Sky broadband vs NOW broadband

Sky and NOW Broadband are essentially the same service - same network, same customer service, same add-ons - with NOW sold directly through Sky.com since its 'powered by Sky' rebrand.

NOW can be cheaper than Sky, and for those who just want broadband without the extras, that price gap is the main reason to choose it.

For faster speeds or a TV bundle, Sky is likely the better deal overall.

---

At a glance: Sky vs NOW Broadband

Top picks: Sky and NOW broadband deals

---

Quick answer: Sky or NOW broadband?

Since NOW Broadband relaunched as 'powered by Sky' in June 2024, the two services have become almost indistinguishable - same network, same customer service, same optional add-ons.

The remaining differences are:

• Price - NOW is cheaper for entry-level full fibre and part fibre plans
• Speed - NOW tops out at 300Mb; Sky goes up to 5Gbps
• Router - Sky full fibre includes the WiFi 6 Max Hub as standard; NOW customers get the older WiFi 5 Hub
• TV bundles - Sky broadband customers get discounts when bundling Sky TV; NOW customers don't
• WiFi Max - the add-on costs £4/month with Sky, £6/month with NOW

Choose NOW if you want the lowest-cost broadband and don't need the extras.

Choose Sky if you want faster speeds, a better router out of the box, or plan to bundle TV.

---

Price

Winner: NOW Broadband is cheaper at entry level, but Sky offers better value as speeds increase - and when add-ons or TV are factored in.

At entry level, NOW edges ahead by £1 - its Full Fibre 75 costs £23 per month against Sky's £24. But Sky's Full Fibre 150 is also £24, making it the better starting point for most households. Here are both providers' entry-level plans:

The picture shifts as speeds increase. NOW's Full Fibre 100 costs £25 per month, while Sky's Full Fibre 150 - a faster plan - undercuts it at £24.

While NOW's Full Fibre 300 at £30 per month starts to look poor value next to Sky's Full Fibre 500 at £28 - a faster plan for less money.

The WiFi Max add-on reinforces this pattern. NOW customers pay £6 per month; Sky customers pay £4. Both get the same router upgrade and WiFi guarantee, so the £2 gap is hard to justify - and it wipes out NOW's £1 saving at 75Mb entirely.

Both providers include a home phone line with pay-as-you-go calls as standard, with optional call plans priced identically - £8 per month for evenings and weekends, or £17 per month for anytime calls. There's also a £5 setup fee on both, refunded against the first bill.

Sky TV bundling is the one area where Sky pulls further ahead, with discounts available to Sky broadband customers that NOW customers don't receive.

Both providers apply the same £3 per month rise from April 2026. Customers who signed up on or after 4 February 2026 were told about this rise at the point of sale and won't have exit rights for it - though any future mid-contract rises would still trigger the usual 30-day penalty-free exit window.

Overall, NOW is cheaper on paper, but Sky's pricing becomes more competitive the more you add - and for many households, the gap is smaller than it first appears.

---

Broadband packages

Winner: Sky offers more speed choices and can work out cheaper once add-ons are taken - but NOW holds the edge on price for entry-level full fibre.

The key differences between NOW and Sky's package line-ups are:

• Speed ceiling - NOW tops out at 300Mb; Sky goes up to 5Gbps
• Number of plans - Sky offers more tiers, giving more flexibility
• Price at higher speeds - Sky's 500Mb plan undercuts NOW's 300Mb plan
• Add-on pricing - WiFi Max and Sky TV bundles cost less with Sky

Everything else - the network, the router, the customer service, the home phone line - is the same.

Full fibre

This is where the two providers begin to diverge. NOW offers three full fibre tiers - 75Mb, 100Mb and 300Mb - while Sky offers 75Mb, 150Mb and 500Mb.

The only direct overlap is at 75Mb, where NOW is cheaper by £1 per month. Above that, the plans don't directly compare - and Sky comes out ahead on both speed and price.

Sky's Full Fibre 150 costs £24 per month, undercutting NOW's slower Full Fibre 100 at £25. Sky's Full Fibre 500 at £28 per month is cheaper still than NOW's Full Fibre 300 at £30 - more speed, lower price.

All of the above plans run over Openreach's full fibre network and include a home phone line as standard. The router is where they differ - Sky full fibre customers get the WiFi 6 Max Hub included, while NOW customers receive the older WiFi 5 Broadband Hub unless they take the WiFi Max add-on.

For most households, the jump from 75Mb to 150Mb or 500Mb is worth considering - particularly given Sky's pricing makes it easy to justify.

Gigabit and multi-gigabit

Sky is the only option at this end of the market. Its Gigafast plan delivers average speeds of 900Mb over Openreach's full fibre network for £33 per month.

For those in areas served by CityFibre, Sky also offers multi-gigabit speeds - 2.5Gbps and 5Gbps symmetrical - on its Gigafast+ tiers. These are among the fastest residential broadband speeds available in the UK.

NOW has no gigabit or multi-gigabit plans, and no announced plans to extend its 300Mb ceiling.

Part fibre

Both providers still offer a part-fibre superfast plan using Openreach's FTTC network, with average speeds of around 67Mb. It's the cheapest entry point for both.

In practice, full fibre plans are available at similar prices and offer meaningfully better speeds and reliability. For most customers, the part-fibre option is worth skipping unless full fibre isn't yet available at their address.

At this tier the plans are essentially identical, with NOW marginally cheaper. Both include a home phone line, Sky Broadband Shield parental controls, and access to the WiFi Max add-on.

Read more in our NOW Broadband review and our Sky broadband review.

---

Broadband speed

Winner: Sky offers faster broadband speeds than NOW, with plans up to 5Gbps against NOW's 300Mb ceiling.

Both providers run over Openreach's full fibre network, so at equivalent speed tiers the real-world performance is likely to be very similar. The difference is in how far each provider's line-up extends.

NOW offers three full fibre tiers up to 300Mb, plus a part-fibre superfast option. Sky matches those entry-level tiers and then goes considerably further - 500Mb, 900Mb, and multi-gigabit speeds of 2.5Gbps and 5Gbps on CityFibre where available.

These average speeds are guaranteed to be received by at least 50% of customers during peak hours - 8pm to 10pm - making them a more meaningful benchmark than the headline figures providers have historically used.

Both Sky and NOW are signatories of Ofcom's broadband speeds code of conduct, which means they provide personalised speed estimates and a minimum speed guarantee at the point of sign-up. If a customer doesn't receive their minimum speed for three consecutive days, and the provider fails to resolve the issue within 30 days, the customer can leave their contract penalty-free.

We tested one location with both providers and were given the following estimates:

Given both services run on the same Openreach network, the estimated speeds are broadly consistent. What's interesting is that NOW's minimum speed guarantees came out slightly higher on equivalent plans - particularly at superfast level, where NOW guaranteed 60Mb against Sky's 50Mb. That's worth noting, though in practice the difference is unlikely to be felt day-to-day.

It's also worth understanding what the minimum speed guarantee covers: it's based on the line speed delivered to the router, not the speed experienced over WiFi. Wireless speeds will always be lower depending on the device, distance from the router, and home layout - which is part of why the WiFi Max add-on and its room-by-room guarantee exists.

For most households, any of the full fibre plans will deliver more than enough speed. Sky's advantage is simply that it offers more headroom - and at the higher tiers, better value too.

---

Router

Winner: Sky full fibre customers get the newer WiFi 6 Max Hub as standard - NOW customers receive the older WiFi 5 Hub unless they take the WiFi Max add-on.

Both providers use Sky's own hardware, but which router a customer receives depends on their plan and provider. Sky full fibre customers get the Sky Max Hub included as standard - a dual-band WiFi 6 router with WPA3 security, released in 2023.

NOW customers, along with Sky Superfast customers, receive the older Sky Broadband Hub instead. It's a capable router, but limited to WiFi 5 and WPA2 security - a meaningful step down for anyone with newer devices that can take advantage of WiFi 6.

The two routers are otherwise closely matched - same number of antennae, same Ethernet ports, same intelligent mesh support. The gap is specifically in wireless protocol and security standard, which matters more as WiFi 6 device adoption grows.

NOW customers can close that gap by taking the WiFi Max add-on, which includes an upgrade to the Max Hub along with a WiFi speed guarantee and up to three mesh pods. The guarantee promises a minimum wireless speed of 10Mbps in every room for plans up to 100Mb, and 25Mbps for faster full fibre plans.

The catch is cost. WiFi Max costs £6 per month with NOW and £4 per month with Sky - so NOW customers pay £2 more per month for the same equipment and guarantee that Sky full fibre customers effectively get cheaper, or in part already included as standard.

On balance, Sky full fibre customers get the better router out of the box - and if NOW customers want to match it, they'll pay more for the privilege.

---

TV & broadband bundles

Winner: Sky broadband customers get meaningful discounts when bundling Sky TV - NOW customers can add TV, but at no saving.

Both providers offer Sky TV as an add-on, but the experience differs significantly. Sky broadband customers can bundle either Sky Essential TV or Sky Ultimate TV with their broadband and pay less than they would taking the services separately. NOW customers can add Essential TV at checkout, or sign up for Sky Ultimate TV or NOW Entertainment & HBO Max separately - but there's no bundling discount either way.

Ultimate TV isn't offered to NOW customers at checkout, which matters given what the package now includes. From 26 March 2026, Sky Ultimate TV adds Disney+, HBO Max and Hayu alongside the existing Netflix, Sky Atlantic, and Discovery+ offering - making it one of the more comprehensive TV packages available.

Here's how the bundle pricing compares:

The contrast is stark. Sky's Full Fibre 150 with Essential TV comes to £35 per month - a faster broadband plan, bundled with TV, for £3 less than NOW's Full Fibre 75 with Essential TV at £38, where no discount applies. Sky's bundling discounts effectively eliminate NOW's price advantage and then some.

For households that want both broadband and a broad streaming package, Sky Ultimate TV at £22 per month brings over 150 live channels plus Netflix, Disney+, HBO Max, Hayu, Discovery+, Prime Video, Paramount+, and Apple TV+. Taken with Sky broadband, the bundle discount makes it hard to justify going elsewhere.

NOW customers can still access HBO Max content through NOW Entertainment & HBO Max at £9.99 per month on a flexible, cancel-anytime basis - and introductory offers have brought that as low as £2.99 to £5.99 per month on a 12-month contract. Those prices look designed to lock customers in ahead of HBO Max launching as a standalone app, so are unlikely to last.

Read more in our guide to Sky TV versus NOW TV.

---

Call plans

Winner: It's a tie - call plans are identically priced across both providers.

Both NOW and Sky include a home phone line as standard, with pay-as-you-go calls included in the monthly price. Neither provider includes any calls by default, but customers can add an evening and weekend or anytime plan for an extra monthly fee.

Both plans cover calls to UK landlines and UK mobiles. Pricing is identical across NOW and Sky - a consequence of the 'powered by Sky' integration, which aligned calling charges that previously gave NOW a competitive edge.

For those looking to keep home phone costs down, read more on the cheapest way to get a home phone service.

---

Customer service

Winner: Sky - and for new NOW customers, that's effectively the same thing.

Since the 'powered by Sky' rebrand in June 2024, all new NOW Broadband customers have their service handled directly by Sky. In practice, signing up to NOW now means dealing with Sky's customer service teams - which, on the available evidence, is no bad thing.

Sky consistently ranks among the lowest for broadband complaints. In Ofcom's Q3 2025 data, Sky recorded just 6 complaints per 100,000 customers, against an industry average of 8. Only Plusnet, at 4 per 100,000, performed better.

NOW Broadband no longer appears in Ofcom's Q3 2025 broadband complaints table. The legacy standalone customer base has fallen below Ofcom's reporting threshold of 1.5% market share - a reflection of how completely the migration to 'NOW powered by Sky' has shifted the customer base across to Sky's platform.

When NOW did appear in Ofcom's data, its record was mixed. It started well when first reported in early 2022, but complaints rose sharply in Q1 2024 and Q2 2024, largely due to poor complaints handling during the transition period. That context is largely historical now - those customers are either on Sky's systems or have moved on.

Ofcom's 2025 satisfaction report adds further texture. Sky scored 84% overall satisfaction, with 63% satisfied with complaints handling and a call wait time of 46 seconds. Neither figure is exceptional, but the low complaint rate suggests most customers don't need to call in the first place.

For new NOW customers, the customer service picture is straightforward - they get Sky's service, Sky's call centres, and Sky's complaint record. On current data, that's a reasonable place to be.

---

Verdict: Sky Broadband or NOW Broadband?

Overall Winner: Sky - but NOW remains the right choice for anyone who just wants affordable, no-frills broadband.

The 'powered by Sky' rebrand has made this comparison simpler in some ways and more nuanced in others. NOW Broadband and Sky are now essentially the same service - same network, same customer service, same add-ons. The differences that remain are price, speed ceiling, router, and bundling discounts.

The integration has also stripped away what once made NOW distinctive. There are no longer any discounts for bundling with NOW TV, call plans are identically priced, and the router is a step behind unless customers pay extra. NOW is now Sky in all but name - just without the perks.

That said, NOW holds a genuine price advantage at entry level, and remains one of the cheapest broadband deals available from a major provider. For customers who just want reliable broadband without extras, that's reason enough to choose it.

Choose NOW if:

• You want the lowest possible monthly price and don't need extras
• Speeds of up to 300Mb are sufficient for your household
• You're happy with the WiFi 5 router and don't need the WiFi Max add-on

Choose Sky if:

• You want faster broadband - Sky goes up to 5Gbps where available
• You plan to take WiFi Max - it's £2 per month cheaper than with NOW
• You want to bundle Sky TV - discounts only apply to Sky broadband customers
• You want the newer WiFi 6 Max Hub included as standard

For most households, Sky is the stronger overall package. But for those who want to keep things simple and costs low, NOW still does the job well.

Read more on Sky TV vs NOW TV, or read our Sky broadband review for more on the packages and add-ons available.