Koodo, Fido, and Virgin reduce talk and text plan by $5/mo

Fido, Koodo, and Virgin Plus have all lowered the cost of their basic talk and text plans by $5/mo.

The change appears to have happened sometime in the last few days. Previously, all three flanker brands priced the talk and text plans at $32/mo — now, the same plans cost $27/mo. Interestingly, Koodo lists the $27/mo talk and text plan as a limited-time offer promotion.

Talk and text plans are exactly as they sound — they just have talk and text. Data access is ‘pay-per-use,’ which means it’s quite expensive. Koodo charges $13 for 100MB, Virgin charges $15 per 100MB, and Fido doesn’t appear to publish the overage costs on its site since adding a data overage protection feature that pauses data and asks customers to buy additional data if they want to keep using it. When that feature launched in 2019, it cost $15 for 1GB — it’s not clear if that price changed.

Anyway, the price change makes the talk and text plans slightly better value for customers who don’t need any data, although they’re far from the best. Public Mobile, Chatr, and Lucky Mobile all offer $25/mo plans with unlimited talk and text plus 1GB of data at 3G speed (Chatr and Lucky actually offer 500MB of data and a bonus 500MB for customers who get auto pay, which totals to 1GB).

In other words, there are still better value options out there for people who don’t need a lot for their mobile plan. As a reminder, Koodo and Public Mobile are Telus flanker brands, Fido and Chatr are Rogers flanker brands, and Virgin and Lucky are Bell flanker brands.

Koodo, Fido, and Virgin also recently rolled out cheaper $60/20GB and $55/10GB plans, and then added a $5/mo bill credit for 12 months.