firm.

Writing a business plan for your mobile app business comes down to thinking through where you are with your app idea, what you want to accomplish, and how you think you will get there. A good business plan gives you both a starting point and a road map, but you can always review it and update it as you go.

At its heart, that’s all your app business plan needs to do.

Here are some of the key things your mobile app development business plan should include.

1. Determine what kind of app you will develop

Competition and opportunity co-exist throughout every app sector. If you’re still trying to decide where you might want to target your app development , strong contenders and trending app verticals include:

• Productivity
• Shopping (mobile-specific and general eCommerce)
• Health and Fitness
• Personalization

The sector you’re developing your app for influences the type of app you’ll want to build. For example, will you code for Apple iOS, Google Android, or both? Will you focus on a web or hybrid app? Is the app an extension of a website or other business channel? 

You’ll need to have this information defined up front in order to conduct proper research and easily write your business plan . 

2. Conduct market research and identify competitors

It’s one thing to have a good idea for an app. But the real question is, does the idea have a market that will be hungry to buy in?

As you develop your business plan, understanding your potential customer base is key.

For starters, evaluate similar apps and competitors in the vertical you are developing for—especially if there is already an app doing something that you want your app to do. As you conduct research and put together a market and competitive analysis, be sure to think through the following questions:

• Who are their customers?
• Are they the same ideal customer and target market ? 
• What steps will your company take to engage the market and involve them in testing and promotion? 
• What are the demographics (such as profession, age, or sex) and psychographics (such as opinions, hobbies, and lifestyle goals) of your target market? 

If you don’t understand the market for your app, it will be difficult to get them to find, install, use, and tell the world about your app.

Researching the market and your competitors can also clue you into expected app features, pricing and revenue models, gaps in services, and pain points that customers feel aren’t being met.

Understanding these factors can also help your business plan address a potential threat to your app’s viability: abandonment. User retention can be challenging throughout the app market, with 25% of customers using an app one time and then ditching it. So, be sure that you take into account how to attract new customers as well as how you’ll keep them around.

3. Positioning and promotional strategies

Once you’ve proven the market demand for your app’s concept, you should start figuring out how to promote your app and position it in the marketplace. Your business plan doesn’t have to include a detailed marketing plan . But it can be the perfect place to set up a few essentials that can guide your app’s marketing throughout its development and release cycles.

At a minimum your plan should include foundational messaging for pitching, branding, mission, and your overall sales and marketing strategy for your app, such as:

Develop and refine your elevator pitch

How concisely can you get across what your app does, why it’s needed, and what will make people love it? Can you talk up those key points with anyone from potential investors to your ideal customer, developers, and engineers to your mom and your best friend?

Examine how you’ll build awareness, interest, and need for the app

Will early testers be part of your outreach? Will you work with social media influencers, traditional media, or celebrity endorsers? How will you articulate the problems your app solves or the joy it provides?

What are some of the branding and marketing tasks your startup will pursue? 

For example, what is the company name? The app name? How will you engage your market on the social media platforms they like to spend time on? What original supporting content will attract the interest of your key audience?

In your business plan, it’s essential to understand your startup from the point of view of a founder and key player. But the marketing and promotional components of your business plan help you see your app from the point of view of an outsider, such as a customer or investor. The better you understand these other points of view, the better you can develop your messaging, build your app, and make it a success.

Free Mobile App Business Plan Template

Use this proven business plan example to successfully launch a competitive mobile app development business.

Download Now

4. Startup costs, financials, and pricing

Figuring out the potential startup costs for your app is not a one-size-fits-all equation. Generally, these are some of the factors to consider as part of your financial plan .

Platform development

Expect different development costs when developing for iOS, Android, or both. Your process will include defining a function, outlining what you need for your MVP, wire-framing, coding, testing, designing, and more.

Internal employees or outside contractors? 

If you’re planning to build up a full-on firm with employees, benefits, and offices, you will be looking at a different cost structure than if you want to outsource to a contracted development company or work with a freelance team that’s not employed by your app startup. That team may need pros in charge of mobile and backend development, design, QA, customer support, design, marketing, managers, and more.

The resources you have and the resources you need

How long it’ll take to develop and release your app depends in part on the resources you have access to.

Successful apps monitor and improve. Did the app crash? Is it scaling sufficiently to handle increases in use and load? What usage metrics are you monitoring and analyzing? How will you need to update the app to deal with OS updates?

By understanding these and other potential costs, you can develop a budget in your business plan. For more in-depth financial considerations, you should develop forecasts to gauge costs, future cash flow , and how your app company might grow and change over time by hitting release and growth milestones.

5. Development milestones

The release of your app is a milestone that’s farther down the road. In the meantime, you’ll be developing milestones that reflect major accomplishments in the development process. Your business plan can reflect some of those milestones, such as:

• Production of key features and functions
• MVP completion
• Testing and refinement
• Acceptance of app in app stores
• Achievement of sales and adoption goals
• Implementation of new features and versions

Remember, app development takes time. Focus your initial milestones on pre-release goals. From there, you can set and work toward post-release milestones that can pave the way to future growth, releases, and profits.

• Mobile app development tips for startup growth

As you develop your mobile app’s business plan, here are a few other tips and considerations to keep in mind.

Native, hybrid, or web?

Creating apps tailored to each OS—Apple and Android—can cost the most to develop, but also can maximize your app’s performance. The better the performance, the most adoption and use you could see in your target audience. 

At the same time, other apps work solely on the web, and others are developed as hybrids. Hybrid apps can help you manage team and development costs, but they typically can’t take full advantage of each OS.

As a rule of thumb, typically the more complicated or intense the app’s function, the better it tends to be to develop a native app. Lightweight functions may work fine in a web or hybrid environment.

Security and privacy

Privacy and security are at the forefront of customers’ minds as well as industry discussions around app business models. If you are developing for regulated industries—such as health care or financial services—there may also be legal privacy and security requirement to adhere to.

Decide on a platform: Apple, Android, or both?

If your target market is predominantly on one OS, that can guide your development decisions. Developing for both platforms requires more resources, but can give you the benefit of maximizing your ability to develop the app for each OS, and reach the most customers. Another option to consider is launching on one platform and adding another over time, depending on milestones in your business plan.

Offline vs online

A growing consideration in today’s app development firms is whether the apps can only function online, or if it can function offline too. Some level of offline function—and messaging that the app is offline—can make for better customer satisfaction, since users will have access to at least some features regardless of their internet connection.

For example, Google Maps can download route information so a user still has the mapping and some functions, even if they enter a remote location or go through an area where they don’t have a cellular or wifi signal. 

Walking users through what they can and can’t do offline, and how functions can be completed or data can sync once online again—can also go a long way to winning trust and loyalty from your app’s users. You’ll also want to determine if the offline function is something you develop as part of the launch, or if you roll it out in a later version.

Revenue model: Free/freemium, subscription, in-app purchases, ads, or a combo?

Apps can drive revenue in many ways. A common strategy is a freemium model: Offer a free baseline app, but other features can be unlocked with purchase or subscription.

Subscription models (usually with a tie-based free trial period) have also become increasingly popular in companies, and they are finding broad acceptance in the market. An app can also drive revenue by being a mobile commerce tool, helping customers complete a transaction from the convenience of their phone instead of having to go to a browser, non-mobile device, or other fulfillment channels.

Some apps are only available for purchase, often as a way to showcase an app’s superior or unique place in the market. Once purchased, though, other revenue models can come into play. The popular game Minecraft is a prime example: Customers purchase the app, but the Minecraft Marketplace offers in-app purchases to further customize the game.

Test properly before launch

If your app doesn’t work at launch, it may never recover from that stumble.

As the app reaches development milestones, ongoing testing can help you find and resolve problems before you have to deal with them in the deployed product. Conducting extensive testing across various devices, users, and OS versions can help you catch problems before they harm your new app—and your startup’s viability and profitability.

• Download your free mobile app development business plan template

Our free mobile app development business plan can give you the template you need to start setting up your business plan—and your business. It’s just one of hundreds of free sample plans that have been time-tested by our team and by thousands of entrepreneurs all over the world.

The question is simple: What mobile app development business will you create? Whatever it is, your business plan can help you get there. Download your free plan now and get started.

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Anthony St. Clair is a business copywriter, author of the Rucksack Universe travel fantasy series, and a craft beer writer specializing in Oregon. Learn more at anthonystclair.com.

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Business mobile plans in Australia compared

The best mobile plans for small to medium-sized businesses, broken down in terms of price, data, extras and support.

We’re going to let you in on a little secret. There aren’t any business mobile plans like there are business NBN internet plans . Well, not really. While some telcos may brand them as such, we stopped differentiating between personal and business mobile plans a while ago because, in our comparisons, we found they had identical offerings: same price, identical data, equal inclusions.

Network is the critical business mobile consideration

There are some critical considerations for picking the mobile plan that’s right for your business. First and foremost is less to do with the plan and more to do with the network. In Australia, the ranking of non-5G mobile networks is as follows:

• Telstra first-party network (including Boost Mobile ): 99.4% of the Australian population
• Telstra wholesale network (Telstra MVNOs): 98.8% of the Australian population
• Optus 3G and 4G (including Optus MVNOs): 98.5% of the Australian population
• Vodafone 4G (including Vodafone MVNOs): 96% of the Australian metropolitan population

Note that Telstra MVNOs , Optus MVNOs and Vodafone MVNOs tend to offer more competitive pricing on their plans than the three network holders. If you’re after 5G in Australia , the footprint is even smaller as the respective telco networks are still being built. Towards the end of 2021, here’s how Australia’s 5G networks look:

• Telstra 5G: 75% of the Australian population
• Optus 5G: 400,000+ Australian households
• Vodafone 5G: 650+ Australian suburbs

Despite that ranking, your business can still viably opt for the Optus or Vodafone networks, in 4G or 5G variants, as long as you’re working in an area that has great reception. In this context, great reception refers to full (or close to) signal strength, fast data speeds and reliable calls that don’t drop out.

Use the interactive map below to determine whether your business can expect 4G or 5G (or even 3G) speeds from the three network holders by ticking the network boxes and changing network provider via the drop-down menu.

What makes for a great business mobile plan?

With the network sorted, it’s down to more common factors. Price is one of the top considerations, but we also determine basic value by weighing up cost with how much data is included. Be aware that certain telcos tend to offer cheaper initial pricing across SIM Only and Prepaid plans , meaning first-year costs will be cheaper but ongoing costs will also rise once you’re out of the promotional pricing period. So factor in typical pricing initially or, once a promotional period ends, consider switching telcos.

Data is another big consideration, which will depend on how much time you spend out of the office (disconnected from WiFi) or how much you like the idea of a mobile tethering backup solution if office internet is down. On average, Australians are using around 30GB of mobile data per month, so treat that as a minimum for a business mobile plan. While around one-third of Australian mobile users are on Prepaid plans, we’d advise sticking with SIM Only or Postpaid plans (if you want to bundle a handset) for the best value.

Because more and more telcos are competing around similar price points and data caps these days, included extras can help separate a contender from a viable victor. These extras may include additional data, data banking or gifting, international call and/or text inclusions, capped max-speed data (to avoid bill shock), or even 10% off the monthly office kitchen grocery shop at Woolies with Woolworths Mobile .

The final main consideration is support channels. While the quality of the support experience with the same provider between businesses may differ (as they do between people with personal accounts), the more support avenues a telco offers, the more options you have for getting in touch.

Mobile plans for the best network coverage

If you want to play it safe, the best business mobile plans with the best coverage will be Telstra business mobile plans . Below is a daily updating list of popular business mobile SIM Only plans from our comparison engine on the Telstra network with at least 30GB of data.

For comparison, below is a daily updating list of popular SIM Only plans on the Optus network with at least 30GB of data.

Finally, you can also compare those plans above with popular SIM Only plans on the Vodafone network, which come with at least 30GB of data.

The best pricing for mobile plans

If you want a SIM Only business mobile plan with at least 30GB of data, there are a few options. Bear in mind that the cheaper options towards the top of the list below are likely representative of discounted promotional pricing periods, so be sure to factor that in when budgeting a plan longer-term.

Mobile plans for data

For those businesses where 30GB isn’t close to meeting your business needs, consider a SIM Only plan with a whole lot more data. The list below is for SIM Only plans from our comparison engine with at least 100GB of monthly data.

If you fancy a handset with your business mobile plan, check out the daily updating list below of popular business mobile phone plans with at least 30GB of data and a max plan cost of $150 per month.

Mobile plans for included extras

If you’re having trouble separating plans based on just price and data, it’s worth factoring in the extras they come with. Certain promotional extras may come and go, but features like data caps, data banking and data gifting tend to be permanent fixtures, and the same is true of international allowances.

Check out the list below for an idea of popular SIM Only mobile plans with at least 30GB of data from telcos with a knack for bundling perks, including Optus mobile business plans.

Mobile plans for support

For businesses that want the peace of mind of multiple support channels, we’d advise sticking with the telcos whose plan reviews ranked highest in our internal analysis metrics. You can either go with fully featured support from Optus or Telstra ; alternatively, opt for telcos with more competitive pricing like Vodafone , Amaysim and Dodo Mobile , all of which have robust support channels.

The daily updating list below is comprised of popular plans from these telcos, all of which have at least 30GB of data (note that Amaysim only sells Prepaid plans).

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Mobile App Business Plan Template

Written by Dave Lavinsky

Business Plan Outline

• Mobile App Business Plan Home
• 1. Executive Summary
• 2. Company Overview
• 3. Industry Analysis
• 4. Customer Analysis
• 5. Competitive Analysis
• 6. Marketing Plan
• 7. Operations Plan
• 8. Management Team
• 9. Financial Plan

Start Your Mobile App Plan Here

Mobile App Business Plan

You’ve come to the right place to create your mobile app business plan.

We have helped over 100,000 entrepreneurs and business owners create business plans and many have used them to start or grow their mobile app businesses.

Mobile App Business Plan Example

Below are links to each of the key elements of a mobile app business plan template:

• Executive Summary – In the Executive Summary, you will provide a general overview of your business plan including your target market, business model, and how you plan to make your business successful.
• Company Overview – The Company Overview section will provide an overview of your app idea, history of the company, monetization strategy and milestones achieved.
• Industry Analysis – From your market research, you will provide an industry analysis. This will include a discussion of the current mobile app industry landscape, trends, and issues facing your industry.
• Customer Analysis – The Customer Analysis section will describe your target market. This includes information on demographics, psychographics, and behaviors.
• Competitive Analysis – This section includes an overview of your direct and indirect competitors, their market share, your competitive advantage, and how you plan to compete against them.
• Marketing Plan – The Marketing Plan section will describe your marketing strategy. This includes information on your target audience, pricing strategy, and promotional activities.
• Operations Plan – The Operations Plan section of your mobile app business plan will describe your business operations.
• Management Team – The Management Team section will provide information on the management members of your team. This includes their experience, education, and skills.
• Financial Plan – In the Financial Plan section, you will provide the financial model and financial statements for your business. This includes your income statement, balance sheet, and cash flow statement.

Next Section: Executive Summary >

Mobile App Business Plan FAQs

What is a mobile app business plan.

A mobile app business plan is a plan to start and/or grow your mobile app business. Among other things, it outlines your business concept, identifies your target customers, presents your marketing plan and details your financial projections.

You can  easily complete your mobile app business plan using our Mobile App Business Plan Template here .

What Are the Main Types of Mobile App Companies?

There are many types of mobile app companies across a variety of categories. There are mobile app companies that focus solely on mobile games. Others are exercise or wellness focused. Some mobile apps provide guidance on specific topics, some offer music streaming, and other apps provide help or assistance on a variety of topics. Many companies have developed company-specific mobile apps to allow users to become more connected with their products or offerings. For instance, most major brands, restaurants and financial services companies have company-specific mobile applications.

What Are the Main Sources of Revenue and Expenses for a Mobile App Business?

The primary source of revenue for mobile app companies are subscription paid by the users on an annual or monthly basis. Advertising (selling ad space to other companies on their app) is another significant revenue sources.

The key expenses for mobile app companies are the costs to advertise and generate users. These expenses are often in the form of targeted social media advertising or online targeted marketing. Some major mobile app companies pay to have their mobile apps advertised on television commercials or music streaming platforms. Another major expense for app companies are office space, employee salaries and technology licensing fees.

How Do You Get Funding for Your Mobile App Business Plan?

A mobile app startup is most likely to receive funding from angel investors and friends and family. Personal savings and credit cards are also often used. Venture capitalists will fund a business plan for an app once it achieves enough traction (e.g., enough users or generating enough revenue).

A well crafted mobile app business plan is essential for attracting any type of potential investor.  Most app startups require funding to get off the ground and cover at least their startup costs.

What are the Steps To Start a Mobile App Business?

Starting a mobile app development company can be an exciting endeavor. Having a clear roadmap of the steps to start a business will help you stay focused on your goals and get started faster.

1. Develop A Mobile App Business Plan - The first step in starting a business is to create a detailed business plan for an app that outlines all aspects of the venture. This should include market research on the mobile app industry and potential market size, information on the mobile app concept, the services or products you will offer, pricing strategies and a detailed financial forecast.  

2. Choose Your Legal Structure - It's important to select an appropriate legal entity for your mobile app business. This could be a limited liability company (LLC), corporation, partnership, or sole proprietorship. Each type has its own benefits and drawbacks so it’s important to do research and choose wisely so that your mobile app business is in compliance with local laws.

3. Register Your Mobile App Business - Once you have chosen a legal structure, the next step is to register your mobile app business with the government or state where you’re operating from. This includes obtaining licenses and permits as required by federal, state, and local laws. 

4. Identify Financing Options - It’s likely that you’ll need some capital to start your mobile app business, so take some time to identify what financing options are available such as bank loans, investor funding, grants, or crowdfunding platforms. 

5. Choose a Location - Whether you plan on operating out of a physical location or not, you should always have an idea of where you’ll be based should it become necessary in the future as well as what kind of space would be suitable for your operations. 

6. Hire Employees - There are several ways to find qualified employees including job boards like LinkedIn or Indeed as well as hiring agencies if needed – depending on what type of employees you need it might also be more effective to reach out directly through networking events. 

7. Acquire Necessary Mobile App Equipment & Supplies - In order to start your mobile app business, you'll need to purchase all of the necessary equipment and supplies to run a successful operation. 

8. Market & Promote Your Business - Once you have all the necessary pieces in place, it’s time to start promoting and marketing your mobile app business.  A mobile app marketing plan includes creating a website, utilizing social media platforms like Facebook or Twitter, and having an effective Search Engine Optimization (SEO) strategy. You should also consider traditional marketing techniques such as radio or print advertising. 

Learn more about how to start a successful mobile app business:

• How to Start a Mobile App Business
• How to Start a Mobile App Development Business

Where Can I Get a Mobile App Business Plan PDF?

You can download our free mobile app business plan template PDF here . This is a sample mobile app business plan template you can use in PDF format.

Telstra to sack 2,800 workers as part of cost-cutting measures

Telstra has revealed plans to sack up to 2,800 workers as part of its latest cost-cutting measures.

The telco said the majority of the job cuts would happen by the end of this year.

Telstra had more than 31,000 employees at the time of its last annual report in August 2023, meaning that the job losses represent roughly 9 per cent of its workforce.

"I appreciate the uncertainty proposed changes like this can create for our people and we will support them through this change with care and transparency," said Telstra's chief executive Vicki Brady.

"As we propose specific changes, we will talk them through with our teams and union representatives first."

In a statement to the ASX, Telstra said it would begin consultation on 377 of those affected roles with unions and the relevant teams immediately.

Communication Workers Union (CWU) national assistant secretary James Perkins said staff representatives had no prior warning of the planned lay-offs.

"We were absolutely unaware and we've been blindsided by this decision," he told The World Today.

"We cannot possibly see how Telstra can go on maintaining the level of service it needs to satisfy its customers' expectations when you've just cut another 9 per cent of your workforce."

Telecommunications management and business consultant Paul Budde said job cuts were not a surprise, but the scale of them was.

"It's not just a matter of continuing to fine-tune or readjust — this is a massive change," he told ABC News.

These roles are within Telstra Enterprise, which provides communication services to big businesses.

"As we look to streamline our network application and services portfolio, as part of that work, we may well partner with other players in the market to be able to provide those services," the Telstra CEO told reporters.

"We may transition customers to other players that can provide some of those more specialised services."

Telstra drops inflation-linked mobile price rises

As part of the redundancy announcement, Telstra also revealed that it would drop controversial inflation-linked price increases from its post-paid mobile plans.

Ms Brady said that meant there would be no price rise on July 1.

"We will not be making pricing changes in July for our consumer post-paid mobile plans," she told reporters.

"Our pricing review continues, as you would expect, across all of our products."

UBS telco analyst Lucy Huang said that may not end up being good news for customers, as inflation kept falling.

"TLS (Telstra) suggests this gives them more flexibility on pricing review (e.g. Vodafone put through higher than CPI linked price increases in late Mar/early April this year)," she wrote in a short note reacting to Telstra's announcement.

Barrenjoey analysts Eric Choi and Annie Zhu agree.

"Investor feedback had suggested TLS could have the ability to push prices up by more than CPI – we therefore theorise TLS could be delaying price increases in FY25 (but eventually announce increase greater than CPI)," they wrote.

Ms Brady also said the redundancy program would not negatively affect retail customer service.

"We have invested significantly in our customer service over recent years. That includes onshoring our call centres for consumer and small business customers," she said.

"It includes buying back our stores to deliver consistently good experience. None of these changes impact those commitments."

However, Mr Budde said even if the quality of service does not deteriorate further, it is still lower than in the past.

"I think we, the customers, have been conditioned to a lower level of customer service over years because of the robots and call centres and things like that," he argued.

Treasurer Jim Chalmers said it was a "very distressing day" for affected staff, and that the federal government would be closely watching Telstra's pricing policies.

"We will be seeking advice from the ACCC about some of the claims that Telstra is making about their new pricing strategy and the role of the NBN," he told reporters at a press conference.

'Ongoing work to reduce costs'

Ms Brady said details of the further job cuts would be announced over the next couple of months.

"We will continue to work through the detail as fast as we can on the remaining proposed changes and I anticipate being able to update our employees around mid-July," she told reporters at a press conference.

"As part of our ongoing work to reduce our costs, we will also focus on other cost categories including non-labour-related costs."

Mr Budde said Telstra is struggling to raise additional revenue, leaving cost-cutting as its main means of profit growth.

"The reality is that telecommunications is a utility, yeah? The value-add is going to the digital companies," he explained.

"Revenue is flat — 1 per cent up, 1 per cent down on an annual basis — at the same time, costs are rising 10 per cent to 20 per cent over the last year alone.

"So you really see this dramatic change in cost-cutting in order to ensure that the company remains viable, that it can deliver profits."

Mr Budde said some of the potential future areas to cut costs involve cooperation with other telcos and the increasing use of AI.

"We might see more network sharing to cut costs in that particular area," he speculated .

"Artificial intelligence will be a hot topic because it can streamline the company, it can streamline customer services.

"So they will invest more in technology rather than in people."

Telstra hopes to save around $350 million a year in costs by the end of next financial year, but anticipates between $200-250 million in restructuring costs related to the redundancies.

The telco has told investors it expects to make an $8.4-8.7 billion pre-tax, pre-interest profit (EBITDA) in financial year 2025.

They were not impressed, with Telstra's share price down 1.9 per cent to $3.60 shortly before the close of trade.

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• News for Telstra

Telstra To Cut Up To 2,800 Jobs

(RTTNews) - Telstra Corp. Ltd. (TLSYY.PK, TLS.AX, TLS) announced plans to streamline its operations and cut costs, aiming to reduce its direct workforce by up to 2,800 jobs by the end of this year.

The Australian telecom giant said consultation on 377 of those roles would begin immediately, mainly from areas supporting the products and services to be exited in Enterprise.

Telstra expects one-off restructuring costs of A$200 million - A$250 million across fiscal year 2024 and fiscal year 2025. These costs will be excluded from guidance and are in addition to BAU annual restructuring costs.

Telstra reiterated its fiscal year 2024 guidance and provided fiscal year 2025 underlying EBITDA guidance of A$8.4 billion- A$8.7 billion.

Telstra also reaffirmed its commitment to delivering its T25 CAGR ambitions for Underlying EBITDA, earnings per share and ROIC growth.

Telstra said it has identified a number of actions under review of Telstra Enterprise. These include a streamlined product portfolio, reducing the number of NAS products in market by close to two thirds; a simplified customer sales and service model to better support customers; and a reduction in the cost base of the Telstra Purple tech services business - particularly NAS products.

Telstra also announced it would be updating the customer terms for its postpaid mobile plans to remove the CPI-linked annual price review.

In addition to starting the reset of Telstra Enterprise, Telstra said it will reshape some of its internal operations by moving its Global Business Services function into other parts of the business.

Telstra also continues to focus on a range of actions to reduce its non-labor and indirect labor costs.

With the actions, Telstra said it expected to achieve A$350 million of its T25 cost reduction ambition by the end of fiscal year 2025.

Telstra News MORE

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Telstra says slashing almost a tenth of its workforce will help save $350 million. Why is the business under pressure?

Associate Professor, School of Engineering, RMIT University

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Mark A Gregory received funding from the Australian Research Council, the Australian Communications Consumer Action Network and the AuDA Foundation.

RMIT University provides funding as a strategic partner of The Conversation AU.

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On Tuesday, Telstra announced it will be cutting up to 2,800 jobs as part of a major restructure.

Of these layoffs, 377 will take effect immediately from within the Telstra Enterprise business unit. Most of the remaining cuts will be announced in detail soon and finalised by the end of the year.

The announcement followed a review of the company’s enterprise division, which services large business and government clients.

Providing voice calls and other network services to these clients has historically been an important part of Telstra’s business. But recently, low-cost internet-based competitors have been whittling away at this revenue.

Speaking at a press conference, Telstra CEO Vicki Brady said while the company continues to see solid growth across its mobile network, it now faces a changing business landscape:

Our industry and the world we are operating in are changing. We have new and different competitors. We have rapid advances in technologies happening. Our customer needs continue to evolve and we have ongoing inflationary and cost pressures.

But it’s possible these job cuts are also part of a strategy to boost Telstra’s flagging share price, which fell to a low of A$3.57 the day of the announcement.

This was down from its 52-week high of $4.46 and well below its ten-year high of $6.61 in February 2015.

How did we get here?

In February, Telstra reported a 66.7% drop in EBITDA – an important measure of earnings – for its fixed-enterprise business unit.

Telstra said this fall-off was the result of a continued decline in income from call charges, business connectivity, network applications and services.

It’s possible the slowing Australian economy may have exacerbated the decline, impacting businesses’ spending on telecommunications products and services.

Telstra has been under pressure to find savings under its ambitious “ T25 ” target to achieve a $500 million reduction in net costs by the end of financial year 2024–25.

Telstra expects this major restructure to incur a one-off cost of between $200 million to $250 million over this period.

The company also said it would focus on reducing other cost categories, including non-labour-related costs. One such cost is energy usage, a major expense for telcos .

Now, the company expects to achieve $350 million of its cost reduction target by the 2025 deadline.

Telstra hasn’t directly tied this latest round of cuts to the broader adoption of artificial intelligence (AI). But the company has been exploring ways of using the technology.

Telstra announced in February it was moving forward with AI technologies it had developed in-house, following pilot trials with frontline team members.

The company was at pains to point out that these particular technologies aim to assist existing human staff, for example, by summarising interactions with customers or better searching for information from internal databases.

Down the line, however, further adoption of AI could eventually impact employee numbers as Telstra and other telecommunications companies aim to ramp up and exploit cost-cutting uses of the technology.

Mobile tells a stronger story

Telstra’s core mobile business has meanwhile performed strongly, with subscriber numbers growing steadily over the last year.

The company’s latest announcement included a significant change to the terms of its postpaid mobile plans.

Prices of these plans have historically been automatically indexed to the consumer price index each financial year. That will no longer happen, bringing postpaid mobile plans into line with most of Telstra’s other products. There will be no increase this July.

Brady said the move would give the company greater flexibility:

This approach reflects there are a range of factors that go into any pricing decision, and will provide greater flexibility to adjust prices at different times and across different plans based on their value propositions and customer needs.

The change does mean consumers might see relief from large automatic price increases when the consumer price index is high.

But it will likely cause concern among consumer groups. There will now be uncertainty on the exact timing of price changes for postpaid mobile plans, and their size and direction will be largely up to Telstra.

Telstra’s future direction remains unclear

There are other pressures looming for Telstra.

Before the next election, the government is expected to announce the outcome of a review into the universal service obligation (USO), a consumer protection that guarantees Australians “reasonable access to fixed telephone and payphone services”.

Telstra is Australia’s nominated USO provider, and this delivery contract has been a key driver of its dominant position in regional and remote areas. But there’s no guarantee it will be renewed with Telstra in 2032.

Telstra says its restructuring aims to put the company in better financial shape. But the announcement does not offer strong guidance on how Telstra plans to grow its business in coming years.

Telstra is facing increasing competition in a maturing market and its growth appears to be based primarily on expanding its customer base rather than introducing new products and services.

In the short term, Telstra continues to struggle to reduce costs at a time of what it calls “higher-than-expected inflation” and high energy costs.

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Telstra to axe 2800 jobs, majority to happen by end of this year

The telco giant has come under fire after it announced it would cut up to 2800 jobs, with the majority of the roles to be axed by the end of this year.

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Telstra has been lashed as a “national disgrace” for its sudden decision to scrap up to 2800 jobs, with the majority of cuts set to happen by the end of this year.

In a notice to the ASX shared on Tuesday morning, the telco giant said consultation for 377 of the redundancies would begin immediately.

Losses will mainly effect B2B Telstra Enterprise teams, and will form the bulk of $350m of savings Telstra hopes to achieve by the end of the 2025 financial year.

Communication Workers Union national assistant secretary James Perkins, who represents Telstra workers, said the union had no knowledge of the cuts, prior to the ASX announcement.

He questioned how the cuts, which equated to about nine per cent of its workforce, would allow Telstra to “maintain the service that people expect”.

“Workers are already facing the brunt of cost of living pressures and now they’re having to contend with attacks on their jobs,” he said.

“This is a national disgrace from our national carrier.”

He said the CWU would meet with Telstra representatives on Wednesday and Thursday, and were seeking more information about what departments and states the cuts would occur in, as well as whether regional or rural staff would be affected.

In the interim, he called on the business to halt the cuts.

“This is a highly profitable business. If Telstra are seeking to improve efficiencies, the union and its members are more than happy to sit down and have those discussions,” he said.

In the fall out of the slashes, Telstra’s chief executive officer Vicki Brady has defended the decisions as “necessary,” and said the staffing cuts would not impact Telstra’s customer service teams.

“We have invested significantly in our customer service over recent years. That includes on-shoring our call centres for consumer and small business customers, it includes buying back our stores to deliver consistently good experience,” she said.

“None of these changes impact those commitments.

“As we work through the further changes still to come that I expect to be able to share with our employees in mid-July, customer service and experience will continue to be a key priority in that.”

Speaking about the job cuts, Treasurer Jim Chalmers said this thoughts were for the people impacted by the announcement.

“This is a very distressing day for a lot of people who have received this bad news today from Telstra and we’re thinking of all of the families who are impacted by these big job cuts at a major Australian employer,” he said.

“We need to make sure that the services don’t suffer as a consequence of these changes.

We will be seeking advice from the ACCC about some of the claims that Telstra is making about their new pricing strategy and the role of the NBN.”

Brady: Changes ‘necessary’

She defended the move as “necessary” so telco giant could “make the investments needed” to support ever-increasing growth in data volumes on its networks and deliver improved connectivity for customers across the country”.

It comes as the company scales up AI adoption.

In February this year, Telstra announced it was expanding two in-house developed generative AI solutions following “promising pilots with frontline team members, enabling faster and more successful interactions with customers”.

“I appreciate the uncertainty proposed changes like this can create for our people and we will support them through this change with care and transparency,” Ms Brady said.

“As we proposed specific changes, we will talk them through with our teams and union representatives first.”

Ms Brady said job cuts come as the business struggles to meet its “cost-cutting ambitions,” blaming “higher-than-expected inflation,” and cost pressures like high energy costs.

Ms Brady added affected employers would be given “industry-leading redundant packages,” which includes transition support.

“It includes career transition support which will involve ongoing access to learning over a six-month period post leaving Telstra to help move to their next role,” she said.

Tuesday’s directive also flagged a number of other changes, like deploying its Global Business Service function to other parts of the business, and other actions to “reduce its non-labour and indirect labour costs”.

The initiatives would save the company $350m by the end of June 2025, with the company forecasting a one-off restructuring cost between $200m to $250m across the 2024 and 2025 financial years.

The restructuring costs will also factor in the redundancy payout for employees, with Ms Brady adding the charge was “over and above our ordinary redundancy cost”.

In the same directive Ms Brady also announced it would remove annual inflation-linked price increases for its postpaid mobile plans.

This means eligible Telstra customers will not be hit with a price change in July this year.

“This approach reflects there are a range of factors that go into any pricing decision, and will provide greater flexibility to adjust prices at different times and across different plans based on their value propositions and customer needs,” she said.

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Upfront Business Mobile Plans

Information about the service, important information about this plan.

This plan allows you to data share with up to 10 eligible upfront mobile or data plans on your account. 

Your device

You may bring your own compatible device with this plan, or may purchase an eligible device with this plan, payable outright or over 12, 24 or 36 interest-free monthly payments. Some devices may not have a 36 month repayment option.

See telstra.com/device   for more information on compatible devices. If you cancel your device payment contract early, you must pay any remaining device repayments in full.

Your data usage

If you exceed your included data allowance, your speed will be capped at 1.5Mbps, and slowed further in busy periods. This means it is not suitable for HD video or high speed applications and means that some webpages, videos, social media content and files may take longer to load, but you can still stream video in standard definition, listen to music, browse the web and access social media, even if the experience is slower sometimes. Heavy data users (users in the top 1% of all data users) may experience slower speeds than other users during busy periods.

You must comply with our FairPlay Policy and not use your service in an unacceptable, unreasonable or fraudulent manner, or in a way that detrimentally interferes with the integrity of, or causes significant congestion to, the network. 

You receive SMS and/or email alerts in near real-time when you reach 50%, 85% and 100% of your Data allowance. To check your usage, install the My Telstra app on your smartphone or tablet.

Plan Speeds

Speeds may vary due to factors such as location, distance from the base station, local conditions, concurrent users, hardware and software configuration and download/upload destination. For 5G coverage information, see telstra.com/coverage

Bundle Plan

You're eligible to add on up to 5 Bundle Plans if you’re on an Essential or Premium Mobile plan. If you cancel or change your Essential or Premium Mobile plan you will no longer be eligible for Bundle Plans and existing Mobile Bundle Plans or Data Bundle Plans will be moved to an in-market plan. We’ll be in touch to let you know about these changes.

Information about pricing

Annual price review.

Our mobile and data plans include an annual price review and may increase in line with CPI in July each year. CPI measures household inflation and is released by the Australian Bureau of Statistics. We'll use the CPI for full year to March quarter and any increase will be rounded to the nearest dollar and occurs within your July billing cycle. We'll let you know before any changes take effect. 

Your first month's charges

When you start your plan, you will be charged for the first month when you place your order. If you purchase a phone, tablet or mobile broadband device on repayment, you will also be charged for the first month when you place your order. If you've been invited to receive a bill for this plan, you'll be charged on your next bill.

When will I pay?

You make an initial payment when you order this plan. The monthly plan charge (see above table) is charged in on the same day each month when you service is connected. You can view your upcoming payment dates in the My Telstra app.

How do I pay?

You’ll need to pay for this plan via AutoPay from a credit or debit card (Visa, MasterCard or American Express) or a bank account. See our direct debit terms for more details.

Bill Payment Charges

• Direct Debit is our preferred payment method, you can set it up anytime at  telstra.com/directdebit
• Electronic payments – Free
• Payments made in person or by cheque – Extra $2.50 (some exemptions apply)
• Paper bills are issued unless you set up paperless billing. Set up Email Bill at  telstra.com/emailbill or for more information on your billing options visit telstra.com/fees-on-payment-methods

Other Information

Can i cancel my plan.

Yes, you can cancel your plan at any time by calling us on 13 22 00, messaging us or visiting a Telstra store. When you cancel, your service will be disconnected immediately. We won't refund any money you've already paid and you'll need to pay out any remaining hardware or accessories in full when you cancel. 

Can Telstra change my plan?

From time to time we may make changes to your plan, or we may move you to a new plan (which may cost more). If we change your plan or move you to a new plan and we reasonably consider that change or move has more than a minor detrimental impact on you:

• We’ll give you at least 30 days’ notice before making changes or automatically moving you to the closest available plan.
• If you don’t like the changes or the new plan, you can cancel your plan. If you cancel your plan, you’ll need to pay out the remaining cost of your hardware, accessories or services in full.

Fair Use Policy

You must comply with our Fair Use Policy and not use your services in an unreasonable or fraudulent manner or in a way that detrimentally interferes with the integrity of the network. We may take action if you breach the Fair Use Policy, including suspending or cancelling your service.

Need help? We're here for you.

Visit  telstra.com/contactus  for our support options. Call 13 20 00 or 133 677 (TTY), or +61 439 12 5109 from overseas, to speak to someone about your plan or to obtain a copy of this summary in an alternative /accessible format.

If there’s something you’re not happy with and you wish to make a complaint, visit  telstra.com/complaints . We like to make every attempt to resolve any issues but you can contact the Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman by phone on 1800 062 058 or visit  tio.com.au/about-us/contact-us  if you would like an independent investigation

This is a summary only. The full legal terms for this plan are available at telstra.com/customer-terms

MOSB3099-16052023

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