Telstra, Optus and Vodafone have all outed their pricing for...

Telstra, Optus and Vodafone have all outed their pricing for the iPhone 5s now, so it’s time to get into the nitty gritty: who has the cheapest iPhone 5s in Australia, and who has the best overall deal?

It’s worth mentioning before we kick off that the cheapest and the best deal are two different things. While you can play lowest dollar value with a lot of carriers, you’ll often be getting yourself into a bad deal if you’re a medium to heavy user.

Cheapest?

We covered off earlier in the week that the latest crop of iPhones on plans are more expensive that iPhones ever have been before, so cheap in this context won’t exactly mean inexpensive.

The base, 16GB iPhone 5s will always be the cheapest, so just assume we’re always talking about that one from here on in. You can click on the full price guides below to look in more detail about the 32GB and 64GB iPhone 5s.

Telstra

The new iPhone 5s comes on Telstra’s Every Day Connect Plans, starting from a minimum of $78 per month on a 24 month plan for the 16GB model.

Broken down, that $78 per month works out as $60 for the plan and an extra $18 per month in handset repayments for the 16GB iPhone 5s on a 24-month contract. That plan gets you $600 in calls, unlimited SMS, MMS, 1GB of data on a 24 month contract.

Optus

You can get the iPhone 5s on an Optus contract starting on the $35 MyPlan for an additional $27 per month for the 16GB iPhone 5s. That $27 is after the $5 handset credit included on the $35 MyPlan offering. That plan also includes 200 minutes of calls, 200MB of data and unlimited standard SMS and MMS.

So the cheapest you’ll be able to nab an iPhone 5s for on Optus will be $62 per month.

Vodafone

The cheapest you’ll get away with an iPhone 5s on Vodafone for is $72 per month. That gets you the $65 Red plan and the handset for an additional $7 per month.

The $65 Red plan includes infinite standard minutes in Australia, infinite national and international text messages, infinite voicemail and 1.5GB of data on a 24 month contract.

Verdict?

If you want to get an iPhone 5s for the cheapest possible monthly repayment on an Australian carrier, you’re looking at the $35 Optus MyPlan with a $27 handset repayment for the 16GB iPhone 5s.

Like we said earlier, however, there’s better value to be had within these plans.

Best Value

Of the cheap plans we’ve listed here, the award for best value plan for medium users (that’s who these plans are mostly for), to Vodafone Australia!

Vodafone’s $65 Red plan includes more data than Telstra on a great 4G network and offers you unlimited calls and unlimited international text messaging to your international mates, too. Plus it has Red roaming which means you can visit selected other countries with your phone and pay no more than $5 per day.

Splendid!

Angus over at Lifehacker has taken a broader look at the iPhone 5s and 5c plans with his Planhacker column, and found that Vodafone also has great value, but you need to check if the coverage is available in your area on the coverage maps, while adding that it doesn’t make much sense buying the 5c on contract due to the high-cost of Aussie plans.

Check out Lifehacker’s Planhacker column for a more detailed analysis