SpaceX has revived its most aggressive promotion on the Starlink Mini, dropping the portable satellite dish to $299 in the US — a 40% discount from its standard $499 price. The deal also makes its way to Canada (at CAD $399), putting the compact kit in the running as one of, if not the, cheapest ways to get mobile broadband almost anywhere under an open sky.
The discount is through Starlink itself, not third-party retailers; it comes as interest in off-grid connectivity continues to rise among RVers, field teams, and remote property owners seeking a secondary internet connection.
What You Get With the Starlink Mini Portable Dish
The Starlink Mini is a shrunken terminal oriented toward portability. It combines the antenna and Wi‑Fi router into a single unit with a built-in kickstand, so setup is as easy as standing it up, powering on, and pointing toward open sky. The all-in-one approach trims the typical cable mess and makes it feasible to toss in a backpack for weekend travels or to a job site.
SpaceX is marketing the Mini for use on the go, and it shows in hardware choices: faster boot times, less power draw than a full-size residential dish, and an integrated access point that can accommodate a small household or a couple of laptops and phones in the field. The hardware specifics differ by batch, but the experience is portable and easy to deploy, even before it’s as fast or performance-optimized.
Performance and limitations of the Starlink Mini dish
The payback for the smaller footprint is raw speed. A compact antenna pulls in less signal than the typical household terminal would, meaning you can expect worse peak throughput and more susceptibility to interference from obstacles such as trees and power lines. In uncongested cells on clear days, real-world downloads frequently feel more like mid-tier home cable — great for video calls, streaming, maps, and cloud applications — but not as fast as Starlink is capable of.
Low latency is still an advantage for low-Earth orbit networks. Independent testing by organizations like Ookla has placed median Starlink latency in the tens of milliseconds in many areas, and is more responsive than geostationary competitors. The Mini channels that low-latency feel, though throughput will naturally wax and wane with network congestion and local capacity.
The other caveat: the Mini is linked to Starlink’s Roam service, not a regular residential account. That translates into a different pricing and data policy than on a fixed-location plan, as well as deprioritization when the network is congested.
Plans and pricing to know for Starlink Mini users
SpaceX also places Mini under Starlink’s Roam tier, which allows you to get service at more locations. In the US, Roam currently costs roughly $165/month for the wider, more flexible use. For less demanding users, SpaceX also offers a $50-per-month plan with 50GB of data more suited for the Mini. The cheaper plan is a good option for weekend warriors or as an emergency backup, while heavier users — like full-time RV dwellers or field crews — often put more weight on the costly Roam package.
As is the case with any Starlink plan, taxes and shipping may vary by location. Subscribers also need to consider that Roam data is usually deprioritized versus residential, and this can impact peak-time performance on heavily loaded cells.
Where the Starlink Mini discount currently applies
The return of $299 pricing, at least to the best I can tell, is only on direct sales and just for US customers — the CAD $399 offer remains in Canada. SpaceX has not said how long this promotion will last. A previous price reduction earlier this year lasted only a brief window before bouncing back to list price, so shoppers in the market for a travel-ready terminal may want to act fast.
Elsewhere, SpaceX has dabbled in targeted promotions. In Australia, some customers on that continent have let it slip that they’ve received a “free” Mini as part of an offer which really is just loaning you the hardware while you pay for service — another indication that SpaceX is seriously testing ways to seed portable use cases.
Why SpaceX Is Emphasizing Portability Now
The discount probably has a few strategic purposes. First, it widens the top of the funnel for Roam subscriptions, a higher-ARPU segment more suited to Starlink’s wide-area coverage. Second, it can enable SpaceX to clear out stock as the company iterates hardware (industry watchers and regulatory filings often suggest that new terminals are coming, and SpaceX has indicated a next-gen Mini is in progress).
It also comes amid increased competition. Traditional satellite ISPs have launched faster plans, and Amazon’s Project Kuiper is also getting ready to offer its own LEO service. For the time being, Starlink is still the only widely available option for fiber-like responsiveness off-grid, and the Mini’s lower entry price should make that value proposition easier to investigate.
Big picture, “Starlink’s network now serves more than 10,000 users in a dozen countries working & still expanding,” Starlink said on the social media platform LinkedIn. And as coverage density increases and laser links start stitching together more capacity over remote regions, portable terminals like the Mini are going to see benefits first — which makes a $299 gateway investment an attractive piece of the growth playbook.
