Ask a South African to name an ISP and a lot of them will say Afrihost without thinking about it. That kind of default-brand status is hard-won — and in Afrihost’s case it’s backed by a wall of awards. But "everyone uses it" isn’t the same as "it’s right for you", so here’s the honest look.
Who Afrihost is
Afrihost is a retail ISP — it doesn’t own fibre in the ground; it sells connectivity over the big open-access networks (Openserve, Vumatel, Octotel, Frogfoot and more), plus its own mobile data. It started life as a web-hosting company back in 2000 and moved into broadband in 2009. Worth knowing: MTN bought a majority stake in 2014 and then sold it back to the founders in 2016, so Afrihost has been founder- and management-owned since. It also owns Axxess and a majority of Cool Ideas.
Why people rate it
This is the strongest part of the Afrihost story, and it’s not just marketing. It has taken MyBroadband’s ISP of the Year three years running and topped the independent customer-satisfaction rankings into 2026. The recurring themes: genuinely good self-service (its ClientZone control panel is a cut above), responsive support, transparent month-to-month billing, and a strong "we don’t sneak in price hikes" reputation. For a lot of people, that reliability is worth more than saving the last R30.
Afrihost packages and prices
Pricing is competitive and famously aggressive at the top end. Entry lines start low, and here’s roughly where the popular speeds land (cheapest we were tracking — the exact figure depends on the network at your address):
| Speed | From /mo |
|---|---|
| 20/10 Mbps | R367 |
| 50/50 Mbps | R597 |
| 100/100 Mbps | R797 |
| 200/200 Mbps | R897 |
| 500/500 Mbps | R1 097 |
| 1 Gbps | from ~R847 on some networks |
That gigabit price, where it’s available, is one of the sharpest in the market — on the right network Afrihost’s 1 Gbps line can undercut its own 500 Mbps, which is unusual and worth a look. Confirm the current figure before ordering; fibre pricing moves with promos.
The catches
Two honest caveats. First, the public review picture is more mixed than the awards suggest — Afrihost scores brilliantly on Google and in the independent surveys, but noticeably lower on some complaint-driven review sites. That’s common for big ISPs (unhappy customers shout loudest), but it’s worth weighing in the round. Second, Afrihost is a reseller, so it can only connect you where one of its partner networks is live — the first question is still whether it can reach you at all.
The verdict
Afrihost earns its default-choice status: strong support, sharp pricing (especially on gig), no lock-in, and the best independent track record of any big SA ISP. If your priority is rock-bottom price at a specific speed, a rival on the same line might still undercut it — so it’s worth comparing. You can see its live customer ratings on our Afrihost provider page.
Check your address to see whether Afrihost can reach you, then compare it against every other ISP on your line by real monthly price and rating — our fibre deals page ranks them for you.