Starlink: Here’s a free satellite dish—if you pay $120 a month instead of $90

Starlink last week announced a new deal for its standard hardware kit, giving the satellite dish and Wi-Fi router for free to customers who sign up for a 12-month commitment.

The deal is reminiscent of the hardware rental agreements long used by cable companies, but Starlink’s offer has generated a bit of excitement. Some analysts suggested that the free kits are a reason for the federal government’s $42 billion broadband deployment fund to send grants to Starlink instead of to fiber-to-the-home providers, or that the government should buy Starlink kits at the regular price of $349 each so that Elon Musk’s company doesn’t have to eat the cost.

You may not be surprised to learn that the free hardware kit isn’t really free. But much of the discussion around the offer has ignored the fine details that could make a reasonable Starlink buyer decide to reject the deal. Similarly, policymakers deciding which ISPs should get government money might be wise to remember that fiber provides superior and more future-proof Internet service and that Starlink’s offers to customers could change at any time.

Starlink’s free-dish offer isn’t available nationwide, and in many of the places where it is available, you’ll be able to pay a bit less overall by buying the kit at the full price of $349. Customers in these areas who are certain they will use Starlink for at least 12 months may want the free kit in order to pay for it over a year instead of all at once, but anyone enticed by the offer should compare their options before diving in.

Where you live is a major determining factor in whether it will be worth it. In some areas, the offer with a free kit will be significantly cheaper over the first year. In other areas it will be slightly cheaper during the first year to pay the up-front price for the kit, and this might also result in a better monthly price after the first year.

Get a free kit or pay $30 less per month

Starlink is offering the free kit in parts of the US and other countries; you can see where it’s available here. The limited availability isn’t surprising since Starlink already charges different rates in different areas depending on network availability.

In early 2023, Starlink started charging $120 a month for service in areas with limited capacity and $90 a month in areas with excess capacity. Starlink also imposes a “congestion charge” on new users in high-demand areas. You can see the price at your home by going through the Starlink ordering page.

First, we’ll look at a scenario in which the $90 monthly price is available for those who buy the kit at full price. Looking at my address in Massachusetts this week, I saw two options. One option is to pay $349 up front for the Starlink Standard Kit, plus $21.81 in tax, and buy service for $90 a month with no time commitment.

The other option is to get the Starlink Standard Kit for free, plus the same $21.81 tax, and pay $120 a month while committing to at least 12 months of service. Canceling before the year is over can result in a $325 fee, but there’s a 30-day trial during which you can get a refund and not pay that fee.

With a free kit, this works out to $1,440 over 12 months, excluding the tax. Purchasing the kit for $349 and paying $90 a month adds up to $1,429 in the first 12 months. It’s a tiny bit more expensive to get the free kit, but the deal lets you spread the cost out evenly over the first year and possibly let you earn some extra interest if you invest the $349 initial savings. But a buyer’s decision still isn’t that clear-cut because there’s an unanswered question about what you’ll pay in year two.

Ordering Starlink without the free kit.

Ordering Starlink without the free kit.

Ordering Starlink with the free kit.

Ordering Starlink with the free kit.

Ordering Starlink without the free kit.

Ordering Starlink with the free kit.

What’s the price after 12 months?

The question is what the monthly service price will be after the first 12 months. Do people who choose the “free” kit have to keep paying $120 a month in the second year and beyond while those who bought the kit for $349 keep paying $90 a month?

I contacted Starlink support to ask those specific questions about the price after 12 months. I received a vague response that did not answer my questions and a link to an FAQ that I had already read. I also contacted SpaceX’s media relations team with the same questions yesterday and received no response.

If I were buying Starlink service, I would assume that the $120 price doesn’t automatically drop to $90 after the 12-month commitment and that I’d have to contact SpaceX at that time and hope to get a $30 price cut. Operating under that assumption, I’d feel more comfortable buying the kit at full price and paying $90 a month from the beginning.

Starlink could raise that price at any time—either by declaring the area to have limited capacity or simply by changing the standard rates. But taking the $90 price from the beginning strikes me as more likely to work out in my favor in the long run. This is just guesswork, and perhaps the process of changing plans would be as easy as Starlink describes on its website. However, in the absence of a specific answer from Starlink about this scenario, I would be hesitant to start out with the $120 price in any area where the $90 price is available.

Free kit not available with $80 lite plan

Complicating matters is that in some areas, Starlink offers a Residential Lite plan that costs less than the standard plan and has slower speeds. Starlink explains that Residential Lite is “deprioritized compared to Residential service during peak hours,” and that “speeds should range from 50 – 100 Mbps (as compared to 150 – 250 Mbps for the Residential service plan.” The free kit wasn’t available with this tier of service when I tested the ordering site this week.