Plan and kit questions, answered

Because Starlink doesn’t publish one: starlink.com won’t show Residential plans or prices until it has your service address. Its national list has moved too: on Oct 21 Residential 100 Mbps stood at $55, on Oct 29 it showed two levels ($44 or $49.50), and on Nov 4, 2026 it showed $49.50/mo. We print every level with its date and log each change on our changelog.

Roam plans allow in-motion use; Residential service is tied to one fixed address. Residential is for a house you live in; Roam is for an RV, van, boat or trips. Roam’s expected speed is 65–260 Mbps down, 15–35 Mbps up (expected, not guaranteed). Roam lines also slow down before Max lines when the network is congested.

Less than how many people do it at once. Size the plan to your busiest hour: on a congested network the 100 and 200 Mbps tiers slow down before Max does, while Residential Max has the highest Residential priority. The chooser weighs household size and heavy uses together and names one tier.

• The kit: $349 to buy a Standard or V5 home dish, $149 for the Mini. A rented home kit has a one-off activation charge ($0, $99 or $199) instead.
• Rented kits add a monthly rental charge, listed at checkout, above the service price.
• Where demand runs high, checkout can add a demand surcharge, charged once, with the amount set by address and plan.
• Shipping and handling are charged on every order and stay unrefunded even when the kit comes back. Sales tax is added too.

The first-year cost calculator adds it all up for your plan.

Three home dishes sit on Starlink’s US list: the Standard 4 X paired with Router 3, and the Standard 4 and V5, each paired with Router Mini; any of them is $349 outright or comes as a rental. Your address decides which of them you’re offered. The V5 is smaller and draws 35–50 W average, against 75–100 W average for the Standard 4 X, but the V5 is “currently available in select areas” and is not meant for in-motion use. The Mini ($149) is the travel dish: Starlink says the Mini is “for basic internet use” and Standard 4 X is “for high-demand everyday internet use”. Compare them: V5 vs V4 and V5 vs Mini.

• Standard 4 X: 594 × 383 × 39.7 mm (23.4 × 15.1 × 1.5 in), 75–100 W average.
• V5: 384 × 306 × 34 mm (15.1 × 12 × 1.3 in), 35–50 W average.
• Mini: 298.5 × 259 × 38.5 mm (11.75 × 10.2 × 1.45 in), 25–40 W average; 12–48 V input rated 60 W; runs from a 100 W USB-C PD source with Starlink’s cable.

All figures are from Starlink’s spec sheets; we haven’t measured a dish ourselves.

Starlink’s spec sheet rates the Standard 4 X for up to 40 mm (1.5 in) of snow melt per hour, says it is operational in 96 km/h+ (60 mph+) wind, and gives it an IP67 Type 4 weather rating. The V5 sheet lists up to 40 mm (1.6 in) of snow melt per hour and says it is operational in 265 km/h (165 mph) wind when mounted.

Billing starts on whichever comes first: activation, a week past delivery, or day 30 after shipment if no delivery date is recorded. That date becomes your monthly billing date.

Starlink warrants that the kit is free from defects in material and workmanship and generally meets the performance goals in its Specifications. In the US that lasts 12 months. What it covers and what it doesn’t.

For a US home without good wired internet, often yes. With working fiber, rarely. It turns on what else reaches your address and how long you’ll keep the service. The buy cases and the wait cases.

If it’s due within about a year, yes: wait and compare. Wired service is usually cheaper and steadier, and a kit bought for a few months rarely pays off.

Business plans are a different product, and this guide covers home and travel plans for individuals. The referral also counts only for people: the person referred has to be an individual; business accounts are left out.

For calls, yes on every current plan: a 1080p Zoom video call uses about 3.8 Mbps up and 3.0 Mbps down, well inside each plan’s expected upload. Latency is the gaming question: Starlink’s own figure for US customers is a 25.7 ms median at peak hours, measured in June 2025, and Ookla measured a US median multi-server latency of 39 ms for Starlink in Q1 2026 (a third-party measurement). One catch for some gamers: on its default setting, Starlink puts customers behind carrier-grade NAT (CGNAT), so your router doesn’t get its own public IPv4 address. Upload headroom differs by tier: the three home tiers compared.

Add the dish or rental activation, twelve months at the dated list level and the checkout extras for each pick. The first-year comparison does it with your own numbers.

On starlink.com: type your service address, select the plan and dish it offers that address, check the total, then pay. Starlink shows the final price, dish and any surcharge only at that point, so bring the pick you made here and confirm it against what the page offers.

You can buy a kit in a store, but Starlink’s US retailer list names 16 chains, from online marketplaces to big-box and regional stores, and no kit bought at those chains earns a referral reward. For the referral credit, use starlink.com in a browser. We haven’t confirmed whether orders placed in the Starlink app are credited, so we don’t suggest it.

No. The order-page script we read on Oct 21, 2026 offered nowhere to enter a code; the referral is carried by the link itself. You arrive on starlink.com through a referral button and complete checkout in that tab; there’s nothing to copy or paste.

Starlink says $100 in the US, on the second monthly subscription invoice under Starlink’s terms (the help center says it can show up around day 60 after activation). It comes as credit on your Starlink account, unless the account’s Referrals tab offers a cash payout instead. Whoever shared the link receives a matching reward.

No. Checkout still charges the kit and first month in full; nothing comes off the order total. Starlink’s promotional credits reduce monthly subscription charges only, not shop orders or one-time fees; we read the referral credit the same way.

• It’s only for people who have never held a Starlink account.
• The service address has to be in the US (we take that as the 50 states and DC; territories are unconfirmed).
• The order has to go through starlink.com via the link; kits from stores, resellers and marketplaces are excluded, and a missed referral can’t be attached later.
• Starlink’s help center names all three Residential tiers and all three Roam tiers as eligible.
• You need two complete monthly billing cycles on a full-speed plan, and time spent paused in Standby Mode is excluded.
• The person referred has to be an individual; business accounts are left out.

Unclear. Starlink is silent on rented kits: its terms talk about buying a kit on starlink.com, so rentals stay unconfirmed. That’s why this site ties the credit to the plan ordered on starlink.com and never promises it for a rental. If it matters, ask Starlink support before ordering.

Use the referral button only when you’re ready, and stay in the tab it opens: starlink.com’s order-page script, in our Oct 21, 2026 look at it, kept the referral in the one browser tab the link had started; Starlink publishes no such rule, so finishing in that tab is the safe habit. Before paying, check the label: the checkout page labels the order “Referral Code Applied”, or “Not Applied” together with a reason. If you see “Not Applied”, read the stated reason first.

No. Starlink’s help center is clear that the order has to go through starlink.com via the link; kits from stores, resellers and marketplaces are excluded, and a missed referral can’t be attached later.

Yes: the final call on each referral is SpaceX’s; it may change the program with 30 days’ notice, and rewards can be taxable. Treat the $100 as Starlink’s current offer, not a promise from us, and ask a tax professional about taxes.