FREE Starlink Mini Kit? 2026-01-19
Starlink’s latest service plan update includes a free Mini Kit, but there is a catch
I received an email on 15 January from Starlink titled “Service Plan Update | Residential Max”,the sort of email I would normally delete without a second thought. I nearly did exactly that. But not on this occasion.
At the time, I was on Starlink’s Residential Plan, which in Kent came with a rather haughty “congestion charge” of £195. That was on top of the £299 I had already paid for the Standard New Gen antenna and router kit I bought at the end of July 2025. The monthly subscription itself is £75.
Why I Installed Starlink
I installed Starlink at our home because our previous internet connection from Sky came via a traditional telephone line and simply couldn’t deliver the bandwidth our household of four heavy media users needs in the remote countryside of Kent. Starlink did not disappoint.
Download speeds jumped to anywhere between 150 and 340 Mbps, compared to Sky, which capped out at around 60 Mbps at best. Upload speeds were even more dramatic...roughly 10× faster, averaging around 80 Mbps. The difference in day-to-day use was immediate and obvious.
The Limitation of Residential
One thing I always liked about Starlink in theory was the idea of taking your internet with you...being able to stay connected wherever you travel. However, that simply wasn’t possible on the standard Residential Plan. You’re effectively tethered to the GPS location of your home.
Enter: Residential Max
The new Residential Max plan changes that. Residential subscribers can now order a Starlink Mini Kit for free.
So what’s the catch?
The hardware itself costs nothing - so no catch there. But having it and using it is not free.
You pay £4.50 per month to keep the Mini Kit in Standby mode. When you want to use it, you can activate the Roam Service plan for an additional £25 per month, which gives you 100 GB of data. This is half the cost of getting the Mini Kit on Roam outside of the Residential Max plan - not to mention the cost of the mini hardware itself at £189.
The big sell is that the roaming service works in up to 150 countries, an excellent deal if you’re an adventure seeker or regularly travel to remote locations.
I am neither.
But I still couldn’t resist the option and I subscribed.