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SpaceX already offers the Starlink Mini dish as free rental to some loyal customers, but it looks like the company is expanding the deal to include the standard Starlink dish, too.
In a new support page, SpaceX mentions a “$0 Standard Kit offer for customers” that loans out the larger dish as a rental. “This is an invite-only offer for existing Starlink customers with an active Residential service plan,” the support page says. “It’s designed to let you add a second kit for expanded use, such as at a second home, for family members, on a farm, in an office, or anywhere reliable internet is needed.”
The support page indicates that SpaceX will offer the invite through email “for a limited time.” If redeemed, the Starlink customer will receive a “complete Starlink Standard Kit (including the terminal, Gen 3 router) at no upfront hardware cost. It’s provided as a $0 rental bundled with your active Residential plan, valued at over USD $300 but charged as $0,” the company says.
(Credit: Starlink.com)
To sweeten the deal, SpaceX also plans on discounting the monthly cost of a Residential internet plan, but only for the second dish. The other catch is that the customer needs to maintain their original and secondary Residential Starlink plans for both dishes, otherwise they’ll need to return the rental dish within 30 days.
The company has been offering a similar deal involving the portable Starlink Mini dish, which originally sold for $599. Starting last month, SpaceX invited select customers in the US and Canada to receive a Mini dish for free—so long as they paid extra for the required monthly Roam or Standby plans. Since then, a growing number of US subscribers have reported receiving the Mini dish offer from SpaceX.
For now, SpaceX appears to have only posted about the $0 standard dish on its support page; we haven’t seen reports of anyone getting the offer email yet. We expect SpaceX to target customers based in areas where the Starlink network has excess capacity.
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In the meantime, the invites suggest SpaceX is both trying to squeeze more revenue from its existing user base and possibly clear out existing product inventory. The company has a dedicated Starlink hardware factory in Texas that can produce 15,000 dishes per day.
SpaceX has shifted from selling the standard Starlink dish for $349 as part of new subscriber sign-ups to a new model in the US that loans out the hardware for free, requiring $0 upfront cost. The change promises to help the company attract even more subscribers. Starlink also just introduced a $40-per-month “Residential 100Mbps” plan, its cheapest yet. Back in July, SpaceX reported that Starlink had more than 2 million active customers in the US.
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About Our Expert
Michael Kan
Senior Reporter
Experience
I’ve been a journalist for over 15 years. I got my start as a schools and cities reporter in Kansas City and joined PCMag in 2017, where I cover satellite internet services, cybersecurity, PC hardware, and more. I’m currently based in San Francisco, but previously spent over five years in China, covering the country’s technology sector.
Since 2020, I’ve covered the launch and explosive growth of SpaceX’s Starlink satellite internet service, writing 600+ stories on availability and feature launches, but also the regulatory battles over the expansion of satellite constellations, fights with rival providers like AST SpaceMobile and Amazon, and the effort to expand into satellite-based mobile service. I’ve combed through FCC filings for the latest news and driven to remote corners of California to test Starlink’s cellular service.
I also cover cyber threats, from ransomware gangs to the emergence of AI-based malware. Earlier this year, the FTC forced Avast to pay consumers $16.5 million for secretly harvesting and selling their personal information to third-party clients, as revealed in my joint investigation with Motherboard.
I also cover the PC graphics card market. Pandemic-era shortages led me to camp out in front of a Best Buy to get an RTX 3000. I’m now following how President Trump’s tariffs will affect the industry. I’m always eager to learn more, so please jump in the comments with feedback and send me tips.
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