How can a business cut the cost of its mobiles?

Where does the money actually go?

On most business mobile bills, the line rental everyone agreed to isn't the problem. The waste sits around it, in charges nobody agreed to and lines nobody remembers.

Out-of-bundle charges. Unlimited UK calls and texts are standard now, but plenty still sits outside the bundle: premium-rate and some non-geographic numbers, directory enquiries, charity text donations, picture messages on older tariffs, and data once an allowance runs out. One user streaming on a train home can add more to a month's bill than their whole line rental.

Roaming. Since the UK left the EU, the big networks have brought back daily charges for using your phone in Europe on many plans. Daily passes of a few pounds per user per day are typical, although some business plans include European roaming, so check your tariff before anyone travels. Outside Europe it's far more expensive, and a phone left on data roaming in the US or the Middle East can run up hundreds of pounds in a week.

Unused lines. People leave, change roles or get a second phone for a project that ended. Their SIM goes in a drawer and the line keeps billing. On an account nobody reviews, one or two dead lines in every fifteen is common, and they're pure waste.

Wrong tariffs. A tariff chosen three years ago reflects how the team worked three years ago. Some users now burn through their data by the middle of the month; others use a tenth of a large allowance. Both cost money, one in overage and the other in capacity you're paying for and not using.

Handset financing that outlives the handset. On a traditional 24- or 36-month handset contract, the monthly price includes paying off the phone. When the contract ends, some deals keep charging the same amount unless you act. Ofcom requires providers to send end-of-contract notifications and show their best deals, but only to residential customers and to businesses and not-for-profits with ten or fewer people working for them. Larger businesses aren't covered, and even when a notice arrives it's easy to miss in someone's inbox.

Should the contracts be in the company's name?

Yes. For almost any business with two or more phones, a business contract costs less than paying for staff on personal ones, mainly because of VAT and tax. A VAT-registered business can reclaim the VAT on business line rental, and HMRC exempts one phone per employee from tax and National Insurance when the contract is between the employer and the supplier. Reimbursing personal contracts gets neither benefit, and the number leaves with the person when they go.

We compare the two side by side, with a worked example, in Are business mobile contracts cheaper than personal contracts?

Do spend caps really stop bill shock?

They're the single most effective control we know. A spend cap sets the maximum a line can be charged outside its bundle. Set it at zero and nothing outside the bundle goes through unless someone approves it: no premium-rate calls, no surprise data overage, no roaming bill discovered a month later.

A zero cap doesn't stop people working. When someone needs more data or is travelling, the business approves a top-up or roaming bundle in advance. Usage alerts at 50%, 80% and 100% of an allowance still help, but an alert tells you about a cost; a cap stops it.

How should you handle roaming?

Start with who actually travels. In most businesses it's a handful of people, and their trips are known weeks in advance. Give them a roaming bundle or a plan that includes Europe, and leave everyone else capped. For trips outside Europe, agree the arrangement before the flight, not after the bill.

Remember the fair-use rules too. Most networks start charging extra if a line spends more than about 60 days in any four months roaming, which catches staff based abroad on long projects. Those users usually need a different arrangement altogether.

Worked example: a 15-line account

This is an illustration, not a real client. Prices are round figures, per month and excluding VAT.

Example: a 15-person firm has 15 lines. Twelve people use their phones daily on 24-month handset contracts at £30 a month, and four of those contracts ended more than a year ago with no price change. Three lines belong to people who've left. There are no spend caps, so there are regular data overages and premium-rate calls, plus unplanned roaming from two staff who visit suppliers in Europe.

This example saves more than our typical figure because it has three dead lines and four paid-off handsets. An account without those would save less, which is why we quote about 20% over the contract rather than a headline number. Check whether cancelling lines early triggers termination charges before you act: sometimes it's cheaper to let them run to the end date with a zero cap.

Why reviewing the bill once isn't enough

Every audit finds savings, but six months later new starters have been added on whatever tariff was quickest and leavers haven't been removed. The fix is dull but effective: someone checks the account every month for unused lines, users hitting their limits, upcoming travel and contracts ending soon. That's why an account manager who actually opens the bill is worth more than a lower tariff.

In practice. For Erskine, the Scottish veterans charity, business mobiles were one part of a wider contract and cost review. We introduced a zero-usage policy to find and remove devices nobody was using, alongside moving other contracts to charity pricing.

How Indigo does this. Indigo Unified Communications' mobile team, led by Sales Director Nicola Armstrong from our Glasgow office, sets every line's spend cap at zero and reviews accounts at the desk throughout the contract. That typically saves businesses about 20% over the contract. We're a leading plan.com partner in Scotland, and plan.com's my.plan app lets us manage usage, caps and restrictions for each user. Business mobiles →

What to do next

1. Pull your last three bills and list every line with its user, monthly cost and out-of-bundle charges.
2. Mark any line with little or no usage in the last three months, and check who it belongs to.
3. Find each contract's end date and notice period, and diary a review three months before.
4. Ask your provider to set spend caps on every line, and agree who approves roaming and top-ups.
5. Send us a recent bill for a free business mobile bill review. We'll come back within 2 working days.