About a while ago, I got fed up with the prepaid cell phone plan I was using owing to the fact that I had to spend much money for little or fewer services in return.
Here’s the good news, I found the best-prepaid cell phone plans for users.
Prepaid phone plans reduce your smartphone costs down by serving up a lower cell phone bill every month. Unlike the best-unlimited data plans or tiered data plans from big-name wireless carriers, these plans don’t cost much more than $50 a month. And even unlimited data isn’t out of reach these days if you turn to a prepaid carrier.
In this article, I’ll be selflessly sharing the best-prepaid phone plans for users. It’s about time you spend less and have more for use and investments. Stay with me!
Is Prepaid Cell Phone Plan A Good Idea?
The best-prepaid phone plans can help you reduce your smartphone costs by serving up a lower cell phone bill every month. Unlike the best-unlimited data plans or tiered data plans from big-name wireless carriers, these plans often don’t cost much more than $50 a month.
Canceling a postpaid monthly service can save you hundreds annually as there is great value in the prepaid space, especially if you are currently on a postpaid plan with one of the big carriers.
The prepaid market is upscaling with most users switching to monthly no-contract plans. That means the main difference between your traditional postpaid plans (with credit check) is that on postpaid you pay at the end of the monthly billing period, and with prepaid, you pay at the beginning. Benefits of choosing a prepaid cell phone plan include:
- No credit check: Don’t worry if you have a bad credit score, you’ll still be eligible for a prepaid phone plan.
- Flexibility: If you want to stop or pause your cell phone plan, you can easily sign out.
- No contracts: There are no contracts that bind you into a plan for a specific period of time.
- Families are welcome: Prepaid plans now support multiple lines on a single account which could save you a lot of money.
How Does Prepaid Cell Phone Plan Work?
With prepaid cell phones, otherwise known as pay as you go phones or no-contract phones, you pay for a specific amount of data usage/minutes in advance. When you hit the limit you’ve paid for, your service terminates until you choose to buy more.
The big difference is that with prepaid phones, payment for service is made before use. As calls and texts are made, and as data is used, deductions are made against the prepaid balance amount until no funds remain (at which time services stop functioning). A user may avoid interruptions in service by making payments to increase the remaining balance.
Whether you need unlimited data, talk, and text cell phone plans, or a simple prepaid phone plan for your smart device, you can find a cheap option that soothes the demand. All you need to do is find the right prepaid phone plan.
How to Pick the Best Prepaid Phone Plan
When picking the best-prepaid phone plan, you need to consider coverage, price and features.
Because prepaid plans don’t often come with the kind of benefits postpaid cell phone plans offer, so they are expected to be given at lower prices.
As much as we can say a plan has amazing features, it could mean very little to the end-user if you don’t get coverage on that carrier’s network where you need it. When checking a carrier’s coverage map, emphasis should be placed on the areas you spend most of your time, such as your house and/or your office.
In addition, If you’re looking to save money with prepaid, you’re pretty much just going to get the basics—unlimited talk and text, and some amount of full-speed data. Knowledge of how much data you normally use per month will considerably help you find the best-prepaid plan for you.
Again, since you are prepaying you see exactly how much you have to pay and only pay for that. No more fees, surprise price hikes, or overages. This certainty enables you to do better budgeting. (See the best budgeting apps to use).
Just as there are many reasons to consider a prepaid phone plan — one of which is that it leaves you with enough to save from your paycheck, there are many options to choose from. Take a look at the available best-prepaid cell phone plan.
Who Has The Best Prepaid Cell Phone Plan
To determine the best plans, The Wealth Circle looked at the monthly plan price before taxes and fees; high-speed data allotment; when applicable, the price per gigabyte; and features such as unlimited music and video streaming.
Prepaid cell phone plans offer you the option to save more. See the top ways to save money on a tight budget.
Here’s a list of the best prepaid cell phone plans.
#7 AT&T 8GB Data Plan
Name of Plan: AT&T 8GB Data Plan Monthly Cost: $40 Amount of Data: 8GB Special features: Includes $10 autopay discount, rollover data, HD video streaming
Unlike some other prepaid plans, AT&T dolls bonuses for her users. Here, you get to roll over unused data to the next month, and you can stream video at HD resolution. (Most prepaid plans cap streaming at 480p.) You also enjoy unlimited talk and text to Mexico and Canada with AT&T and also use your data plan when traveling in both countries.
In addition to the daily plans, that go for $2 per day, AT&T also has limitless data plans for prepaid users, with occasional discounts making those plans mouthwatering.
SEE ALSO: How to make money from savings | True Advice
#6 Mint Mobile Prepaid Phone Plan
Name of Plan: Mint 8GB plan Monthly Cost: $20 Amount of Data: 8GB Special features: Mobile hotspot feature; Discounted rates on annual service
Mint Mobile offers nationwide coverage using T-Mobile’s network with astonishing low rates for a lot of data. Once you sign up for Mint’s most popular plan you get 8GB of LTE data plus limitless talk and text for just $20 a month for the first three months of service.
If you go month-to-month with service, your rate increases to $35 a month. If you want that $20 rate to stay, you’ve got to sign up for a year of service. You can also sign up for six months for a reduced discount, and there are 3GB, 12GB options, and unlimited data options at Mint, too
On Mint Mobile you’ll be on T-Mobile’s network. That means you’ll have 4G coverage in about 62% of the country.
Committing to a year of service giving up some of the flexibility of prepaid service in exchange for a low monthly cell phone bill, but that’s a tradeoff some people will be happy to make — especially since Mint’s prepaid rate is lower than similar buy-in-advance pricing from AT&T.
With this, Mint Mobile goes for the best prepaid cell phone plans unlimited.
#5 Boost Mobile Unlimited Plan
Name of Plan: Double Your Data Plan Monthly Cost: $10 Amount of Data: 2GB Special features: Unlimited mobile hotspot
Boost is looking to beat the T-Mobile Connect plan by offering the same 2GB of LTE data but for $10 a month. That’s $5 less than what T-Mobile is charging on its plan. Upping your data to 4GB will cost $15.
The attraction is that while T-Mobile’s plan is as permanent as cell phone plans get, Boost is only running this promotion through Dec. 31, 2020.
If you like hotspot data and don’t mind merging streaming music and having to see games pop up, Boost’s unlimited plan is a go-goal. You can also go for the Shrink-it plan that starts at $45 a month for 15GB of data, but sheds $5 at the 3- and 6-month marks. Boost helps you reduces your monthly bill to $35.
#4 Republic Wireless Prepaid Phone Plan
Name of Plan: Republic Wireless Plan Monthly Cost: $25 Amount of Data: 2GB Special features: Additional discounts if you pay annually
Republic Wireless being one of the best prepaid phone plans offers the best alternative to bloated high-data plans that price tags to match. You pay just $15 for talk and text each month at Republic. Any data you use costs $5 per gigabyte. That means if you keep your data use down to less than 3GB, your monthly bill won’t be higher than $30.
Republic has ways to keep your cellular use down. In addition to Sprint’s cellular towers for its LTE coverage, Republic also makes use of Wi-Fi hotspots to protect you from racking up heavy data charges. If you demand unlimited data or prefer iPhones, you’ll want to look elsewhere — Republic only supports Android phones. But anyone who doesn’t continually hop online to stream, tweet, or upload files, will find the Republic’s approach to data a relief on their wallet.
#3 T-Mobile Prepaid Phone Plan
Name of Plan: T-Mobile Connect Plan Monthly Cost: $15 Amount of Data: 2GB Special features: Plans grows by 500MB every year
It’s still uncertain whether the T-Mobile-Sprint merger will affect cell phone plans, but in the short-term at least, its introduced value for prepaid plans is top of the spot. The T-Mobile Connect Plan gives you 2GB of data each month for a mere $15. If that proves too little data, you can opt for the 5GB, $25 monthly plan.
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There’s one big catch here, and it’s that you only get 2GB of data with your plan. Once you use that up, you’re out of data until the next billing cycle. That’s not uncommon with prepaid plans, though some carriers will simply slow down your data once you got over your allotment.
T-Mobile offers you an incentive not to go to other carriers, though. Each year you stick with T-Mobile Connect, you’ll get another 500MB of data added to your portion for five years. So that’s potentially another 2.5GB of data over time.
#2 Metro By T-Mobile Prepaid Phone Plan
Name of Plan: Metro by T-Mobile 10GB Prepaid Plan Monthly Cost: $40 Amount of Data: 10GB Special features: Stream music from 40-plus apps without using data
In the absence of Verizon’s super-sized plans, the best choice for prepaid plans remains Metro by T-Mobile. That’s the T-Mobile-owned service that used to be known as MetroPCS, which benefits from its parent company’s fast network.
The prepaid carrier may be emphasizing unlimited data plans these days — more on that below — but its $40-a-month tiered data plan remains a good deal for individuals, offering 10GB of high-speed data. (Unfortunately, there’s no hotspot data in this plan.) You’ll give up some perks that you’d get from Metro’s pricier unlimited plans, but the $40-a-month rate includes taxes and fees, and you can use 40 different music streaming services without tapping into your data pool.
#1 Verizon Prepaid Phone Plan
Name of Plan: Verizon 15GB Prepaid Plan Monthly Cost: $45 Amount of Data: 15GB Special features: Discounts for sticking with the plan for 3 and 9 months
Verizon’s prepaid plans offer large amounts of data, led by the carrier’s 15GB option. That will cost you $45 a month (after you enroll in autopay for a $5 discount), so you’re only paying $5 more than Metro By T-Mobile’s $40 monthly plan for five extra gigabytes of data.
Discounts don’t stop with autopay. If you hold onto your Verizon plan for three months, the carrier takes another $5 off your monthly rate, and you get an additional $5 discount after nine months. That means, you’re paying $35 a month for 15GB of data, that’s huge, right?
The discounts apply to Verizon’s other prepaid options — a $60-a-month unlimited plan and a $35-a-month 5GB offering.
Verizon service is on the top of our answer list of the question, ‘who has the best-prepaid cell phone plan’ because you’re benefiting from the carrier’s extensive LTE network, which ranked first in tomsguide.com last round of testing for the fastest wireless network. If you don’t need 15GB of data, you can also utilize other prepaid phone plans with lower prices on the list, but it’s hard to find a better-prepaid plan than what Verizon offers.
Final Thoughts
These best-prepaid phone plans reduce your smartphone costs down by serving up a lower cell phone bill every month. Whether you need an unlimited data, talk and text smartphone plan, a simple prepaid flip phone plan, or a custom pay as you go plan for a smart device is a win-win as you get to cut cost and also save more money that can be used to buy a house or invest.
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