We’ve heard your feedback loud and clear about Google’s decision to partner with Telstra as their exclusive carrier partner in Australia for the upcoming Pixels phones, and this tip this afternoon is likely to be quite helpful to you if you’re an existing Telstra customer, or prepared to become one.

By following this advice, you can get your Pixel on what is effectively a 24 month instalment plan, with no interest, and you get better value than Telstra’s advertised plans. Here’s how it works.

How to get a better value Pixel on a new plan

Off the shelf, Telstra’s $85 plan gives you a Pixel with 500 mins of calls and unlimited texts, and just 1GB of data. This doesn’t sound like amazing value, and it isn’t really. So let’s hack.

Telstra Currently offers a $20 SIM-Only casual plan. This plan has zero call inclusions, data inclusions or texts. It’s just a SIM. When used, all costs are added on top. For example if you made a 1-min call, your bill would be $21 for the month.

To this, we can add a couple of things:

It’s possible to add a 24 month device payment to that SIM plan. This means you can add the Pixel / Pixel XL or any other device you choose. This is done by dividing the phone cost over 24 months. The Pixel 32GB currently retails at $1,080AUD through Telstra’s system. So dividing $1,080 by 24 gives us $45 per month.

You can add a Voice and Data Pack to the $20 SIM. One of the options Telstra offers is $15 for 2GB, Unlimited Calls and Unlimited Texts.

This gives you a plan that comes to $80 a month (being $45 for the phone, $20 for the service, and a $15 voice/data pack). That’s $5 less than Telstra’s lowest advertised plan for the Pixel, with twice the data, and unlimited calls.

This can be applied to any phone, including the 128GB models, so there’s definitely a bit of value to be found here.

Of course, if you’re looking at higher end plans, the value does tend to fade out a little. For example, if you take Telstra’s $50 BYO SIM plan, you get 5GB of data on top of the unlimited calls/SMS, and a $45 phone instalment takes you to $95 a month.

This compares well to Telstra’s Medium plan, which is $94 a month, and only has 3GB of data. However, if you jump to $99 (or just $5 more per month) you get Telstra’s Large plan, which has 10GB of data.

So, if you’re looking at the lower end of plan inclusions, and if $15 a month can make a big difference to you, this might be a good way to get a good deal from Telstra. Our advice is that you can’t do this online, it has to be ordered in store, but a Telstra rep will be glad to help you set this up. It’s not advertised, but it doesn’t mean it’s not available to any customers who ask.