How the numbers are made

What each figure counts

Every count OpenStream states about itself comes from one registry, with the words that say what it counts attached to it. Several of them are three-figure numbers of different things, so they are listed together here rather than left to be read side by side: the priced plans we serve today are not the rows in the captured catalogue, the brands on NBN Co's register are not the brands with a priced plan, and the pages that answer a question are not plans. Provider pages are re-read every hour, so a count read now and the same count read in an hour can differ and both be right; which reading each figure is from is in the last column.

Counts on this page are one reading of the OpenStream dataset, version 2026-11-08.live, newest read 2026-11-08. Prices are re-read through the day, so a count here and the same count read an hour later can differ; each says what it counts.

Definitions

Ongoing price is the monthly price a plan costs after any introductory period ends, including GST. Intro price is the lower price charged for a stated number of months first; the first-year cost is the intro months at the intro price and the rest at the ongoing price. Quotable row is a plan whose price was read on the provider's own page twice at least an hour apart and re-read within the last day; only quotable rows lead a tier, an answer or a bill check. Typical evening speed is the download speed a provider says its plan achieves between 7 pm and 11 pm, as the provider publishes it. Delivered speed is the ACCC's Measuring Broadband Australia figure: busy-hour download as a share of the plan's advertised speed, measured from whitebox units in homes. Reference price is the regulator's benchmark for an electricity network and usage (the Default Market Offer or, in Victoria, the Victorian Default Offer), against which an estimate is stated. Estimate, on an electricity or gas plan, is OpenStream's arithmetic on the plan's published supply and usage rates at a stated annual usage; it is never a retailer quote.

Price changes

A change is the diff between two reads of the same page, published with both values, the timestamp and references to both snapshots. Only a price proven to be the ongoing price (a "then $X/mo" pattern on the page) can replace the served price, and only when it moves less than 15%. Larger moves and promotional prices are recorded and shown as annotations, pending review, while the verified price keeps serving.

Estimated margin

Margin is shown only where a genuine public wholesale reference exists. For NBN that is the SAU flat-rate wholesale charge for the plan's speed tier (FY27 tariff list). The calculation is: advertised price ÷ 1.1 (removing GST) minus the ex-GST wholesale charge. It excludes backhaul, CVC-style overage, support, marketing and every other retailer cost, so it is an upper bound on gross margin against the network charge, not a profit figure. Mobile plans carry no margin because MVNO wholesale contracts are private. Plans whose ongoing-price basis is unverified show no margin either.

What is never done

• No price, provider or plan is invented to fill a gap. A provider with no captured price shows as pending.
• No estimate is presented as a fact. Where a figure cannot be derived from a public reference, the field is empty and says why.
• No row is served without a citation: a source, a capture time, a last-confirmed time and a reference to the stored raw page.

Known limitations

• Some providers block automated fetches or render prices only with JavaScript; their rows keep the baseline date until a fetch succeeds. The date is shown rather than hidden.
• Promotional pricing is captured where the page states it, but promo eligibility, term and modem fees vary; always check the cited page before buying.
• Plan matching between sources is conservative; an unmatched plan is listed separately rather than merged by guess.

Insurance

Private health insurance premiums are reproduced from the Private Health Insurance Ombudsman's monthly open data release (data.gov.au, CC BY 3.0 AU), per policy, per state, before the government rebate and any lifetime health cover loading; the release date is on every page. Policies closed to new members, corporate-only products (by the release's flag or the word in the policy's name) and products sold only with another are left out of every ranking. An excess is the per-person figure where the release states one, else the per-policy figure. No insurer pays OpenStream for a health listing or a link; if that changes it will be stated here and on the page before any link carries it. Car, travel, life and pet insurance are financial products: those pages name the insurers on APRA's registers and link their own product pages, with no prices, ranking or recommendation, because OpenStream holds no Australian financial services licence.

How we make money

Some providers pay OpenStream when a visitor we send activates a service: a flat referral fee agreed in writing (our standard proposal is on the partners page), or an affiliate commission through a network, shown as “sponsored” on the link. Payment never changes the order: every plan is ranked by price whether or not its provider pays, nothing is promoted, and a brand that pays nothing is listed the same way. Who pays today, how many links are tracking links and which link networks are on is read live on how we are paid.

Reuse and citation

The data is published under a CC-BY style licence: reuse freely with attribution to OpenStream and the dataset version shown on the page. Machine-readable access: the REST API and MCP server, llms.txt, and the OpenAPI document. Provider pages are re-read every hour (a plain fetch on the hour, a rendered browser read at a quarter past); the status page shows every run.

Corrections and removal requests: corrections and complaints or support@openstream.com.au. This site is built in the open with Claude Code; AI can make mistakes, which is why every figure cites its source.

Who else answers these questions: the comparison-site landscape in Australia, alphabetical, with each site's first archived year and address.