Mobile Network Comparison

Giffgaff remit payback payments every six months in December and June. The latest payback period ran from December 2013 to May 2014 and the budget virtual network just released the latest statistics from their most recent payout. Payback is their way of providing mutual returns to their members that they have been doing since they first launched. This time the total paid out was over £2.4 million!

Giffgaff market themselves as “the network run by you”. This means that they go to significant efforts to solicit feedback from their users and also reward users for helping out in their community forms. They save money by relying on users as the front-line customer support. And the forums are filled with useful members willing to help out with minor issues such a APN settings or activating a SIM card.

In return for their work, Giffgaff rewards helpful users with payback – money that they can choose to receive either as airtime credit, cold hard cash or as a charitable donation. Keeping in theme, Giffgaff allow its members to choose the charities each payback period and match all the contributions with their own donation.

Payback is processed every six months in June and December and, as Giffgaff has grown as a network, the amount of people helping out has grown massively as has the amount of money paid back to the community. We’ve been carefully charting Giffgaff’s paybacksince the first payments went out back in June 2010.

We put together the graph below keep track of Giffgaff’s payback payments so far. What do you think will happen to the trend in the future?

When the network first started, the total payback given out was only £27,000. But it soon reached a quarter of a million and by May 2012, Giffgaff had massively expanded and payouts hit over £1 million for the first time. The graph got even steeper over the next year or so before levelling off just below £2.5 million where it is right now.

They have also been giving more and more to charity. In 2011, after Giffgaff doubled the amounts, donations were about £15,000. And in the last twelve months generous users have contributed over £50,000 to charity which Giffgaff have doubled again. Overall, over £200,000 has been even away in total.

Giffgaff’s CEO Mike Fairman has also revealed that members such as uzzyy have earned about £20,000 a year from working with the network. The top earner regularly makes over £10,000 every six months.

For more information, check out this cool infographic. But to summarise, Giffgaff stats also show that members from London earn over £1 million every payback period with the West Midlands not far behind and the North West of England making almost £1.6 million! If you’d like to earn payback too you should get involved and sign up to a Giffgaff account.

Ordering a SIM card to get started is completely free. You also get £5 free credit to start you off and you will be able to start earning as soon as your activate your SIM card. You don’t even need to use it – just having an active SIM qualifies you to get payback payments!

Are you a Giffgaff customer already? How much payback did you earn this time round? And what’s your best guess for the total paid out next time in December?

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On Monday, Giffgaff paid out a total of £2.4 million to all their members as a payback bonus. Over the last few years, that makes the total earned over £8 million and the amount only seems to be increasing year-on-year. It’s all part of their founding philosophy of mutual giving that is reflected in their very name and rewards everyone who helps the network grow by posting in the forums and recommending their plans to friends.

If you want to join Giffgaff to get involved in the payback scheme and earn your share of the next multi-million pound payout, simply join through the link above. This way you’ll start off with £5 free credit at no extra cost to yourself.

Giffgaff aims to involve their customers as much as possible in running aspects of the network such as customer service and help as well as generating new leads. Because this is done in a social crowdsourced way, they can save huge amounts of money compared to traditional marketing techniques and thus offer far better prices than the competition. There’s even a hefty chunk left over to return to everyone who plays a role in the running of the virtual network.

Payback is processed every six months in June and December and, as Giffgaff has grown as a network, the amount of people helping out has grown massively as has the amount of money paid back to the community. We’ve been carefully charting Giffgaff’s payback since the first payments went out back in June 2010.

Members can choose to either receive their payback earnings as airtime credit to spend on calls, texts, internet or bundles goodybags. Alternatively they can donate it to a charity of the community’s choice or get it as cold hard cash. Some people do very well from this – over the last six months, one member even somehow earned a massive total of £17,000!

We’re especially happy to see that Giffgaff include charity as part of their mutual giving philosophy. Last payback the network’s members donated a massive £12,150 and Giffgaff doubled that making the total £24,300. We’re sure you agree that it’s fantastic that charities can be benefiting from these amounts of money.

This June Giffgaff paid out almost £2 million and the time before that their total was £1.85 million. So the trend is steadily increasing and seems to be pretty sustainable. We wouldn’t be surprised if the next payback period got close to a total of £3 million paid out.

The charities chosen this time round are the very worthy Disasters Emergency Committee and The Alzheimer’s Society. The userbase excelled themselves this time round and, once the donations were matched by the generous people at Giffgaff, the total given to charity was an amazing £58,000.

We put together the graph at the top of the page to chart the history of Giffgaff’s payback payments so far. What do you think will happen to the trend in the future? Are you involved in Giffgaff’s payback scheme? And how much do you predict they will give away new June?

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Since last Thursday, Giffgaff have been paying out millions of pounds back to their members. It’s a process of sharing and mutual returns that they have been doing since they first launched only a few years ago. This time the total paid out was almost £2 million!

Presumably taking a bit of inspiration from employee-owed businesses such as Waitrose and John Lewis, Giffgaff aims to be “the network run by you”. While this is not true in any real legal sense, Giffgaff have always gone to significant efforts to solicit feedback from their users and the Ideas forum is replete with suggestions that will eventually come to light as implemented features.

What’s more, Giffgaff actively seek the involvement of the community in other aspects of running a mobile network. They save money by relying on users as the front-line customer support. And the forums are filled with useful members willing to help out with minor issues such a APN settings or activating a SIM card.

Giffgaff also have relied strongly on word of mouth to promote their services. Much of their new customer base comes from member-to-member referrals and it’s been a very successful model due to the potential for exponential growth. At least in the early days, they didn’t have a big advertising spend and saved a huge amount of marketing money by asking their users to sell for them.

In return for their work on the forums and in promotional activities, Giffgaff rewards helpful users with payback – money that they can choose to receive either as airtime credit, cold hard cash or as a charitable donation. Keeping in theme, Giffgaff allow its members to choose the charities each payback period and match all the contributions with their own donation.

Payback is processed every six months in June and December and, as Giffgaff has grown as a network, the amount of people helping out has grown massively as has the amount of money paid back to the community. We’ve been carefully charting Giffgaff’s paybacksince the first payments went out back in June 2010.

Back then, the total paid out was only £27,000 and it went up steadily until June the next year when they paid out £250,000 (including £6,000 to just one member called uzzyy!) After that, things really took off as Giffgaff rapidly expanded and the payback payouts exploded too quickly reaching over £1 million in June last year. The graph got even steeper as the exponential increases continued until the last payback payment in December 2012 where members received a total of £1,850,000.

That level of growth has not turned out to be sustainable and it was with a bit of a whimper that Giffgaff announced their latest figures this June. However, the total is still going up just not as fast as before.

We do suspect that there’s a bit of disappointment at Giffgaff HQ that they didn’t hit the £2 million mark this time round. And their blog post certainly was careful not to mention that the trend is slowing down.

However, it was never going to be able to maintain that level of growth and we’d certainly say that the amount paid out is nothing less than impressive! If anything it robustly puts into perspective the amount of money that major networks must be wasting on customer service and marketing which makes it clearly why they charge so much more for calls, texts and data than Giffgaff.

We put together the graph at the top of the page to chart the history of Giffgaff’s payback payments so far. What do you think will happen to the trend in the future?

If you’d like to earn a cut of £2 million, you should get involved and sign up to a Giffgaff account. You get £5 free credit to start you off and you will be able to start earning as soon as your activate your SIM card. You don’t even need to use it – just having an active SIM qualifies you to get payback payments!

What do you think about the payback scheme? Are you involved or are you thinking about joining. Will this support and marketing model continue to be successful? And most importantly, can you tell us your prediction for the total paid out next time in December?

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