Zen charging for changes?

SpellowHouse · 3 Sep 2025 at 11:04

I've noticed in my latest news email from Zen that they have started charging a one-off £9.95 fee for any upgrade to your package. That's new! Upgrading to a better package used to be free.

Zen do seem to be lowering themselves to more and more "tricks" to get money.

ChrisD. · 3 Sep 2025 at 11:05

Whilst still better than most ISPs they’ve been going downhill in recent years.

SpellowHouse · 6 Sep 2025 at 10:06

I think it's optional so to speak. They may attempt to charge you £9.95, but they might not. Just what they go on, I'm not sure. Perhaps it's if you need a new router for your upgrade? Not sure.

BUDFORCE · 6 Sep 2025 at 10:50

ChrisD. said:
Whilst still better than most ISPs they’ve been going downhill in recent years.

Agreed, but as you said I still think they are better than most ISPs .

I'm not planning on moving away any time soon as the service is fine and I'm on a lifetime price deal.

Avalon · 6 Sep 2025 at 11:12

Zen ceased being anything special years ago, they now trade on a legacy reputation that they keep finding new ways to erode. IDNet = Zen without some of the drama, but the underlying network is still Zen, which may or may not be an positive depending on your expectations.

Aquiss offer a better level of service/support, the only issue is you are buying Martin, and while Martin is excellent at what he does, he is a single person, and that only scales so far.

VaderDSL · 6 Sep 2025 at 11:23

They didn’t charge me when I downgraded a few months back. I had to ask not to be charged though so it’s not a given.

robj20 · 6 Sep 2025 at 16:37

Avalon said:
Zen ceased being anything special years ago, they now trade on a legacy reputation that they keep finding new ways to erode. IDNet = Zen without some of the drama, but the underlying network is still Zen, which may or may not be an positive depending on your expectations.

Aquiss offer a better level of service/support, the only issue is you are buying Martin, and while Martin is excellent at what he does, he is a single person, and that only scales so far.

I wouldn't worry about that, I imagine given the price structure a large portion of people leave after the first 12 months.
I had been considering the likes of Plusnet, but I think Zen might be a better choice.
Aquiss currently 300mb for £45. Zen 500mb for £42
Or maybe Freeola but never heard of those before.

Avalon · 7 Sep 2025 at 00:48

robj20 said:
I wouldn't worry about that, I imagine given the price structure a large portion of people leave after the first 12 months.
I had been considering the likes of Plusnet, but I think Zen might be a better choice.
Aquiss currently 300mb for £45. Zen 500mb for £42
Or maybe Freeola but never heard of those before.

It was £21/m for 900Mbit on Aquiss for 8 months and then £42 for the last 4 when I looked, that’s an average of £28/m for a faster service (admittedly the CF side).

I’ve always found price to be the least important metric when choosing an ISP, I value reliability, efficient routing/peering and UK based CS/TS that is both capable and empowered to deal with issues, that rules out most of the cheap options, and what’s largely unimportant - as they are almost all within a narrow price band other than smaller monopoly alt-net’s - is the price. The test in our household is does anyone know who our ISP is? Yayzi for example became a swear word on multiple occasions as I played fast/loose at home and it certainly didn’t pay off.