The cheapest iPhone 5S and iPhone 5C tariffs

Two new iPhones have arrived on the market. Here's who's offering the cheapest tariffs so far.

 Apple has launched not one but two new models of its iPhone and pay monthly prices have now been announced by all the major providers.

The cheaper iPhone 4C comes in a range of colours and starts from £469 if you buy it upfront. There is also the iPhone 5S which starts at £549 and is being marketed as the more deluxe version.

If you’re dying to get your hands on the new model, I've picked out exactly how much it’ll cost and what’s included with the cheapest packages.

Pay monthly iPhone contracts

Unveiled on the 10th September, the new phones have unsurprisingly been flying off the shelves as eager Apple fans snap them up. A record-breaking nine million were sold over the weekend after they went on sale on the 20th.

You can buy them unlocked from Apple upfront, or choose a pay-monthly contract. If you can wait, the prices are likely to go down as the hype wears off and older versions, such as the iPhone 4S, are still available to buy.

Pay-as-you-go (PAYG) price plans haven’t yet been announced for the new models and there’s currently no news on when this will happen.

iPhone 5C

The contracts vary quite a bit for both phones and below I've listed the cheapest overall 24-month tariffs.

When looking at 3G contracts, O2 and Orange have the cheapest contracts at a total of £797.99 over two years, but the O2 contract only asks for a £29.99 upfront fee instead of £149.99. Three is the most expensive but it includes unlimited data so will be a good choice for people who use the internet a lot on their phones.

Tesco is the only provider not to charge anything for either phone but some of the other providers do offer these contracts so it's worth looking at all the options before you commit.

*iPhones are not yet available through Tesco Mobile

iPhone 5S

The prices for the iPhone 5S are unsurprisingly more expensive because the phone offers more. Overall Tesco Mobile has the cheapest tariff at a cost of £948 over the two years with a healthy allowance of 2GB for data. Orange is the second cheapest tariff at £27 a month with an upfront cost of £219.99 but the data allowance is a paltry 250MB.

EE has the cheapest 4G deal, but again the data allowance isn’t great at 1.5GB. If you compare this to the Vodafone 4G deal, which allows 4GB of data, the price difference is £373.01 during the two years (£15.54 a month). This may seem like a lot but if you’re likely to go over the 1.5GB limit then it’s worth paying for more data to avoid penalty charges.

How to save more money on your iPhone

Trading in an old phone can cut your costs and several providers, such as Vodafone, offer a service for this. You could also sell the phone through a re-selling website or through an auction website such as eBay.

Our article Where to sell your old mobile to pay for the new iPhone has more information and ideas on where to look.

Before you buy a new phone also check cashback websites, such as Quidco and TopCashback, as they often pay out cashback on purchases through mobile phone providers. You can find out more in our article The top cashback websites.

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