One of the reasons we like prepaid phone service is because you (usually) won’t be locked into a contract with a carrier for any length of time. If you want to jump to a competitor because you see a better price, you’re all paid up and free to go. But Verizon’s new prepaid plans want to reward you for sticking around a while.
The new plans are available to new and existing customers. After three months on a prepaid plan, you get a $5 discount per month. Once you hit nine months on your plan, you get $10 off your monthly bill. If you sign up for autopay, you get an extra $5 off your bill, for a total maximum savings of $15 per month.
There are three prepaid plans to choose from, with the most expensive starting at $65 per month before discounts for unlimited talk, text and data. After nine months (and by using autopay), you’d end up paying $50 per month. The least-expensive plan offers 5GB of data for $40 per month before discounts, and goes down to $25 after the discounts.
Taxes and fees, of course, still apply to all plans.
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While the plans and associated discounts are attractive, they’re not exactly revolutionary.
AT&T charges $75 per month for its Unlimited Plus prepaid plan, but offers a $25 discount if you sign up for autopay, bringing the monthly price down to $50 per month right off the bat. T-Mobile offers unlimited talk, text and data for $50 per month.
So if you want an unlimited prepaid plan, there’s a good chance you can get it for around $50 per month from one of the major carriers or an alternative carrier.
There’s also the question of whether you need unlimited mobile service. If you have internet service at home, you’re probably doing the majority of your surfing and chatting on wifi—especially now, while you’re working from home and without your usual daily commute podcast binge.
If you spend most of your time on wifi, there’s good chance a 15GB, 10 GB or even a 5GB plan may be all you need. Choosing a lower data cap brings your costs down considerably, with plans from various providers ranging from $25-$50 per month before discounts.
Depending on how much data you think you need, you can even get your monthly prepaid cost down to as low as $10 per month by choosing an alternative carrier, often known as an MVNO carrier—they basically rent out antenna space from the major carriers, if they’re not already owned by the big guys.
So before you switch to Verizon’s new prepaid plan or any prepaid plan, check your last few statements to see how much data you’re actually using.
“Unlimited” is the easy choice here, because it means you don’t have to keep track of your own behavior and you can surf and stream to your heart’s content. But taking comfort in the unlimited may cut you off from greater opportunities to save.
