Canstar

Canstar is one of Australia's longest running consumer finance comparison publishers, best known for its annual Canstar Star Ratings across home loans, credit cards, savings accounts, term deposits, superannuation, personal loans, car insurance, home insurance, health insurance, life insurance, energy plans, and broadband and mobile plans. Products in each category are scored on a mix of price and features, with the top performers receiving a 5-Star Rating for the rating period. Canstar publishes editorial guides and calculators alongside the ratings, and refers users through to the underlying providers for application. Buying an eligible product after clicking through from ShopBack Australia to canstar.com.au earns cashback on top.

Canstar Star Ratings score products on a mix of price factors (rates, fees, ongoing costs) and feature factors (flexibility, benefits, service inclusions), weighted differently by category and by customer profile. Home loans, credit cards, car insurance and health insurance ratings, for example, weight price and features against typical use cases such as first home buyer, big spender, comprehensive cover or family cover. Products scoring in the top band receive a 5-Star Rating for that award period, refreshed annually or more often depending on category. The methodology and profile definitions are published on canstar.com.au alongside each award, and reading the methodology page for the specific category matters more than the star count alone.

Canstar, Finder and Compare the Market are the three most widely used comparison sites in Australia, and they solve slightly different jobs. Canstar leads on brand recognition of its Star Ratings, breadth of finance and banking categories, and a longer editorial track record. Finder leads on side-by-side product tables, in-depth editorial reviews and a stronger crypto and international-money-transfer footprint. Compare the Market leads on general insurance quote automation (car, home, health) with an auto-quote flow that pulls indicative premiums from panel insurers in one form. The practical approach for most Australian shoppers is to check the Canstar Star Ratings for the shortlist, cross-check the Finder review of each shortlisted product for depth, and use Compare the Market or a direct insurer site for the actual insurance quote before checkout.

For Australian health insurance shoppers, Canstar and iSelect play complementary roles. Canstar publishes annual Star Ratings across Hospital, Extras and Combined health cover for a range of profiles (young singles, families, couples, mature couples, older singles), which is useful for narrowing a shortlist of funds and policies before quoting. iSelect specialises in health insurance breadth, running a broker-style flow that quotes across a panel of participating funds and can walk applicants through hospital tier, waiting periods and government rebate paperwork on the phone. Reading the Canstar methodology for the profile that matches actual usage before starting the iSelect quote flow reduces the risk of upselling into a tier that does not match need.

RateCity has built its reputation on home loans and credit cards specifically, with granular filters for offset accounts, redraw, LVR bands, introductory rates and balance-transfer offers. Canstar covers the same categories with the additional overlay of its Star Ratings across borrower profiles (first home buyer, refinancer, investor) and a broader editorial catalogue that extends across the rest of the finance stack. Both sites are worth consulting before a mortgage refinance or a credit card application: RateCity for the granular filter view, Canstar for the profile-weighted award view. The final application is typically made direct with the lender or issuer after clicking through from either site.

Mozo and InfoChoice sit alongside Canstar as long-running Australian rate-comparison publishers, particularly for savings accounts, term deposits and personal loans. Mozo runs its own annual Mozo Experts Choice Awards and publishes rate leaderboards updated regularly. InfoChoice publishes daily-updated rate tables across banking and superannuation and leans hard on data-heavy editorial. Canstar's differentiator against both is the Star Ratings brand and the wider category footprint that extends into insurance, energy and telco. Cross-checking Canstar's awarded 5-Star products against the current Mozo and InfoChoice leaderboards is a quick sanity check that a shortlisted rate is still competitive week to week.

Canstar's energy comparison covers electricity and gas plans across the deregulated Australian retail markets (New South Wales, Victoria, South Australia, South East Queensland and the ACT), with Star Ratings weighted on tariffs, discounts, fees and green-power availability. Alongside Canstar Blue's consumer satisfaction ratings, the Star Ratings help narrow a shortlist before running the postcode-level quote flow. Econnex and iSelect operate as competing energy brokers that quote across their retailer panels in a single form, while the government Energy Made Easy site (New South Wales, South East Queensland, South Australia, Tasmania and ACT) and Victorian Energy Compare (Victoria) publish independent quote comparisons. Reading Canstar's editorial on which discount structure suits actual usage before running any quote flow helps avoid teaser-rate traps.

Canstar publishes annual Star Ratings on superannuation funds across accumulation phase (Growth, Balanced, Conservative Balanced options and similar), and separately on account-based pensions in retirement phase. Ratings weight investment performance over long horizons alongside administration fees, investment fees, insurance offering and member services. The APRA MySuper heatmap and the ATO YourSuper comparison tool sit as complementary independent sources, and SuperRatings publishes its own annual awards. For someone consolidating or switching funds, cross-checking Canstar's 5-Star awarded funds against APRA heatmap performance in the matched risk band and reading the Product Disclosure Statement of any shortlisted fund is the standard approach before completing a rollover.

Canstar rates NBN and home broadband plans on price and features across typical household usage profiles, and mobile SIM plans across small, medium and large data allowances. WhistleOut sits as the most granular price-driven comparison in the Australian telco market with a longer telco-only editorial history, while Compare Club and iSelect run broker-style quote flows across their retailer panels. Cross-checking Canstar's 5-Star telco awards against the current WhistleOut price table for the exact plan matters because telco pricing shifts more often than annual awards, and introductory discounts can look better than steady-state pricing over the full contract term.

Canstar publishes Star Ratings on car insurance (comprehensive, third-party property, third-party fire and theft) and home insurance (buildings, contents, combined) across state markets, weighted on price and features. Compare the Market and iSelect operate auto-quote flows that pull indicative premiums from panel insurers in one form, which is faster for a headline price check. Canstar's differentiator is the profile-weighted 5-Star Rating that surfaces well-featured products alongside cheap ones, useful when excess levels, driver history and roadside cover materially affect real-world claim experience. Reading the Canstar award report for the category and running direct quotes on the shortlisted insurers is the reliable comparison.

Canstar has operated as a consumer finance comparison publisher in Australia for more than three decades. Ratings methodology and profile assumptions are published alongside each award, and Canstar holds an Australian Financial Services Licence for the categories requiring one. Like every comparison publisher in Australia, Canstar's commercial model includes referral relationships with rated providers on some products, and this is disclosed on-site. The methodology page for the specific category and the underlying Product Disclosure Statement or Target Market Determination of any shortlisted product remain the primary references before an application. See also, see whether private health insurance is worth it in Australia.

ShopBack Australia offers cashback on eligible sign-ups referred from Canstar for selected categories, with the current rate and eligible categories shown in the rate table on the ShopBack Canstar merchant page above. To activate, sign in to ShopBack Australia, open the Canstar merchant page, click through to canstar.com.au in the same browser session, and complete the sign-up on the eligible product without switching to unrelated coupon sites. The order is submitted by the merchant to ShopBack and typically appears as pending cashback within a few days; cashback confirms after the merchant's own confirmation cycle. Cancellations, non-completions and out-of-scope categories generally do not qualify.