MWeb on Octotel 2026

Every MWeb Octotel line is sold at a promotional rate for 3 months and then steps up by exactly R150/mo. The step is the same rand figure on all 6 tiers, which means it bites hardest at the bottom: R150 on R579 is 26%, against 10% on 1000/200 Mbps. The table below prices all 6 lines over 12 months and over 24 months, charging the promo months at the promo rate and the rest at the standing rate.

The gap between the advertised figure and the averaged one is the part worth budgeting for. 55/25 Mbps is advertised at R579 and averages R712/mo across the first year — R133/mo more than the number on the advert, or R1 350 across the year.

No once-off charge is folded into any total above. MWeb’s own product feed lists an order-processing fee against these lines, but it publishes no single combined once-off figure, so this site records the field as not established rather than guessing one. Every rival’s published once-off is stated separately in the comparison below, which is the only way to read those totals side by side honestly.

Octotel is open access: 5 of the ISPs we track resell the identical physical line, so on any tier they both sell, the only differences are price, contract and support. There are 6 tiers where MWeb competes with at least one other seller.

The headline ranking and the first-year ranking disagree

Advertised price and cost of ownership are not the same ordering, and on Octotel they part company on 3 of the 6 contested tiers. MWeb leads on advertised price on 0 of them and on 12-month recurring cost on only 0. The cause is structural rather than a quirk of one package: MWeb’s discount expires after 3 months, and several rivals carry a lower standing rate for the nine months that follow.

The clearest single case is 300/200 Mbps. MWeb is R870/mo above RSAweb on the advert — the kind of gap a reader waves away. Over twelve months it is R5 830, which is 6.7x what the monthly difference implies. That is the entire argument for printing a cost-of-ownership column next to an advertised price, and it is why this site does.

The figure below ranks the same pool twice over — as advertised, and as it actually bills — so the rows that move are visible at a glance.

Over 24 months the promo matters less and the standing rate is almost the whole bill, which reorders the table again — this is the view that counts if you are not planning to move.

A comparison that only lists what the subject sells is not a comparison. These Octotel tiers are live with another ISP and absent from MWeb’s range, so if one of them is the line you want, no amount of comparing MWeb prices will get you there.

Octotel raised its recommended retail prices on 1 May 2026, across 8 tiers. These are the network’s own figures rather than any one ISP’s, and they matter here for one reason: a wholesale increase eventually reaches every reseller on the network, MWeb included, so a promotional rate today is not a guide to the standing rate in a year.

The full timeline of South African fibre price moves in 2026, network by network, is in our 2026 fibre price increase record.

Octotel had 372 000 homes passed and 121 800 connected as at Jun 2025 (TeleGeography) — an uptake rate of 32.7%. That is a mid-sized network by national standards and a dense one locally: Octotel’s build is concentrated in Cape Town rather than spread nationally, which is why coverage is the first question on this page and price is the second.

In ISPA’s own survey of the networks, Octotel scores 7.5 from 18 rating ISPs — the highest of the 8 networks classed as major, above Openserve on 6.5 and Vumatel on 5.6. Worth reading for what it is: the ISPs who install and support on the network rating the network, not a customer poll (its score moved +0.1 on the previous survey).

On the ISP side, MWeb scored 72.6% satisfaction in MyBroadband’s Q1 2026 analysis of ~1 million speed tests, placing it 2 of 12 ISPs measured. A well-regarded ISP on the best-regarded major network is a real argument for paying a little more — it is not an argument for paying R5 830 more over a year, which is what the worst tier on this page costs.

We earn a commission when a reader orders through MWeb, and none when they order through most of the ISPs named below. Here is the honest version anyway, because a comparison that only ever recommends the link that pays is not a comparison.

Take MWeb on Octotel if…

• You are moving within 3 months — if you will not be on the line long enough to meet the step-up, the advertised price is the price you pay, and MWeb leads on 0 of 6 tiers on that basis.
• Value per megabit is what you are buying — 1000/200 Mbps at R1 509 works out to R1.51/Mbps, against R11.25/Mbps on 55/55 Mbps.
• You want the router and the support included — a free-to-use managed router, replaced free if it fails, plus MWeb’s 72.6% satisfaction score behind it.

Look elsewhere if…

• You want 100/100 Mbps — RSAweb costs R8 648 over twelve months against MWeb’s R11 178, a difference of R2 530 for the identical physical line. MWeb looks cheaper on the advert at this tier and is not cheaper over a year.
• You want 300/200 Mbps — RSAweb costs R9 548 over twelve months against MWeb’s R15 378, a difference of R5 830 for the identical physical line. MWeb looks cheaper on the advert at this tier and is not cheaper over a year.
• You want 500/200 Mbps — Webafrica costs R14 748 over twelve months against MWeb’s R16 698, a difference of R1 950 for the identical physical line. MWeb looks cheaper on the advert at this tier and is not cheaper over a year.
• You want 20/10 Mbps, 25/25 Mbps, 80/20 Mbps, 2500/2500 Mbps — MWeb does not sell these tiers on Octotel at all. RSAweb sells 20/10 Mbps at R399; RSAweb sells 25/25 Mbps at R525; RSAweb sells 80/20 Mbps at R835; RSAweb sells 2500/2500 Mbps at R995.
• Your address does not show Octotel — then none of the prices above can help you, and comparing them is wasted effort. Octotel is a largely Cape Town footprint, and coverage is decided by which network reached your street rather than by which ISP you prefer. Start at the fibre coverage map instead.
• You are buying the entry tier purely on monthly price — 55/55 Mbps is the worst rand-per-megabit on MWeb’s own Octotel ladder at R11.25/Mbps. That is this site’s own differentiator metric arguing against its own cheapest row, and it is usually the right advice: one rung up buys far more line per rand.

If a cheaper seller on the same line is what you are after, the full Octotel deal table prices every ISP on the network, and the cheapest fibre deals in South Africa widens it past Octotel entirely. For MWeb on other networks, see MWeb on Frogfoot, MWeb on Openserve and MWeb on Vumatel, or MWeb’s full fibre range. Our ISP rankings cover support and reliability rather than price alone.