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One Starlink for home and travel: Max's travel Mini, the 20% add-on or a second kit
A single dish can't keep the house online while it's on the road. Four ways to cover both, priced over a year by how often you travel.
A single dish can’t keep the house online while it’s on a trip, so most households that want both end up with two dishes. Starlink’s built-in route is to keep a Residential home plan and add a travel Mini. On Max, the Mini comes as a rental that adds nothing to the monthly bill, and eligible Roam plans cost half. With Residential 100 or 200 Mbps, where Starlink offers it, the travel rate is 20% off eligible Roam plans.
The question comes up on r/Starlink regularly (Best plan for home and travel? is one example). Max’s Mini offer makes it look like the obvious pick, but the cost over a year says something different for most households. Here are the four routes, then the math.
Route A: Residential Max plus a travel Mini
Starlink’s Special Offers terms spell out what Max customers get: “Receive a Starlink Mini rental for no monthly fee and 50% off the monthly cost of eligible Roam service plans.”
At the Nov 4, 2026 national levels (no address entered), Max showed at $143 a month. Half off Roam would bring Roam 100GB to $27.50, Roam 300GB to $40 and Roam Unlimited to $87.50 a month (our arithmetic, assuming each counts as eligible). Any one-time charges for the Mini show at checkout.
The home side of Route A is the full Max plan: Starlink’s highest Residential priority, up to 400+ Mbps listed download and 20–40 Mbps up, and free professional installation. That’s the part you pay for every month, whether or not you travel.
Route B: Residential 100 or 200 Mbps plus a travel Mini, where offered
Starlink’s help center extends the travel Mini to the lower tiers in some places: “Where the offer is available with Residential 100 or Residential 200, eligible Roam plans are 20% off.” That puts Roam 100GB at $44, Roam 300GB at $64 and Roam Unlimited at $140 a month (our arithmetic from the Nov 4 Roam prices).
The same article’s rules talk about “the no-cost hardware rental” and an “active Residential plan” without naming a tier. Whether the Mini is a no-cost rental at 100 and 200 Mbps addresses in exactly the same way as on Max is something to confirm on your order page. If you’d have to buy it, add $149 to the Route B figures below.
Route B depends on two things being sold at your address: the 100 or 200 Mbps tier, which Starlink offers in select areas only, and the travel add-on itself.
Route C: a home plan plus your own Mini on its own Roam plan
Buy a Mini outright ($149 from the Roam list, read Nov 4, 2026) and run it on a full-price Roam plan, separate from the home plan. Our assumption is that the 50% and 20% rates belong to the travel add-on and don’t apply to a Mini bought on its own.
What you get for paying more: the Mini is yours. It isn’t tied to the home plan, there’s nothing to return if the home plan changes, and the home plan can be any tier sold at your address.
Route D: taking the home dish along
This is the weakest route. Starlink’s Service Plan Descriptions tie Residential service to one fixed address, while Roam plans allow use on the move. Starlink’s plan documents don’t state what happens when a Residential dish is used somewhere else, so check Starlink’s help center before counting on it.
The practical limits are clear even without that rule. The house is offline while the dish is away. Starlink says the V5 “is not intended for in-motion use”. And the Standard 4 X runs at 75–100 W average from a wall outlet through its own power supply, which a campsite without mains power can’t easily feed.
A variation is to skip Residential entirely and run one Mini on Roam for both home and trips. That works for a household with little data use, and it means no connection at home while you travel. Residential vs Roam covers that trade-off.
Year-one math by how often you travel
The table prices a year of each route at Starlink’s Nov 4, 2026 national levels. The ground rules, so you can adjust for your own case:
- Home plan at the Nov 4 national level for all 12 months; a real address can land on a different price.
- One month of Roam 100GB for each month with a trip. Starlink bills Roam by cycle, so a trip that spans two cycles can cost two months.
- In months without a trip, the Mini sits in Standby. Starlink charges “a small monthly fee” for Standby, which RV Mobile Internet reported at $10 in May 2026. It’s left out because it’s about the same for every route.
- Left out: the home dish, plus shipping, sales tax and any demand surcharge, since every route pays them alike.
| Route | Home plan, 12 months | Travel Mini | Roam 100GB per travel month | 2 travel months (one six-week summer trip) | 4 travel months (four weekends in different months) | 12 travel months |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| A: Max + travel Mini | $1,716 | Rented, $0 a month | $27.50 | $1,771 | $1,826 | $2,046 |
| B: 200 Mbps + travel Mini | $918 | Rental (confirm at checkout) | $44 | $1,006 | $1,094 | $1,446 |
| B: 100 Mbps + travel Mini | $594 | Rental (confirm at checkout) | $44 | $682 | $770 | $1,122 |
| C: 200 Mbps + your own Mini | $918 | $149 to buy | $55 | $1,177 | $1,287 | $1,727 |
Route A never comes out cheapest on these numbers. Against Route B on 200 Mbps it costs $765 more with two travel months, $732 more with four and $600 more with twelve. Nearly all of that is the gap between the two home plans: $66.50 a month, or $798 a year. The 50% travel rate wins back only part of it.
Full-time travelers on Roam Unlimited see a closer race. Per month, at the same levels:
| Route | Home plan + Roam Unlimited each month |
|---|---|
| A: Max + Unlimited at 50% off | $143 + $87.50 = $230.50 |
| B: 200 Mbps + Unlimited at 20% off | $76.50 + $140 = $216.50 |
| C: 200 Mbps + your own Mini on Unlimited at full price | $76.50 + $175 = $251.50 |
Max beats only Route C here, by $21 a month. In other words, Route A pays off on cost for a household that travels every month on Roam Unlimited at an address where the 20% add-on isn’t offered.
So when is Route A the right call? When you’d choose Max for the house anyway, for its priority on a busy network or its upload, the travel Mini is a genuine bonus. And when Max is the only home tier sold at your address, Route B isn’t on the table. Is 200 Mbps enough? helps with the first question, and the first-year comparison lets you put any two setups side by side with your own numbers.
The rules that come with a travel Mini
Starlink’s help article sets the conditions in two sentences: “To keep the no-cost hardware rental, the Mini must stay on a Roam plan or Standby Mode. You must also keep an active Residential plan on your home kit.”
In practice that means three things:
- The Mini always carries a plan. Either an active Roam plan or Standby, never nothing.
- It goes back if the home plan ends. Cancelling or pausing the Residential plan means returning the Mini.
- The travel rate follows the home tier. By our reading of the help article, moving the home plan from Max to 200 Mbps would move the Mini’s Roam rate from 50% off to 20% off, where that rate is offered.
Route C carries none of these conditions, which is part of what its higher cost buys. The three-way home plan comparison has a monthly version of the same math for Roam 100GB and Roam Unlimited.
When a two-dish setup is the wrong call
The travel routes fit households that keep a home connection all year and leave it regularly. They fit badly when:
- You’d switch the house off during long trips. The travel Mini is tied to an active home plan and goes back if that plan is paused or cancelled, so Routes A and B can’t be built around a house that’s shut for months.
- You travel once or twice a year. Even the cheapest row above adds a dish and its Standby months to the year. Price the trip on its own before committing to a second dish.
For everyone else, pick the home plan first, then let the table above tell you which travel route fits how often you’re away.
Compare two setups over a year
Questions
Does Residential Max come with a Starlink Mini?
Yes, as a rental. Starlink's Special Offers terms let a Max household rent a Mini without a monthly charge and pay half price on eligible Roam plans. The Mini goes back if the home plan is cancelled or paused.
Can I get a travel Mini with Residential 100 or 200 Mbps?
Where Starlink offers it, those tiers take 20% off eligible Roam plans. Check the order page at your address for whether the Mini itself is rented at no cost or bought.
Do I pay for the travel Mini in months I don't travel?
The travel Mini must stay on a Roam plan or in Standby Mode, and Starlink charges a small monthly fee for Standby. RV Mobile Internet reported that fee at $10 in May 2026.
Is Residential Max worth it just for the travel Mini?
Not at the Nov 4, 2026 levels with Roam 100GB: 200 Mbps plus the 20% travel rate cost less in every case worked out in this post. Max makes sense when you want its priority at home anyway, or when it's the only home tier sold at your address.
Can I just take my home dish on trips?
Starlink ties Residential service to one fixed address, so check its help center for the current rule first. The house is also offline while the dish is away.
Sources and checks
Every price and rule on this page was checked against these sources; the oldest check is . Prices move, so starlink.com at your address is always the final word.
- Help center: the referral program (seen Nov 3, 2026)
- starlink.com order-page code (our reading) (seen Nov 3, 2026)
- starlink.com Residential order page (US, no address) (seen Nov 4, 2026)
- US referral terms, version of Oct 7, 2026 (seen Nov 4, 2026)
- Starlink Special Offers terms, US (seen Nov 3, 2026)
- Starlink help center: the travel Mini add-on (seen Nov 4, 2026)
- starlink.com Residential plans (US national list, read Nov 4, 2026, no address) (seen Nov 4, 2026)
- starlink.com Roam plans and Mini Kit (US national list, read Nov 4, 2026, no address) (seen Nov 4, 2026)
- Starlink Service Plan Descriptions (US, DOC-1728-44881-79) (seen Nov 3, 2026)
- Starlink help center: Standby Mode (seen Nov 3, 2026)
- RV Mobile Internet on spring price rises (May 16, 2026) (seen Oct 21, 2026)
- Starlink help center: V4 compared with V5 (seen Nov 4, 2026)
- Starlink spec sheet: Standard 4 X (seen Nov 4, 2026)
- r/Starlink: Best plan for home and travel? (seen Nov 4, 2026)