Why is my first bill higher than the cost of my price plan?

Three_Pat

Why is my first bill higher than the cost of my price plan?

Your first bill can sometimes be higher than expected — but don’t worry, this normally just reflects your usage for any days between your "Join" date and your "First bill" date (pro-rata usage) which will appear on the bill in addition to the one month in advance charge (cost of your price plan).

Lets break it down:

Three Ireland compiles all of its customers bills at set intervals over each month. We do this so that we can group large batches of customers together and ensure that we have sufficient time to process and calculate all of their bills as efficiently and accurately as possible.

Therefore - the date you join the network might be a few days before your first bill date is compiled, and any billable usage during that period of time is charged separately. (Pro-rata usage period)

Most Three Ireland price plans are 'all you can eat' which means that your standard usage will already be included in the cost of your price plan. This price plan cost is paid one month in advance, and we do this so that when your contract ends the last month of your plan fees are already paid for and we can just refund you the value of any un-used days. (Pro-rata plan refund period)

Lets follow the journey of an example customer called Mary as she Joins & Leaves the Three Ireland network to see how this pro-rata system usually works. (values used are just for example purposes)

Joining Three:

Leaving Three:

So, in brief: the sequence of events would be:

Join	Date	Cost	Covers
Date of joining Three	20/06/2023	€4 Pro-rata Usage	Days of usage since joining
First bill date	26/06/2023	€20	1 month in advance
Second bill date	26/07/2023	€20	1 month in advance
Leave
Notice given	19/03/2025
Account close date	18/04/2025
Final bill date	26/04/2025	- €12 Pro-rata plan refund	Days since account closed