The money is closer than the technology. Imagine 5G Unlimited at €50 is €1,200 over 24 months, nothing up front, router yours at the end. Starlink 200 Mb at €55 is €1,320 before the dish — often €0 up front on promotion, around €349 at list. Starlink’s €35 tier is the only line here that beats Imagine on raw monthly, and it is also the thinnest pipe in a busy evening cell.
We score Imagine 8.1 and Starlink 7.6. Imagine wins on price, on the freeze (“the standard monthly price of your plan will not increase before December 2030” is the actual wording) and on having a human with a ladder. Starlink wins on coverage — it does not care where the nearest mast is — and on the cleanest exit when the NBI engineer is booked. Your Eircode decides: run Imagine’s checker first; if it is green with a strong signal, stop there. Rural shortlist: best rural broadband in Ireland. Dates: when is NBI coming.
Quick comparison
Side by side from published August 2026 prices and contract terms — the same data behind our best-broadband ranking. Green highlights the better figure on that row. Speeds are advertised headlines, not lab results we invented. Availability is always by Eircode.
| Imagine | Starlink | |
|---|---|---|
| Our score | 8.1 | 7.6 |
| Intro from | €40 | €35 |
| Thereafter from | €40 | €35 |
| Headline speed | 300 Mb | 200 Mb |
| Annual rise | No | No |
| Networks | Fixed wireless, 5G home, SIRO, NBI | Satellite |
| TV bundle | No | No |
Two-year cost: Imagine’s €1,200 with no kit vs Starlink’s €840–€1,800 plus a dish
Line the plans up over 24 months, because that is how long a rural household usually sits on a bridge product. Imagine 5G Basic is €40 (€960), 5G Unlimited €50 (€1,200), and the antenna-installed Unlim-Pro €60 (€1,440). No intro-then-jump: thereafter is the same number and the freeze holds the standard price to December 2030. The Unlim-Pro install is €150 on the pricing guide but currently advertised as free for new customers — check the tile the day you order.
Starlink Residential is €35, €55 or €75 on the plans we track, rolling monthly, unlimited data: €840, €1,320 or €1,800 over two years. Then the hardware. SpaceX has flipped between kit included, a deposit and a paid Standard Kit several times; in August 2026 it is often €0 up front, with a list price around €349 if you buy outright or fail to return it. Add a pole or ridge mount (typically €50–€100) — the kit’s stand is for a lawn test, not a winter in Mayo. Priced honestly, Starlink beats Imagine only on the €35 tier, and only if the dish really is free. By type: cheapest broadband in Ireland.
A mast you can point at vs a constellation you cannot
Imagine runs its own licensed fixed-wireless network on masts in every county — the company has put the figure at roughly 300 sites — and sells three things off it: a self-install 5G router (Basic and Unlimited, up to 300 Mb), a tech-installed outdoor antenna product (Unlim-Pro, up to 450 Mb), plus SIRO and NBI fibre where it has wholesale access. For this page the fibre is irrelevant: if Imagine can sell you NBI, buy the fibre and skip both wireless products. What matters is whether a mast has a clean shot at the house. The antenna install exists because an indoor router behind a 600 mm stone wall often does not.
Starlink has no mast. The dish talks to whichever satellite is overhead, which changes every few minutes, so the requirement is not line of sight in one direction but a wide, mostly unobstructed patch of sky — the Starlink app’s obstruction scan is the equivalent of Imagine’s coverage checker; run it before you pay. That is why Starlink wins the address with no mast in range, and loses the address with a mature ash on the south side: a fixed antenna can be aimed around one tree; a dish cannot be aimed around the sky. Primer: fibre vs 5G vs Starlink.
Upload and latency for the home office: neither is fibre, but one is closer
Headline downloads flatter both. Imagine advertises up to 300 Mb on the self-install plans and 450 Mb on the antenna product; Starlink advertises 100 / 200 / 400 Mb by tier. We score Starlink 7.8 on speed and Imagine 7.4, and the gap is mostly upload: Starlink’s tiers list 15 / 20 / 30 Mb up, enough for a Teams call and a cloud backup at once. Imagine publishes no upload figure on 5G; Irish 5G home reports typically sit in the tens of Mb and fall off when the cell is busy.
Latency is where Starlink changed the rural conversation: low-earth-orbit round trips are typically 25–50 ms — calls and gaming work — where old geostationary satellite was 600 ms. Imagine 5G is similar or a little better when the mast is close and quiet. Both congest at 8pm; Starlink’s busy-cell planning figure is roughly 100–200 Mb down, Imagine’s depends on how many neighbours share the sector. For a two-video-call household either works; for all-day 4K uploads, Starlink 200 Mb or the Imagine antenna tier, not the €35 or €40 entry plans. Guides: working from home and what speed do I need.
Freeze to December 2030 and a wrap-up fee vs rolling monthly and a 30-day trial
Imagine’s contract score (9.3) rests on two promises. The freeze: every tile says “Price frozen until Dec 2030”, and the small print reads that “the standard monthly price of your plan will not increase before December 2030.” Note standard — an intro discount can still end. Leave-anytime: no minimum term, tell them before the 27th of the month. The catch is the Service Wrap-Up Fee inside 24 months: €60 on the self-install 5G plans, €200 on the antenna-installed Unlim-Pro, because an engineer must recover the outdoor unit. Stay 24 months and the fee is waived and the kit is yours. Imagine’s April 2025 5G guide carried a CPI+3% April clause from 2027; the October 2025 and March 2026 guides do not — keep the guide dated for your join month.
Starlink’s 9.5 is simpler. Residential is month to month, no wrap-up charge, no engineer to send back; cancel in the app and it stops at the end of the billing period. Starlink’s standard 30-day trial lets you return the kit for a refund if the obstruction scan lied — confirm the return window at checkout, because hardware terms are what SpaceX changes most. The trade is that nothing is frozen: Starlink has cut and raised Irish prices at will, and a rolling plan gets the new number next month. Only Starlink’s exit is €0 in month 18. Rules: early termination fees. Rolling options: no-contract broadband.
House with a mast in view vs house in the trees: who actually connects
Coverage is the widest gap on the scorecard — Starlink 9.9, Imagine 7.6 — so check Imagine first: if the Eircode checker is green you are done cheaper. Its masts favour the rural ring around towns and main-road corridors; deep boreens, valleys and the far side of a hill are where it goes amber or no. The self-install router shows a live signal reading; if it is two bars behind stone, ask for the antenna product instead. The engineer mounts the outdoor unit on the gable or chimney facing the mast, runs the cable (extra cabling over 30 m was chargeable on older guides), fits the Wi-Fi 7 router and tests before leaving — a missed appointment or a house that is not ready can cost up to €150.
Starlink is the address-agnostic answer. No mast, no Eircode table: if the app’s sky scan is mostly clear, it works, from Malin Head to Mizen. Installation is yours — the Standard Kit’s stand suits a lawn test; for Irish weather you want a ridge, pole or gable mount and a cable through a wall, which a handyman will do for a few hundred euro. The failure mode is the yard that cannot see enough sky: a courtyard farmhouse, a site under a beech avenue, a north-facing slope with forestry above. There the obstruction percentage climbs, the link drops for seconds at a time, and no tier fixes it. Tool: check broadband by Eircode. Map: NBI explained.
The mast-covered family vs the end-of-the-boreen site
Imagine is for the rural family with a green checker who wants a bill to forget about until NBI. Take 5G Unlimited at €50 rather than Basic at €40 unless you genuinely use under 650 GB: past the cap, Basic drops to 5 Mb until the first of the month (€10 buys 100 GB more; 1am–7am downloads do not count). Unlimited and Unlim-Pro carry a 1 TB fair-use ceiling beyond which Imagine reserves the right to suspend — a console-and-4K household can brush that. Renters should stay on the self-install tiers: a €60 wrap-up fee is a nuisance, a €200 one plus an antenna on someone else’s gable is a conversation with the landlord.
Starlink is for the one-off site: the farmhouse at the end of two kilometres of lane, the island house, the holiday home used eight weeks a year (you can pause the plan, which Imagine cannot do), the self-build where NBI is “under construction” for another eighteen months. It also suits the household that already had a weak Imagine signal and wants something that does not depend on one sector of one mast. Take 200 Mb if anyone works from home; €35 is fine for a couple who stream and browse. Decision tree: Starlink vs NBI. Families: best broadband for families.
An Irish engineer and a call centre vs an app and a ticket
We score Imagine 8.4 on service and Starlink 7.0, and the difference is a van. Imagine is Irish-owned, answers an Irish number, and on the antenna product sends an engineer to install, test and — if the fault is its network or kit — fix for free. A call-out for something that turns out to be your own wiring is €150. Its reputation is mixed the way every wireless ISP’s is: fine while the sector is quiet, sharp complaints when a mast gets busy or a storm knocks an antenna off alignment and the appointment queue is a week long.
Starlink support is the app, a help centre and a ticket. Nobody in Ireland will climb your roof for SpaceX; if the dish fails you post it back and wait. Reliability in Irish weather is better than its reputation — rain fade is brief, the heated dish shrugs off frost — but Atlantic gales test the mount, not the satellite, so over-spec the fixings. Neither sells TV; Imagine has a voice add-on, Starlink does not. If you need a person with a ladder on a Tuesday, that is Imagine. If you want nobody in your house at all, that is Starlink. Landline: do I need a landline. Indoors: Wi-Fi dead zones.
Which should you choose?
It comes down to the line at the house, then the bill. Here’s the quick way to decide.
Choose Imagine if
Imagine’s checker is green and the 5G router shows a strong signal at the window (or you are happy to let the engineer mount the outdoor antenna on the mast-facing gable). You want a monthly locked until December 2030 and a two-year bill around €1,200 with nothing up front. You can live with a 1 TB fair-use ceiling and you are not expecting fibre-class upload.
Check Imagine →
Choose Starlink if
Imagine is a no, or marginal, at the address — or the only line to the mast runs through a shelter belt of spruce. You have a clear patch of sky and are comfortable fixing a dish yourself. You want rolling monthly with no wrap-up fee so you can cancel the week NBI connects, and you will pay €55–€75 for headroom rather than gamble on the €35 tier.
Check Starlink →Advertiser disclosure: we earn a commission when you buy through links on this page. This never affects our scores or the winner of each round.
