us cellular business plan

Exploring US Cellular Business Plans: A Comprehensive Guide

US Cellular, one of the leading wireless carriers in the United States, offers a range of business plans tailored to meet the communication and connectivity needs of organizations of all sizes.

Understanding the features, benefits, and options available in US Cellular’s business plans is essential for businesses looking to optimize their wireless services. In this guide, we’ll delve into the details of US Cellular’s business plans to help you make informed decisions for your organization.

US Cellular Business Plan Options

Variety of Plans

US Cellular provides a variety of business plan options designed to accommodate different usage patterns, budgets, and requirements. These plans may include:

• Unlimited Plans: Plans offering unlimited talk, text, and data with no overage charges.
• Shared Data Plans: Plans allowing multiple devices to share a pool of data with customizable data allowances.
• Device Payment Plans: Options for purchasing or leasing smartphones, tablets, and other devices with flexible payment arrangements.

Customization Options

US Cellular’s business plans offer customization options to meet the specific needs of businesses. Customers can tailor their plans by selecting features such as:

• Data Speeds: Options for high-speed data, 5G access, or prioritized data for business-critical applications.
• International Roaming: Add-ons for international calling, texting, and data usage for businesses with global operations.
• Device Management: Tools for managing devices, monitoring usage, and controlling costs through centralized management portals.

Benefits of US Cellular Business Plans

Reliable network coverage.

US Cellular boasts extensive network coverage across rural and urban areas, providing reliable connectivity for businesses nationwide. With a robust network infrastructure, businesses can stay connected and productive, even in remote locations.

Priority Customer Support

Business customers often receive priority customer support with dedicated business support teams trained to handle complex inquiries, technical issues, and account management tasks promptly. Priority support ensures that businesses receive timely assistance when needed.

Flexibility and Scalability

US Cellular’s business plans offer flexibility and scalability to accommodate changing business needs and growth. Businesses can easily add or remove lines, adjust data allowances, or upgrade device options as their requirements evolve over time.

Considerations for Choosing US Cellular Business Plans

Usage patterns.

Consider your organization’s usage patterns, including the number of lines, data requirements, and device preferences, when selecting a US Cellular business plan. Choose a plan that aligns with your business’s communication needs and budget constraints.

Coverage Area

Evaluate US Cellular’s network coverage in your area to ensure that your business will have reliable connectivity where it’s needed most. Check coverage maps and inquire about network reliability and performance in your region before committing to a business plan.

Additional Features and Services

Explore additional features and services offered with US Cellular’s business plans, such as mobile hotspot functionality, cloud storage options, and security features. Choose plans that include features relevant to your business’s requirements and priorities.

Conclusion: Optimizing Connectivity for Business Success

In conclusion, US Cellular’s business plans offer a range of options and benefits designed to meet the communication and connectivity needs of organizations. By understanding the features, benefits, and considerations associated with US Cellular’s business plans, businesses can make informed decisions to optimize their wireless services.

Whether you’re a small business looking for cost-effective communication solutions or a large enterprise with complex connectivity requirements, US Cellular provides customizable plans and reliable network coverage to support your business’s success. With the right US Cellular business plan in place, businesses can stay connected, productive, and competitive in today’s fast-paced digital landscape.

Data Usage Monitoring

US Cellular’s business plans often include tools and features for monitoring data usage across multiple devices. Business administrators can track data usage in real-time, set usage limits, and receive alerts to prevent overages and manage costs effectively.

Data Pooling

Some US Cellular business plans offer data pooling options, allowing businesses to aggregate data allowances across multiple lines or devices. Data pooling ensures efficient use of resources and enables businesses to optimize data usage and avoid wastage.

Enhanced Security Features

Mobile device management (mdm).

US Cellular provides Mobile Device Management (MDM) solutions as part of its business plans, allowing businesses to secure and manage mobile devices remotely. MDM features may include device lockdown, data encryption, remote wipe, and application management to safeguard sensitive information and mitigate security risks.

VPN and Secure Connectivity

US Cellular offers Virtual Private Network (VPN) services and secure connectivity options to protect data transmission over wireless networks. VPNs create encrypted tunnels between devices and corporate networks, ensuring secure access to business resources and applications from anywhere.

Business Productivity Tools

Collaboration and communication.

US Cellular’s business plans may include collaboration and communication tools to facilitate teamwork and productivity. Features such as business email, messaging, video conferencing, and file sharing enable seamless communication and collaboration among employees, regardless of their location.

Cloud Services Integration

US Cellular partners with leading cloud service providers to offer integrated solutions for data storage, backup, and collaboration. Business plans may include access to cloud storage platforms, productivity suites, and business applications to streamline workflows and enhance productivity.

Conclusion: Empowering Business Connectivity and Productivity

In conclusion, US Cellular’s business plans offer a comprehensive suite of features and services designed to empower businesses with connectivity, security, and productivity tools. By leveraging advanced data management, enhanced security features, and business productivity tools included in US Cellular’s business plans, businesses can optimize their wireless services and drive efficiency, collaboration, and innovation.

Whether you’re a small business looking for cost-effective communication solutions or a large enterprise with complex connectivity requirements, US Cellular provides customizable plans and reliable network coverage to support your business’s success. With US Cellular’s business plans, businesses can stay connected, secure, and productive in today’s dynamic business environment.

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UScellular buyer's guide: Pricing, plans, and more

Published on October 14, 2022

UScellular slots in as the fourth-largest US carrier with five million customers in over 400 markets. Not only that, but it’s giving users plenty of reason to ditch their big three mobile plan. As a network that lies outside of America’s leaders, you may have several questions before you make a move. Keep reading about the best UScellular plans, and we’ll do our best to put your mind at ease.

See also:  The best UScellular deals currently available

We’ll take a look at all of UScellular’s plans, both pre-paid and post-paid, as well as important information on which phones you can use. If you’re looking for another way to save, we’ll touch on a major MVNO that uses UScellular’s network as a part of its service too. Ready to see what happens when you step outside the big three? Let’s get to it.

UScellular at a glance

UScellular launched in 1983 as a majority-owned subsidiary of Telephone and Data Systems Inc. The Chicago-based carrier has an A-minus Better Business Bureau rating, though it’s not accredited with the organization. UScellular has closed 460 complaints in the last three years, with 172 coming in the past 12 months.

The carrier’s 4G LTE coverage extends into all 50 states, and its 5G network is starting to catch up. The fastest speeds were previously reserved for the Midwest, around the carrier’s Chicago headquarters, but now you can find UScellular spread nationwide. If you want to check your local coverage, you can check the coverage map here .

Post-paid UScellular plans

UScellular’s post-paid options are fairly simple — there are just three options, each with distinctive features. You can opt for the easy Basic plan, which covers the fundamentals, or spend more for the Everyday and Even Better plans which offer unlimited service. UScellular is also promising bill protection right now, which means your current rate is protected until the end of 2023. Check out an overview of all three choices here:

As you’d expect from the name, this is the most straightforward plan you can get. You get unlimited talk, text, and 4G or 5G data as well as standard definition (480p) streaming, and that’s it. There’s no hotspot option, and you won’t get the special RedBox promo that the other plans offer, but UScellular Basic costs just $55 per month for one line. If you add a second line, each costs $52.50, three lines drop to $38.33, and four lines cost just $30 each with Autopay and paperless billing.

Highlights:

• Lines cost as little as $30
• Standard definition streaming included
• Users who want talk, text, and data at a low monthly rate

Everyday 2.0 Plan

This is your best bet for full access to standard features. Nothing is off-limits, even if you don’t get quite as much access as the Even Better plan. Your streaming jumps to 720p HD quality for starters, and you can enjoy 25GB of priority 4G LTE or 5G data. Everyday service averages at $10 more per month than Basic, so one line is $65, two are $62.50 each, three cost $48.33, and four lines are just $40 apiece.

The Everyday plan includes 15GB of hotspot access, and it’s a good option if you plan to spend time in either Canada or Mexico. You’ll be able to access unlimited data as well as unlimited talk and text messages in either of the North American neighbors. 

• Talk, text, and data in Canada and Mexico
• Priority data and hotspot access
• Redbox Movie Night rentals
• Users who want full access to the UScellular perks but don’t need much international usage

Even Better 2.0 Plan

If you want the plan that has it all, this one is your pick because it’s Even Better. That’s the name, and it’s the level of service you get too. Stream your shows in 1080p Full HD, make the most of 30GB of hotspot access, and enjoy 50GB of high-speed LTE data access. But, of course, this plan kicks the price up by $10 per line, so one line is $75, two are $72.50, three are $58.33, and four lines will cost $50 each.

The even better theme continues with unlimited usage in Canada and Mexico with a premium robocall solution to keep spammers at bay. It’s the best plan for movie lovers, thanks to two free RedBox rentals per month, per line.

• Two free RedBox rentals per line, per month
• Users who love RedBox rentals and need a bit more international access and can save money with Payback

Post-paid tablet and wearable plans

You can hook up a tablet or smartwatch with UScellular at a great rate, but only if you have another line of unlimited service. After that, you can hook your tablet up with unlimited data for just $29 per month. You’ll also get 4K streaming quality with 15GB of hotspot and 25GB of priority connection each month.

To set up your connected tablet plan, head to the button below or log into your account.

Pre-paid UScellular plans

The UScellular prepaid options outnumber the post-paid offerings with the addition of a data-free plan. Each plan is aptly named and describes what you’ll get, though the prepaid options offer fewer perks than the postpaid plans. The more lines you add, the more you’ll save as well, with a $10 discount on lines two through five. Here are a few more details for each plan:

Unlimited Talk and Text Plan

It may be hard to believe, but not everyone needs unlimited data in 2021. This plan is for those people who don’t need any data at all. You can get unlimited talk and text for a base rate of $30 per month, and you’ll only be charged for the data you use. At a rate of $0.03 for 1MB, it’s worth your while to keep the data to a minimum as it comes out to $30 per GB.

There are no other perks with the Unlimited Talk and Text plan, it’s just a simple option for those who need to call or text, and that’s about it.

• Talk and text as much as you want
• Add data at a per MB rate
• Users who only plan to talk and text but might need data here and there

Your next prepaid option from UScellular offers 15GB of 4G LTE access for $40 per month. If you plan to use anywhere close to even 1GB of that data, this is a better option than the talk and text plan. It may cost more per month, but your wallet will probably thank you for the flat rate.

This plan still doesn’t offer a hotspot and tops out at 480p streaming, but that’s one of the tradeoffs that come with affordable service.

• 15GB of 4G LTE data without per MB rates
• Unlimited talk and text
• Users who plan to use more than 300MB of data but don’t need unlimited access

Unlimited Plan

The UScellular prepaid Unlimited Plan is similar to the post-paid Basic Plan. It costs $40 per month for a limited time, and you get unlimited talk, text, and data, as well as standard-definition streaming. It’s a plan designed for data users who aren’t too fussy about streaming quality and don’t want to worry about limits.

Once again, the plan doesn’t offer a hotspot connection or a RedBox promo, but it’s contract-free so that you can leave at any time.

• Unlimited talk, text, and data
• Standard Definition (480p) streaming
• Users who want coverage like the Basic post-paid plan without committing to a long-term setup

Unlimited Plus Plan

UScellular’s Unlimited Plus prepaid plan is as close as you can get to post-paid access, right down to the RedBox promo. You can make the most of 25GB of priority data per month, followed by an unlimited 4G LTE connection. Streaming is still limited to standard definition (480p), but you can rely on up to 20GB of mobile hotspot access.

Unlimited Plus is the only prepaid plan that’s worth your money if you have family or friends in Canada and Mexico. You can dial each as much as you want at no extra cost. If you’d rather stay in and watch a movie, RedBox Movie Night gives you one free rental per line per month.

• Hotspot access at 1.5Mbps speeds
• One RedBox rental per month
• Users who want unlimited access and hotspot perks without post-paid prices

Which plan is right for you?

If you want to jump into UScellular with the easiest plan, it has to be the Everyday 2.0 option. It offers great value starting at $65 per month with hotspot, HD streaming, and priority data. The Even Better plan is the best around, but it may be more than you need.

You can head down the prepaid route, but you’ll probably want at least the Unlimited Plan if you do. Data can get expensive on the talk and text plan, and the 5GB plan is pretty bare-bones. Either Unlimited plan axes the data limit, and they both add standard definition streaming. Ultimately, the best plan is whichever one fits your needs.

UScellular vs the competition

If you’re considering making the switch, it might help to put the best plans around to a head-to-head test. We’ve stacked the Even Better plan against the top options from the Big Three — Verizon, AT&T, and T-Mobile. You can compare the options in the table below or check out our Best unlimited data plans in the US list.

If you stop at nothing less than the biggest, fastest, most powerful plan Verizon offers, you must pick the 5G Get More plan. With 720p streaming, 75GB of premium 4G data, and 30GB of 4G hotspot, 5G Get More is the powerhouse of the plans.

Get More isn’t just a data beast either; it also adds Apple Music permanently to the mix along with the Disney Plus bundle. Verizon keeps packing in the perks, as you now get Apple Arcade or Google Play Pass for a year. 600GB of cloud storage is back, as is the half-off tablet offer. As with all plans, you can feel free to text to more than 200 countries.

• Unlimited premium network data and 50GB of 4G hotspot
• Apple Music and Disney Plus
• 5G access with capable devices

The smallest of the Big Three, T-Mobile completed its merger with Sprint in the middle of 2020. Magenta Max is the best post-paid plan you can get, with unlimited talk, text, and data for your money. Plans are all about perks, though, and Magenta Max offers unlimited in-flight Wi-Fi and texting. In addition, you’ll be able to access both the 4G LTE and 5G networks without an extra fee.

As far as streaming options go, Magenta Max comes with HD options, and you can grab a screen of Netflix Standard. Each line has up to 40GB of high-speed hotspot access, although it’ll drop to 3G speeds afterward. You’ll also get a year of Apple TV Plus with either Magenta plan.

• Netflix Standard included
• Unlimited in-flight Wi-Fi
• 5G access and HD streaming

Thanks to the Unlimited Premium plan, America’s second-largest carrier, AT&T, keeps pace with just about everything Verizon can do. All three of AT&T’s options include unlimited talk, text, and data, but only Premium and Extra offer heaps of high-speed access. So no matter which way you go, you’ll be able to text more than 120 countries.

If you’re looking for streaming perks to help guide your decision, AT&T might not be for you. Unfortunately, since selling HBO Max, there haven’t been any streaming perks to speak of, and Stadia is shutting down, too. AT&T’s Unlimited Premium includes 40GB of hotspot per line and high-definition streaming.

• Up to 40GB hotspot per line
• High Definition streaming with stream saver

Want UScellular’s service on a budget?

If you’re looking for an alternative way to save money on the UScellular network, you might be ready to give an MVNO a shot. Although the network is a bit smaller than the big three, one carrier uses UScellular for part of its service — none other than Google Fi. Of course, if you’re familiar with Google Fi, then you probably also know that it relies on T-Mobile’s network as well, so it’s more of a hybrid option.

Check out the details right here:

• Google Fi buyer’s guide: Pricing, plans, and more
• The best Google Fi phones to get

What phones can you use?

Carriers have fewer exclusive devices than ever before, which plays heavily into UScellular’s favor. While its plans aren’t miles more affordable than the rest, its phones are available for pretty much unbeatable prices. As long as you qualify, you can get almost any one of UScellular’s phones for free right now when you add a plan. That promo now includes the Pixel 7 series and the Samsung Galaxy S22, S22 Plus, or S22 Ultra.

You can name the phone, and UScellular will support it and make it affordable. However, you can also bring a phone with you if you’re so inclined. UScellular is a CDMA carrier, so it’s a bit limited on what you can bring. The most critical factor in bringing a device is band support. Check the table below for the specifics of the UScellular setup.

Interested in bringing an unlocked phone to the carrier? Check out our guide to the best Android phones . 

Frequently asked questions

Unfortunately, no. UScellular is one of the few remaining carriers based around the CDMA standard. This means that you’ll have a more challenging time bringing an unlocked device to the network.

Most UScellular phones are unlocked out of the box, though all iPhones are locked for 120 days after purchase. Once this time passes, UScellular will automatically free your phone. 

Although it’s been long promised by UScellular, the carrier has yet to implement Wi-Fi calling support. 

An MVNO is a carrier that uses another network to provide customers its service. UScellular operates its own network, so no, it’s not an MVNO. That said, UScellular has a relatively smaller network and uses partnerships with some of the big carriers to provide free roaming for its customers. In many cases, UScellular will still get service outside of its network, though you might not get full data support while roaming. 

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Home > Services > Phone

The 5 Best Business Cell Phone Plans of 2023

Data as of 12/7/22. Offers and availability may vary by location and are subject to change. *AutoPay Discount included: -$5/mo. per line. Plus taxes & fees.

We are committed to sharing unbiased reviews. Some of the links on our site are from our partners who compensate us. Read our editorial guidelines and advertising disclosure .

Business.org’s 5 best business cell phone plans

At&t: best full-featured plans.

Looking for a broad choice of bells and whistles? As a telecom behemoth, AT&T has plenty of cell phone features and packages to offer a business—around 20 plan variations, small to large. All plans include free US roaming, unlimited talk, and text messages, as well as unlimited texting outside of the country. Basic features like call forwarding, voicemail, caller ID, call waiting, and conference calling also come standard with all AT&T business cell phone plans, along with bring-your-own-phone support.

AT&T's business cell phone plans

Data as of 12/7/22. Offers and availability may vary by location and are subject to change.

Business Unlimited plan prices start at $35 a month per line, and there is a new perk where unlimited data is included in the unlimited talk and text plan. This means there is no need to worry about overages or data caps. 

 AT&T business plans can also accommodate up to 10 lines per account, and they come fully loaded with perks—like Stream Saver. This feature optimizes streaming video on your phone to 480p so you can watch webinars on-the-go without dealing with a blurry picture.

Each plan also includes a decent array of iOS and Android smartphone options and even a few good ol’ flip phones. A 15% military veteran discount can be applied to the Business Unlimited plans, as well as AT&T-owned DIRECTV services (because, again, telecom behemoth).

Users are eligible for a discount if they elect for autopay and paperless billing but this discount is only applied until after two pay periods. We don't know why the discount cannot be applied earlier in the billing process but we do find it frustrating. 

T-Mobile: Best flexible plans

Not sure exactly what you’ll need in a mobile plan besides future adaptability? T-Mobile, the third-largest wireless service in the US, offers four Magenta® for Business plans, all packed with unique features that set T-Mobile apart from the rest. The German-owned company has also earned a reputation for stellar customer service and was the first to eliminate annual contracts (an idea that stuck—none of the plans reviewed on this page require contracts). In April 2018, the company announced its intention to merge with Sprint under the T-Mobile banner.

T-Mobile's business cell phone plans

Data as of 12/7/22. Offers and availability may vary by location and are subject to change. *While using AutoPay.

All of T-Mobile’s Business cell phone plans offer the same basic features:

Unlimited talk and text

Unlimited 5G and 4G LTE data on our network

• Unlimited mobile hotspot
• Scam Shield

Unlimited calling and texting to Mexico & Canada

Unlimited video streaming

In addition, all T-Mobile Business plans include DIGITS, which allows you to access up to five phone numbers on a single device. That means you could answer calls to your work number and your personal number on one device—no more packing two phones in your bag every day. DIGITS also lets you share your phone number across multiple devices, so you can answer on your phone, smartwatch, tablet, or computer.

T-Mobile users with a Business plan can also add the PlusUp add-on and get extra features, like Voicemail to Text, HD streaming, 20 GB of 4G LTE mobile hotspot data, unlimited in-flight Wi-Fi, caller ID, and double the data speed when roaming internationally.

Keep in mind, though, that T-Mobile’s Business plans are available only on plans with two to 13 lines. If you need more than 13 lines, you’ll need to sign up for the 13+ Plan ($285 per month for 13 lines, plus $25 per month for each additional line).

T-Mobile plans also allow bring-your-own-device convenience, or you can buy phones up front with a single payment (there are nearly 40 iOS and Android phones to choose from).

Now that T-Mobile and Sprint have been merged for almost six months, some significant changes have taken effect. T-Mobile’s website is now the only place businesses can sign up for Sprint or T-Mobile business phone accounts.

Sprint still has an active business website for previous users but all new plans will be sold by T-Mobile on its website.

By signing up I agree to the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy .

Verizon: Best growing business plans

Serving over 150 million customers, Verizon isn’t just big, it’s BIG. Such a mobile mammoth might not seem like the obvious choice for a small business, but for what it lacks in a personalized customer service reputation, Verizon more than makes up for by offering every cell phone feature there is, as well as dominant US, and near-dominant global, coverage. Like McDonald’s and Marvel movies, Verizon is everywhere.

Verizon's business cell phone plans

Data as of 12/7/22. Offers and availability may vary by location and are subject to change. *With 4+ lines

While business owners can get business cell phone plans with limited data, we recommend choosing an unlimited plan if you have multiple employees (or do a lot of work via cell phone).

Verizon’s Business Unlimited cell phone plans are scalable from four employees up to and over 40. And with plans starting at just $40 per line, Verizon Business Unlimited plans are an attractive option whether you’re running a tiny company with no expansion plans, a medium-sized business with an eye toward growth, or a large enterprise with heavy cell phone requirements.

Verizon Beyond Unlimited plans also include unlimited mobile hotspot use, though your speeds are limited depending on your plan. Plus, you get unlimited calling and texting to Mexico and Canada—not to mention unlimited calling, texting, and data while in those countries. And naturally, you also get unlimited talk and text as part of your Beyond Unlimited package.

Verizon doesn’t skimp on device choices either. There are nearly 100 iOS and Android phones and tablets available—including the Verizon Jetpack, a mobile hotspot device that can connect 10 devices to its 4G LTE network and an additional five to 3G.

If your company requires truly “unlimited” cell phone service and scalability to grow and is in the position to pay for functionality with frills, Verizon Business Unlimited is the way to go. Bare-bones operations, however, might want to look elsewhere.

Each of our recommendations has its strengths and weaknesses. Sometimes the most difficult part about finding a phone system is determining exactly what you need and don't need. The best place to start is separating your needs between installing a new system, replacing a system or expanding system.

If you are having trouble sorting out exactly what your phone needs are, use this tool to help you understand what the best options are for your unique needs. 

MintMobile: Most affordable plans

We are sure you’ve seen the commercials with Ryan Reynolds talking about this new phone carrier business with a fox logo called Mint Mobile. In fact, a lot of Mint customers were drawn to Mint because of Ryan Reynolds Hollywood looks, but that’s not the only thing Mint has to offer. 

Mint is inexpensive and transparent, compared to other cell phone carriers with hidden fees and seemingly random regulations.

MintMobile's business cell phone plans

Data as of 12/7 /22 . Offers and availability may vary by location and are subject to change.

T hese are the prices for new customers and will last up to three months. After the third month, you are eligible to sign up for a 6- or 12-month contract on one of the tiered plans, all less than $35/mo/user, which is astronomically less than other providers. 

MintMobile is no fuss, and you really do feel like you must be tricking the rest of the world with its pricing. The only issue is that MintMobile is fairly new, launched in 2015, coverage is not completely everywhere. There are still a couple of coverage gaps in the West, namely Utah, Nebraska, Idaho and Nevada. If you are east of the Rocky Mountains, you are good to go!

Teltik: Best perks plans

If you’re a strapped startup, New Jersey’s Teltik can get you up and running on the cheap. Teltik is a reseller service operating on T-Mobile’s 4G LTE network, meaning it can offer the reliability and reach of a giant provider at smaller-company prices. Teltik also has the advantage of being completely US-based, with 24/7 local customer service that’s not outsourced overseas.

Teltik's business cell phone plans

3 more (non-business) cell phone plans reviewed by business.org.

Teltik appears to have a dozen plans, but they’re mostly just variations of the essential plan that offers all the expected basics. Not coincidentally, the features mirror those of T-Mobile, as they’re on the same network.

The most basic plan starts at $20 a month and includes unlimited calling and texting, mobile hotspot service, and unlimited data—with a 2 GB cap on 4G LTE speeds (meaning your speed gets throttled to 128 Kbps if you use more than 2 GB of data in a month). From there, you can upgrade your plan to include more 4G LTE data and more mobile hotspot data. Upgraded plans cost anywhere from $30 to $40 per month, and they all include one cloud-phone VoIP line—perfect for small businesses looking to save on all their telecommunications needs.

One distinctly entertaining feature (pun intended) of Teltik’s business plans? You get unlimited media streaming from over 40 music services (including Spotify, Pandora, and Apple Music) and more than 100 video services (including YouTube, Netflix, and any other channel you can think of). That means you can stream as much TV as you want without it eating into your data. It’s almost as if Teltik doesn’t want you to get any work done.

Another thing you need to know: Teltik doesn’t sell phones. Instead, the company operates on a strict bring-your-own-device basis. Any unlocked phone will work with its network, as will any T-Mobile device, of course. However, you will have to spend $10 plus shipping and handling to buy a new SIM card for each of your devices (unless they’ve already got brand-new, unused T-Mobile SIM cards).

The takeaway

Assess your company’s current cell phone usage, and projected future needs, before diving into any plan. What looks like a great deal could turn out to be more than you actually need—or you may have initially underestimated your business’s cell phone requirements. Also, if your company has both cell phone and regular office phone needs, check into bundling. The larger telecom providers offer both types of phone coverage, and bundling services is an easy way to save money in the long run.

Don’t want to carry around separate phones for work and personal calls? With the right VoIP service, you don’t have to. Check out our favorite business VoIP providers to see which ones offer on-the-go business phone capabilities.

Business cell phone plan FAQs

If you have several employees working outside of the office on a regular basis, desk-bound phones obviously aren’t going to work for them. Some may be only calling and texting while others will be checking email, using GPS navigation, and accessing the internet for work, but a cell phone is a must for employees in the field.

If you’re a one-person operation accountable to only yourself, you could get by with a personal cell plan. Keeping track of multiple employees’ hours, data, and providers, however, would be an extra headache you don’t need. For streamlining and collaboration purposes, a business cell phone plan would be the easier route.

Most of the plans we’ve reviewed here offer unlimited data—domestically, at least—so hitting the data ceiling won’t likely be an issue. But if you want to forecast how much data your business uses every month, providers make data plan estimators available on their websites. Or you could use a third-party calculator app.

BYOD stands for bring your own device . Another common term is BYOP for bring your own phone . These can mean that employees are using their personal phones, tablets, or laptops on their own carrier plans for work or that they’ve put those devices on the company’s plan. The upside? Less expensive than buying devices. The downside? Extra security concerns.

In the annoying absence of Wi-Fi, you can use a cell phone signal to connect a wireless device to the internet by switching on the mobile hotspot option and simply treating it like a Wi-Fi router. For multiple device connections, a dedicated hotspot (such as Verizon’s Jetpack) can provide a faster, and more stable, connection.

Business owners weigh in

Methodology

To find the best business cell phone options, we considered pricing plans, customer support, and data limits. We also looked at the variety of contracts and whether these plans were flexible with discounts. 

At Business.org, our research is meant to offer general product and service recommendations. We don't guarantee that our suggestions will work best for each individual or business, so consider your unique needs when choosing products and services.

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Disclaimer: The information featured in this article is based on our best estimates of pricing, package details, contract stipulations, and service available at the time of writing. All information is subject to change. Pricing will vary based on various factors, including, but not limited to, the customer’s location, package chosen, added features and equipment, the purchaser’s credit score, etc. For the most accurate information, please ask your customer service representative. Clarify all fees and contract details before signing a contract or finalizing your purchase.

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The Best Cell Phone Plans

By Rob Pegoraro

If you haven’t looked at what your cell phone bill might be under a new plan or on a new service, you should check now. In recent years prices have come down and data allocations have gone up, especially among the dozens of smaller carriers reselling services from the big three. But as always, most deals come with a catch.

There isn’t one carrier or plan that we can recommend for everyone, but T-Mobile’s Magenta plan is best for unlimited data, and AT&T’s Unlimited Extra plan offers the most comprehensive coverage. We also have picks for people with more specific needs.

The research

Why you should trust us, how we picked, what’s the deal with 5g, best for the most data: t-mobile magenta/go5g, coverage first: at&t, multiple-line plans: consumer cellular or google fi, the cheapest plan: mint mobile, how to determine which network has the best coverage for you, how much data do you need, should you buy postpaid, prepaid, or resold service, what to look forward to, the competition.

I’ve covered the wireless industry since the late 1990s . I’ve tested smartphones and cell phone plans from all the major carriers—the historic foursome of AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile, and Verizon, plus Nextel before then—for the Washington Post, USA Today, CNN Money, Discovery News, VentureBeat, and others, and I now cover tech and telecom issues for Fast Company, PCMag, and other sites, including trade publications like Light Reading and FierceTelecom. And in July 2021, I put in more than a thousand miles of drive testing from Baltimore to Atlanta for PCMag’s Fastest Mobile Networks project, following that with almost 1,700 more miles of drive testing in the 2022 edition of that project.

We limited this guide to the most widely used national options—starting with the three biggest nationwide carriers and their prepaid services and subsidiaries, and then adding services that have ranked high in surveys conducted by sites and organizations such as PCMag , the American Customer Satisfaction Index , and J.D. Power .

We excluded contenders available only in parts of the US, including the regional carrier U.S. Cellular and the resold services of cable firms such as Comcast and Spectrum, which require subscriptions to their residential broadband to get their advertised pricing or to sign up at all. Last, we cut prepaid services that required separate purchases of data, texts, or voice minutes to meet any of our monthly usage quotas.

That process left us with the following services to assess:

• AT&T Wireless , its prepaid program , and its prepaid brand Cricket Wireless
• T-Mobile , its prepaid option , its Metro by T-Mobile brand, and Mint Mobile , a T-Mobile reseller that T-Mobile is now buying
• Verizon Wireless , its self-branded prepaid offering, its prepaid brand Visible , TracFone (a reseller that Verizon bought in November 2021 ), and TracFone’s Straight Talk brand
• Boost Mobile , formerly a Sprint prepaid brand and now Dish Network’s T-Mobile reseller
• Consumer Cellular , an AT&T reseller
• Google Fi , a Google service based on resold coverage from T-Mobile

We calculated the cost of three typical bundles of smartphone service for every provider: moderate use at 3 GB of data; a for-most-people scenario requiring unlimited data for the phone but with no more than 3 GB of mobile hotspot use; and a heavy-use case with unlimited on-phone data plus 10 GB of mobile hotspot use. These totals are higher than in previous editions of this guide because typical data usage has gone up substantially: Circana analyst Brad Akyuz told us that the firm’s research showed US median smartphone cellular data usage in the second quarter of 2023 had hit 10.8 GB per month, with average use (skewed by extreme cases) at 17.9 GB.

The wireless industry has found so many ways to interpret “unlimited” that we’ve had to think about what “unlimited” means. Some unlimited plans offer no “priority data,” so your connection can slow down because of network congestion even if you haven’t used much data yourself. Other plans advise that service may get slower above a preset threshold of used data—often without defining those slower speeds. Some of these asterisked unlimited plans represent good values for all but the most intensive users. But we do require at least 25 GB of full-speed data per line in the for-most-people scenario (“full-speed” meaning no restrictions on what parts of a carrier’s 5G network you can use) and 50 GB per line in the heavy-use scenario.

We also require unlimited messages and voice minutes, but almost all services now offer that.

Network reliability and speed

A wireless network’s coverage and performance usually vary considerably by location, and they also change over time. To get the most balanced picture possible of the big three carriers (and the services that resell their networks), we consulted independently conducted surveys of wireless-network coverage and performance from Opensignal , PCMag , and RootMetrics . In our view, consistently good performance in the places where most people live, work, and visit was a higher priority than exceptionally fast download speeds if the coverage to access those speeds was spotty.

Hotspot policy

Our cost estimates assumed that anybody who wanted to use their phone’s mobile-hotspot feature to share their LTE or 5G bandwidth for any sustained period wanted to do so at its full speed. We assumed that most people wouldn’t use up more than 3 GB of data per month with this feature, but we also included an intensive scenario that assumed up to 10 GB a month in mobile-hotspot use.

Discount possibilities

In addition, we crunched those same numbers for shared-use plans for two and four lines, because many Wirecutter readers have asked to see comparisons of family pricing.

If a plan offered a lower rate for enabling autopay or paying for a year in advance, or if it included loyalty discounts that cut your bill over time (as Verizon Prepaid has offered since 2020), we factored in those options. We did not, however, count deals that required trading in a phone or porting over a number.

Cell providers have spent the past few years transitioning from 4G (or LTE, for Long Term Evolution) service toward the 5G standard—and talking endlessly about how great 5G is. The reality is that 5G can be immensely faster, but its performance depends on which frequency band it runs on, whether your carrier has deployed 5G on one of the faster bands, and whether you’re in a spot where your carrier’s 5G network reaches you on one of the faster bands.

Think of a layer cake: The bottom layer is low-band 5G, which resides on the same frequencies as LTE and isn’t much faster but offers about the same coverage. Mid-band 5G, on higher frequencies that yield faster speeds with somewhat reduced coverage, is the middle layer. Millimeter-wave 5G, on frequencies that nobody tried to use for wireless service until 5G’s advent, delivers extremely fast speeds over extremely short ranges, making it the tiny top layer of the cake that almost nobody gets to eat at a wedding.

In fewer words: You may find that the most widely available form of 5G at your carrier doesn’t offer speeds much faster than 4G.

You can read more about the transition to 5G and how it all works in our explainer .

T-Mobile Magenta

More data for streaming and downloading.

If more data is more important to you than coverage in non-metropolitan areas, the Magenta plan offers a great price for unlimited data on a strong network. Plus, T-Mobile has the best 5G service and international plans.

Buying Options

If data is your priority—meaning, you want a fast network connection that you can use to download and upload in volume—consider the T-Mobile Magenta plan. T-Mobile’s primary unlimited-data offering represents a better value proposition for most people’s needs than AT&T’s or Verizon’s comparable plan, and the carrier’s rollout of 5G has made an already good network considerably better in a steadily expanding share of the country.

Magenta is the best unlimited-data plan based on price alone. Magenta costs $70 a month for unlimited on-phone data. Translation: T-Mobile says you have to exceed 100 GB of data before it might slow your connection to ease network congestion. That’s double the allotment on AT&T’s comparable plan, which costs $5 more, but less than the unlimited priority-data allocation on Verizon’s closest equivalent, which costs $10 more. At both competitors, those rates don’t include the taxes and fees that T-Mobile folds into its advertised rate. (Two lines of Magenta cost $60 each, and four run $35 each.) You can use only 5 GB of that data for mobile-hotspot sharing, which is less than what the competition offers on slightly more expensive plans, but it’s also more than enough for occasional use.

If you’re 55 or older, T-Mobile has discounts  that make this carrier an even better choice, slashing the cost of Magenta to $50 for one line and $35 each for two, three, or four lines.

T-Mobile has the best 5G coverage. All the data allotment in the world is unhelpful if the connection is too slow to use, but T-Mobile’s network has jumped ahead of the pack, in part because of its 5G frequencies. T-Mobile’s mid-band spectrum offering provides impressively fast 5G with better coverage than the almost-as-speedy C-band and much faster but far shorter-range millimeter-wave of AT&T and Verizon. This mid-band 5G, which T-Mobile markets as Ultra Capacity 5G, is much speedier than the low-band 5G that fills out its network and constitutes the most widely available form of 5G among its competitors.

The difference has become increasingly obvious in third-party tests, as well as in our own evaluations of Wi-Fi hotspots from the big three carriers .

Opensignal’s crowdsourced 5G-specific tests from July 2023 showed a significant advantage for T-Mobile (outlined in the table below), more than double Verizon’s and AT&T’s download averages; in addition, T-Mobile’s 5G was available more than half the time, compared with just over 20% for AT&T and under 10% for Verizon. Ookla’s Speedtest showed comparable leads in Q3 2023 for T-Mobile in median download speeds (163.59 megabits per second versus 75.68 Mbps on Verizon and 72.64 Mbps on AT&T) and 5G-only median download speeds (221.57 Mbps, with Verizon at 153.79 Mbps and AT&T at 101.55 Mbps).

PCMag gave T-Mobile its first-ever fastest mobile network ranking in 2021 . The carrier maintained its position as the best mobile network in 2022 . And RootMetrics’s latest drive-testing-based State of the Mobile Union report , for the first half of 2023, found T-Mobile to have the fastest median download speeds: 213.2 Mbps, almost triple Verizon’s 77.9 Mbps and AT&T’s 77.3 Mbps. But RootMetrics gave top overall honors to AT&T for offering more consistent service outside urban areas.

AT&T and Verizon each launched faster 5G service on C-band frequencies in January 2022 and have since taken this midband coverage nationwide past relatively small launch areas (just eight for AT&T [PDF] and 46 mostly urban markets for Verizon ), T-Mobile’s advantage has persisted.

Magenta offers the best bonuses for frequent travelers. Magenta includes international roaming, and although it’s limited to speeds around 256 Kbps, I’ve found it to be more than adequate for email and basic browsing. You also get free texting, 25¢-per-minute calling, and the ability to use your phone in Canada or Mexico with no roaming charges for up to 5 GB a month, even on 5G. And it includes an hour of free in-flight Wi-Fi—and full-flight connectivity four times a year—on your phone on Alaska Airlines, American Airlines, Delta Air Lines, and United Airlines.

T-Mobile also offers four higher-end unlimited plans, but Magenta is best for most people. Go5G costs $75 for a single line, $65 each for two lines, or $45 each for four lines, and it triples the hotspot allocation to 15 GB. It also doubles the high-speed roaming cap in Canada and Mexico to 10 GB. Magenta Max ($85 for one line, $70 each for two lines, $43 each for four lines) provides only 5 GB of high-speed international roaming, but that’s in all of the 215-plus countries where T-Mobile offers its free-but-slow roaming; Magenta Max also offers unlimited priority data, 4K UHD streaming video, and a full 40 GB of mobile-hotspot use. The Go5G Plus plan offers 50 GB of mobile hotspot and bundles Netflix and Apple TV+ for $90 on one line, $75 each on two lines, or $55 each on four lines. People who were already set on watching those streaming services might find that Go5G Plus offers some net savings in their combined wireless and entertainment budget, but otherwise it looks like T-Mobile’s least relevant plan besides the new, $100 Go5G Next, which offers a new phone every year for compulsive upgraders.

T-Mobile’s discount for those 55 and older drops the cost of all those plans dramatically: On a single line, Magenta runs just $50, Go5G costs $55, Magenta Max is $65, and Go5G Plus costs $70, with multiple-line scenarios offering comparable savings.

Flaws but not dealbreakers

T-Mobile’s rural coverage lags behind that of AT&T and Verizon. Coverage from those carriers remains more comprehensive than T-Mobile’s—as I saw on rural roads in the Southeast and Northwest while doing drive testing for PCMag—but thanks to the past few years of improvement in T-Mobile’s network, you’d have to get into fairly remote areas to notice that difference. Before choosing a plan, determine whether your likely travel patterns are more apt to make T-Mobile’s rural limitations an ongoing problem.

International roaming is complicated if you haven’t paid off your phone. Although T-Mobile’s international roaming costs much less than AT&T’s and Verizon’s international options, you may have to pay those charges if you buy your phone from T-Mobile on an installment-payment plan, as this carrier keeps such handsets locked until you pay off your balance—or conclude the term on a free-upgrade deal.

T-Mobile has a history of data breaches, with its largest in August 2022. That breach affected some 40 million customers —I was among them. I thought about dropping T-Mobile, but the telecom industry’s general indifference to the concept of data minimization left me with little reason to think I’d fare much better in the long run elsewhere. That history makes T-Mobile’s recent move to limit its autopay discount to payments made from a bank account or debit card look even more distasteful, although its enforcement of this policy seems to be uneven so far.

T-Mobile management does not seem immune to wireless-industry jerk behavior. Since 2013, T-Mobile has led with an “Un-Carrier” brand based on dumping dumb wireless-industry habits. But T-Mobile has scored enough own goals–for example, a plan to move people on some older plans to more expensive options that the carrier has since abandoned –to remind subscribers that they need to watch their monthly statements and other customer notices as much as they would with any other carrier.

AT&T Unlimited Data Plan

For more coverage in more places.

AT&T offers slightly more reliable coverage in rural areas and now provides subscribers access to its full (and notably improving) 5G network at a slightly lower cost than Verizon.

We’ve traditionally recommended Verizon for the reach of its network, but the latest round of testing data shows that AT&T ’s network is more likely to keep you online. Meanwhile, a round of rate increases at Verizon—including the elimination of a cheaper limited-data plan that we had recommended before—have erased that carrier’s cost advantage over AT&T. Though AT&T isn’t the best choice for people who frequently travel outside of the US or who want unlimited data , it is a better choice for people prioritizing maximum coverage over speed. And the 50 GB of priority data and 15 GB of mobile-hotspot data on its Unlimited Extra plan, which costs $75 on a single line, $65 for each of two lines, or $40 for each of four lines, should cover most people’s needs, making the additional $5 cost of Verizon’s Unlimited Plus plan an unnecessary indulgence.

AT&T has the largest network, with the most reliable coverage. Drive testing done by RootMetrics found that AT&T had a more reliable network than Verizon in the first half of 2023. Opensignal’s crowdsourced app testing gave AT&T a tiny lead in network availability in July 2023. And PCMag’s Best Mobile Networks 2022 drive testing found that AT&T had the lowest percentage of dropped data connections—with a more pronounced advantage on that metric and in dropped calls compared with Verizon in rural areas.

AT&T’s 5G network is improving. AT&T’s 5G network, meanwhile, has advanced considerably from its state two years ago. It has also improved from its January 2022 launch of faster C-band service in only eight markets (PDF) , which as of August covers 175 million people. In a further upgrade, the carrier has lit up a separate band of 3.45 GHz mid-band 5G spectrum, but you probably need a new phone to use those frequencies.

It’s cheaper than Verizon (but not T-Mobile). Among its plans for unlimited on-phone data, AT&T’s $75 Unlimited Extra offers the best value, providing 50 GB of priority data, 15 GB of hotspot use, and SD video for $5 less than Verizon’s Unlimited Plus plan. That cost is $5 more than the price for T-Mobile’s unlimited with-hotspot plan—before the taxes and fees that T-Mobile folds into its rate—and the AT&T plan does not give you service that’s as fast overall as what T-Mobile generally delivers.

If you can deal with a lack of priority data and don’t intend to lean on your phone’s mobile-hotspot feature, AT&T’s Unlimited Starter option now includes 3 GB of hotspot allowance at the same $65-per-month price as before. Finally, AT&T’s Unlimited Premium, $85 for a single line, adds unlimited priority data and 50 GB of mobile hotspot. That plan costs $5 more than Verizon’s Unlimited Plus, but it includes 20 GB more hotspot use and throws in free high-speed roaming in 19 Latin American countries , a bonus that has no parallel in Verizon’s lineup.

AT&T, unlike Verizon, still offers limited-data postpaid plans. Both the Value Plus plan and the 4 GB plan run $50, but only the former includes 5G access—which to us outweighs its lack of priority data. And you can cut these plans’ costs by taking advantage of AT&T’s business and academic discounts or its unique 15% discount for union members –deals its unlimited plans exclude.

AT&T still charges junk fees and misrepresents some 4G speeds as 5G. AT&T continues to levy a $2 “administrative fee” that is such an obvious example of a junk fee that it has drawn a class-action lawsuit . (Verizon is pulling its own version of that stunt .) Equally bogus is AT&T’s insistence on labeling its fastest flavor of 4G LTE as “5G E” on phone screens, a marketing ploy that only confuses customers into thinking they have actual 5G.

It keeps cell-site location data much longer than the other carriers do. Privacy-conscious shoppers should know that AT&T keeps cell-site location data for at most five years, according to an AT&T spokesperson (who called Vice’s reports of FBI claims that AT&T holds this data for seven years old and incorrect and said some cell-site history gets flushed after 13 months). In contrast, Verizon holds it for one year, and T-Mobile does so for two.

International coverage is expensive if you haven’t paid off your phone. International travelers should note that buying your phone on AT&T’s installment plan brings an extra risk: Until you’ve paid off the phone, the device remains locked and stuck with international-roaming charges of $10 a day in most countries—and unavailable to use with a different service if you want to leave AT&T early.

AT&T’s prepaid service isn’t a great deal. If you don’t need much data, it’s decent, but in any unlimited-data context it’s scarcely cheaper than the carrier’s postpaid plans—and across four lines in our typical data-usage scenario, it’s much more expensive. Note that outside of Canada and Mexico , these prepaid plans offer no international roaming data options.

Budget pick

Consumer Cellular

Affordable two- and four-line plans.

This reseller of AT&T offers great service and the cheapest two- and four-line service bundles for most people.

Affordable four-line plans

Google’s wireless service beats everybody else’s prices for four lines, but intensive-data users and iPhone owners need to consider it carefully.

Family-plan pricing changes frequently due to constantly shifting promotions and terms, so we’ve split our recommendation for multiple-line service between two options. For two lines in our typical-usage scenario—unlimited on-phone data with 3 GB of mobile-hotspot use— Consumer Cellular is an easy call.

Consumer Cellular has excellent customer-satisfaction ratings. This AT&T reseller (which formerly sold T-Mobile, too, but no longer does) consistently lands at or near the top of customer surveys such as PCMag’s annual survey , the American Customer Satisfaction Index , and J.D. Power’s purchase-experience studies . And at $65 for two lines on its unlimited plan, Consumer Cellular also undercuts every provider. However, mobile-hotspot use is blocked by default, so you need to call support or use the customer service chat before you can take advantage of your 50 GB of priority data for tethering.

The service is marketed to older adults with a 5% AARP discount , but the factors that make it good for older adults make it good for most people, as well. Most important, it offers US-based phone support and step-by-step manuals and video tutorials for the non-tech-savvy, maintains an in-store presence in major retailers such as Target, and offers installment-plan phone purchase options with roughly the same terms as the big carriers provide.

Price for two lines with unlimited on-phone data plus 3 GB hotspot each

“Unlimited” still has limits. Like other carriers, Consumer Cellular actually puts some limits on its “unlimited” plan, but it doesn’t define them as well as its competitors do: After you use 50 GB combined between the lines, the service warns that “your access to high speed data will be reduced, and you will experience slower speeds,” but it doesn’t document how slow. Publicist Sarah Burns clarified that this slowdown happens automatically and drops connections to 1.5 Mbps.

Google Fi is the best budget option for a family of four. For four lines, Google Fi offers the cheapest deal in our typical-usage scenario at just $80 for four lines of its Simply Unlimited plan with 35 GB of full-speed data listed as based on T-Mobile’s strong 5G service. And like Consumer Cellular, Fi seems to have satisfied subscribers, as it ranked highest in PCMag’s 2023 Readers’ Choice awards .

Google Fi’s data limits are more strict. Although Fi’s data plan includes a generous mobile-hotspot allocation of 15 GB, the 35 GB limit is harder than at other services—exceeding it prompts the service to throttle your connection all the way back to 256 Kbps.

Google Fi is optimized for Android phones. Once compatible only with Google’s Nexus and then Pixel phones, Google Fi now offers full support for not just Google’s Pixel models but also unlocked versions of most recent Samsung phones . But while its iPhone support has greatly advanced–including the overdue addition of full-speed 5G access–it still requires you to fiddle around in settings to get texts from Android users.

Consumer Cellular isn’t a great pick if you plan to travel internationally. It quotes overseas-roaming rates that start at 10¢ per minute for calls and 10¢ per megabyte for data. But Google Fi’s cheaper plan is also bad for international travelers because it omits the free full-speed global roaming of Fi’s Unlimited Plus.

Price for four lines with unlimited on-phone data plus 3 GB hotspot each

Mint Mobile

A cheap, prepaid plan.

Mint Mobile gives you access to T-Mobile’s network for much less money, but you have to pay for three, six, or 12 months in advance.

New customers only

If the lowest possible bill on a good-enough network is your top priority, we recommend Mint Mobile , a reseller of T-Mobile’s LTE and 5G networks. It beats everybody else’s costs with a simple pricing tactic: It offers cheaper prices for longer terms, with the minimum being three months. When you sign up, you can choose 5 GB, 15 GB, 20 GB, or unlimited data per month and then pay up front for either three, six, or 12 months—the longer the package, the better the price per month.

Mint Mobile charges less for longer prepaid commitments. The unlimited plan is just $30 per month for the first three months, after which you can balance commitment and price, choosing $40 per month on a three-month term, $35 per month on a six-month policy, or $30 per month for a year. The same math works for minimal usage: 5 GB per month costs $25 per month over a three-month term or $15 per month on a full-year deal.

The unlimited plan has restrictions. Mint’s unlimited plan includes usage limits similar to those of other “unlimited” plans: It imposes a priority-data cap of 40 GB, after which it warns that you “will experience lower speeds” (defined only as “3G speeds”), it places a 10 GB cap on mobile-hotspot usage, and it limits streaming video to 480p. You can buy another 5 GB of hotspot data for $15 —or you could save $5 by trading down to the 20 GB plan, which lets you use all of that data for mobile hotspot and places no constraints on streaming-video resolution.

Mint requires some other compromises, too. Mint doesn’t focus on phone sales, so you’ll probably want to bring your own unlocked device, and support is online or over the phone only. In addition, after you hit your data cap, your speed slows to 128 Kbps unless you upgrade your plan or switch to the unlimited plan (on which you can still find your connection throttled, just not as severely, once you exceed the 40 GB priority-data allocation). International roaming costs 20¢ per megabyte in most countries. And you face the risk of seeing your bandwidth deprioritized behind that of T-Mobile subscribers , especially when the network is busy.

Mint Mobile’s customers like it. In 2023 Mint Mobile earned the third-highest ranking in PCMag’s Readers’ Choice survey and had the second-highest score in the American Customer Satisfaction Index survey , in line with earlier positive word of mouth and the experiences of some Wirecutter staffers.

T-Mobile has announced plans to acquire Mint Mobile and its parent company, Ka’ena Corporation, in a deal valued at approximately $1.3 billion and expected to close at the end of 2023. Based on our observations of T-Mobile when it took over MetroPCS (now Metro by T-Mobile) and kept that prepaid service competitive with others, we’re not panicking over this impending acquisition.

Opensignal , PCMag , and RootMetrics all publish independently sourced network-performance metrics that can free you from relying on carrier coverage maps, but those studies each take different approaches and are thus good for different purposes.

RootMetrics uses cars set up with “leading Android-based smartphones for each network” to gather figures on data, talk, and text performance throughout the country. You can also find reports tailored to specific metropolitan areas. PCMag has taken a similar approach but focuses more on network data speed and reliability in metropolitan centers and their suburbs and conducts its tests with the same model of high-end phone—in 2022, the Samsung Galaxy S22+, which may support more high-speed frequencies than your own. Opensignal’s network tests, meanwhile, rely on crowdsourcing: Anyone can download the Opensignal app and run tests. But the majority of people don’t, and as such, Opensignal’s data skews heavily toward urban areas.

In August 2021, the Federal Communications Commission rolled out its own reality check: a map of estimated LTE coverage , based on signal-propagation models applied to its own data of cell sites. Although that map shows only the presence of at least basic LTE service—5 Mbps downloads and just 1 Mbps uploads—in my own spot-checking , I’ve found that it’s been more accurate than the carriers’ own coverage maps at warning of dead zones.

Once you’ve decided on a network, the next step is to figure out how much data you use. We’ve seen both average and median data use roughly triple from the first quarter of 2019 to the fourth quarter of 2022, going by figures from Circana. An Opensignal report from 2021 suggests that increases in data consumption are driven by 5G users—in the US, LTE users running that firm’s testing software averaged 9 GB a month, while those on 5G hit 14.9 GB a month.

Both Android and iOS provide estimates of your current data usage, but your carrier’s website can give you the number that counts for billing purposes. You need to make an educated guess as to how far that number could rise in a year and see which plans can cover that with a reasonable margin.

As limited-data plans become less common, you’re increasingly likely to find that an unlimited plan works for you.

But you need to figure out just what sort of unlimited data you’re buying. All three carriers and their sub-brands and resellers have carved out restrictions on features such as priority data, hotspot use, and streaming video while adding premium tiers or paid add-ons that lift some of those limits. It’s a lot like buying a plane ticket: You can’t jump on the cheapest price you see, lest you wind up in Basic Economy.

Among the Basic Economy, entry-level versions of unlimited data plans, AT&T’s $65 Unlimited Starter and Verizon’s $65 Unlimited Welcome provide no priority or premium data, so you’re at risk of “temporarily slow data speeds if the network is busy,” as AT&T puts it—even if it’s the start of a billing period and you haven’t burned through any data yourself. Verizon’s entry-level plan also prohibits hotspot use and limits your 5G service to the carrier’s slow, low-band network. T-Mobile’s entry-level Essentials Savings, at $50, is more generous in allotting 50 GB of priority data, but its “unlimited” hotspot use is capped at 600 Kbps, a speed that T-Mobile misleadingly markets as “3G speeds.” All three carriers’ starter plans cap the resolution of streaming video on their respective networks at a DVD-grade 480p.

If your usage only slightly exceeds the cap on a service’s limited-data plan—say you use 3.25 GB in a month and your carrier offers a 3 GB plan—you should confirm whether that plan lets you roll over unused data from months when you don’t hit your maximum. Also, see if that service offers unmetered but 2G-slow service once you exhaust your high-speed data so that your phone will still have basic (read: slower) internet access and you won’t get charged extra for going over your cap. These features may help you choose a less expensive plan.

The big three, and many of the smaller services, offer at least two step-up tiers with more priority data and more full-speed mobile-hotspot use; higher-definition streaming may also be part of these upgrades.

If your usage remains sufficiently low, you should consider plans with a manageable data-usage cap and fewer fine-print rules governing that data. AT&T’s 4 GB plan, which costs $50 after autopay discounts, has no separate limit on hotspot use but still restricts streaming to 480p and omits 5G support. If you’re on a budget and don’t mind complications such as expensive international roaming and a lack of in-person support, Mint’s 5 GB, 15 GB, and 20 GB plans offer even more substantial savings.

As for talk and text amounts, all of the postpaid plans from the major carriers provide unlimited calling and messaging. A shrinking number of prepaid and resold services offer cheaper rates if you’re willing to stay within certain limits. As with data usage, the best way to check your current texting and calling habits is to view your bill.

If your usage doesn’t fall into our specific categories and you sometimes think in spreadsheets , you can do your own calculations using WhistleOut’s carrier-comparison tool . It even lets you filter by network—you can ask it for, say, only prepaid options that resell AT&T service—and location. But like Google searches, it can show sponsored results before organic ones. It also includes far more services than we cover here and shows not just plans with the required amount of data, minutes, and texts, but also those that exceed your needs, producing a cluttered presentation overall. WhistleOut also doesn’t allow you to specify a set amount of hotspot data.

If you want unlimited calls and texts, more attentive customer service, and phone financing through your carrier, stick with a traditional postpaid plan, in which you get a bill for service after you use it. Postpaid costs a bit more and requires you to have decent credit to qualify, but it offers you every phone the carrier sells, usually with no-interest financing, and the service you get should match what you see in the carrier’s ads.

However, switching to prepaid, in which you pay for service before you use it, can be an easy way to save at least $10 to $20 a month. Many prepaid services are provided by smaller companies that simply resell service from one of the big carriers, so they offer coverage similar to that of the major carriers at a lower price. But some make trade-offs to undersell the major carriers while using the same networks; similarly, the major carriers’ own prepaid plans tend to involve restrictions that their postpaid plans lack. We don’t recommend switching to prepaid unless you meet most of these criteria:

• You don’t mind buying your own phone separately, since prepaid carriers’ phone selections are often poor or nonexistent.
• You’re okay handling your own tech support. Retail support may not be an option, and phone or online support may be limited.
• You’re comfortable relying on prepaid SIM cards or eSIMs while traveling abroad .
• You’re willing to read the fine print. As analyst Jeffrey Moore advised us, data roaming, and sometimes even voice roaming, may not be included in some prepaid plans. These plans may also omit Wi-Fi calling, one common way to get around holes in coverage.

Some carriers throttle prepaid service to a lower speed by default, as AT&T did until October 2021 with some Cricket plans. Others prioritize their own customers over third-party prepaid traffic. A T-Mobile spokesperson said that although the services for postpaid plans and for prepaid plans have the same priority, Metro by T-Mobile and other resellers “may notice slower speeds in times of network congestion.” Aron North, chief marketing officer at Mint’s then-parent firm Ultra Mobile, confirmed in an email in 2019 that “at times where there is network congestion” Mint may be “reprioritized.”

If you are looking to save money on smartphone service by getting resold service from your cable operator but are also considering dropping your cable operator’s broadband, keep in mind that these wireless plans are best understood as a customer-retention tool. These services, based on resold network capacity from one of the big three carriers, represent their own special case. They offer some serious bargains for people with relatively restrained data appetites, but they also require you to use that cable firm’s broadband.

For example, Comcast’s Xfinity Mobile starts at 1 GB for $15 per month and 10 GB for $60 per month. But if you want unlimited data, Comcast’s offering throttles download speeds to 1.5 Mbps after you hit your plan’s cap of 20 GB ($45 a month), 30 GB ($55), or 50 GB ($65), subject to a major (possibly temporary) bit of leniency noted on a support page : “Right now, mid-band (C-Band) and high-band (Ultra Wideband) 5G data use won’t count toward your per-line monthly threshold for data usage.” The last two plans allow hotspot use at normal speeds, up to 5 GB on the 30 GB deal and 15 GB on the 50 GB plan. You also need Comcast’s Xfinity internet to sign up at all .

Spectrum Mobile is a little better, since its $30 unlimited plan includes 5 GB of full-speed hotspot data—but it cuts your speeds even more sharply after 20 GB, limiting downloads to 1 Mbps and uploads to just 512 Kbps. Its Unlimited Plus plan, priced at $40, gives you 30 GB of usable data but still just 5 GB of mobile-hotspot data. As with Xfinity Mobile, you need to subscribe to this cable operator’s broadband to sign up for its mobile service .

Years of massive, expensive 5G buildouts at all three carriers mean future advances in coverage and speed are more likely to be incremental. AT&T and Verizon subscribers, however, stand to see more upgrades mainly because of the late start of those two carriers with C-band frequencies. AT&T and Verizon are also catching up with T-Mobile in deploying “standalone” 5G , a network upgrade in which cell sites can connect directly to compatible phones without needing a 4G connection to set up that 5G link.

The good news for people weary of forced upgrades at all three carriers: We shouldn’t have to worry about dealing with carriers turning on massive new swaths of spectrum, because none are left vacant . Nor should you need to even think about the potential of a “6G” upgrade cycle; while that upcoming standard is a thing, it won’t be a commercial reality until 2030 at the earliest, and in the meantime even carriers want 6G advocates to give the hype a rest .

Most of Verizon’s cheaper plans have become much less attractive because they have access only to the provider’s slower, low-band 5G service. It has now rolled out C-band 5G nationwide, which it is combining with its vastly scarcer millimeter-wave 5G and marketing as Ultra Wideband 5G; together, those services amount to a much stronger network than Verizon’s old mix of low-band 5G brightened by pockets of mmWave. But evidently Verizon now thinks you should pay more for it.

For example, Verizon’s $65 Unlimited Welcome plan limits you to low-band 5G speeds—specifically, though it lets you use C-band and mmWave, it caps your speeds at 25 Mbps on those parts of Verizon’s network. That’s a much bigger problem than its lack of priority data and zero mobile-hotspot use. Verizon also reserves its faster flavors of 5G for its most expensive prepaid option.

Verizon’s $80  Unlimited Plus plan opens up C-band and mmWave 5G, with unlimited priority data, 30 GB of mobile hotspot, and a streaming-video limit of 720p. That is a fairly generous bundle—but it drops such previous bonuses as one free international-roaming TravelPass day per month, and the old plan already had more priority and mobile-hotspot data than many people would need. The carrier’s $90 Unlimited Ultimate, meanwhile, throws in 60 GB of mobile hotspot.

If you’d like to save some money with a prepaid or resold plan , Verizon Prepaid now offers the interesting wrinkle of rates that drop over time . So the starting price (with autopay) of $35 per month for its 15 GB plan drops to $30 after three months and $25 after nine; the $45 monthly rate for 15 GB becomes $40 and then $35 in the same way. As with Verizon’s postpaid plans, you still get unlimited 2G data after you hit your plan’s data cap. But only the Unlimited Plus plan, at $60 per month, includes access to Verizon’s C-band 5G—the sole flavor of 5G from this carrier that’s worth talking about.

The CDMA foundation of Verizon’s network—and Verizon’s decision to launch its 5G service on mmWave frequencies that go unused in many other markets—can limit the compatibility of some unlocked phones. For example, the OnePlus Nord N20 5G, our previous pick for the best budget Android phone , doesn’t work on Verizon. And although C-band makes Verizon’s 5G more relevant, Verizon’s practice so far of limiting C-band access to phones it has approved instead of allowing all those with compatible radios—a restrictive approach that still leaves out the C-band–compatible Pixel 7—only increases that incompatibility problem.

If you travel internationally, Verizon’s services can add up. Its TravelPass costs a reasonable $5 per day in Canada and Mexico for you to use voice, text, and data drawn from your domestic allowance and a less reasonable $10 per day in much of the rest of the world . Since Verizon sells phones that are locked for only 60 days after activation to thwart fraud, you can and should save money by using a local prepaid SIM when traveling internationally .

We would like to see Verizon make its plans easier to understand. We would also like to see Verizon abandon price-gouging moves like last year’s steep increase in an “Administrative and Telco Recovery Charge” that customers understandably regarded as a junk-fee hike.

Cricket Wireless

Cricket Wireless , AT&T’s prepaid brand, outranks its corporate mothership in customer satisfaction surveys, now includes taxes in its advertised rates, and offers much cheaper choices if you don’t need a lot of data and extras such as international-roaming options. They’re even cheaper if you’re comfortable paying for a year in advance, a recent addition to Cricket’s single-line pricing that picks up on a discount Mint already offered. But unlike Mint, Cricket includes mobile-hotspot use only on its most expensive offering (though the allocation there is a fairly generous 15 GB). Cricket’s selection of phones for sale is not too impressive, but in this category you’re better off buying an unlocked budget Android phone separately.

Boost Mobile

The former Sprint subsidiary is now a Dish Network subsidiary —one part of the complicated regulatory approval process that allowed T-Mobile to buy its competitor. Boost launched its Boost Infinite service in beta form in December, with the carrier’s nascent 5G network backed up by resold AT&T and T-Mobile coverage . Boost had planned on reselling T-Mobile until it could launch its own network but is now readying a switch to AT&T , which means customers of Boost (and the other resellers that Dish has bought, such as Ting and Republic Wireless) are in for some potentially drastic changes. To us, that doesn’t justify the relatively modest savings that some of its plans offer.

Metro by T-Mobile

T-Mobile’s prepaid subsidiary can seem like an afterthought, with some plans costing notably more than T-Mobile Prepaid’s rates for similar usage scenarios and others offering only minimal service. With its most generous plan offering only 35 GB of priority data–after which, per a small-print note on its site, “you may notice slower speeds when our network is busy”--Metro also flunks our heavy-usage scenario.

Straight Talk

The Straight Talk prepaid brand of TracFone, which is itself a subsidiary of Verizon, is one of the most widely used prepaid services—thanks in part to its distribution through Walmart stores—and also does well in many customer surveys. But its rates no longer beat those at competing postpaid services. And although it has historically resold service from all three carriers, Verizon’s ownership means that Straight Talk will move to put new customers on Verizon alone.

The biggest prepaid brand in America and the corporate parent of Straight Talk, and now a Verizon property, TracFone has historically required smartphone customers to patch together a service bundle by buying separate buckets of data, voice, and text. Now it offers a few standard 30-day plans. For 3 GB, its $25 rate is fairly competitive, but its pricing doesn’t hold up in intensive-usage scenarios. And TracFone doesn’t help its cause by prohibiting mobile-hotspot use on all plans except a $40 option with just 8 GB of data . As with Straight Talk, its practice of reselling coverage of all three networks will end as it becomes a Verizon-only service.

This Verizon brand offers just two plans, the $25 Visible and the $35 Visible+. The former limits you to Verizon’s low-band 5G (one way you can tell this is a Verizon outpost), while the latter gets you Verizon’s full spectrum and 50 GB of priority data. Both come with a mobile-hotspot limit unlike that of any other carrier: Instead of capping how much data can go to that application, Visible limits your hotspot speed to 5 Mbps and allows only one device at a time. We like the creativity on display here, but we’re not sure how many people need an unlimited-on-phone plan but see almost no need to share that bandwidth with other devices via mobile hotspot.

This article was edited by Arthur Gies and Caitlin McGarry.

Meet your guide

Rob Pegoraro

Further reading

The Best Mobile Scanning Apps

by Ben Keough

The simple design, high-quality results, free cloud storage, and $0 price make Adobe Scan an excellent choice.

How Mobile Phones Became a Privacy Battleground—and How to Protect Yourself

by Thorin Klosowski

Smartphone privacy has changed over time, and owners have more controls than ever. Here’s where the controls came from, and how to keep your phone private.

You Probably Don’t Need a Foldable Phone. But If You Really Want One, These Are the Best.

by Roderick Scott

Foldable phones are expensive, and we’re concerned about their durability. But if you really want to buy one, we have a couple of recommendations.

How to Switch Cell Phone Carriers

by Rob Pegoraro

Moving your number from one wireless service to another is (usually) the easiest step. Bringing your old phone to a new network can be trickier.

How cellphones can get you killed on the modern battlefield, according to a US Army officer

• A US Army officer said military trainers had warned soldiers of the dangers of cellphone use.
• "The cellphone is the new cigarette in the foxhole," he told Foreign Policy.
• Ukraine has used Russian soldiers' cellular data to locate and target their positions.

Cellphones have revolutionized the ways war is documented, providing snapshots of life on the front lines, glimpses of the latest military equipment, and harrowing images of death and destruction.

But they are also potentially lethal for the soldiers carrying them, a US Army officer has said.

Maj. Gen. Curtis Taylor told Jack Detsch, a reporter at Foreign Policy , that Army trainers had been warning soldiers about the dangers of taking cellphones on operations.

"We've shown soldiers, 'Hey, your cellphone can get you killed,'" Taylor, the commanding general of the National Training Center and Fort Irwin, said.

He pointed to one training incident when he said he and his team were able to locate an otherwise undetectable Apache stealth helicopter as it made its way through their air defenses because the pilot's phone was moving at 120 miles per hour.

Taylor compared the dangers posed by cellphones to that of cigarette smoking during World War II, when the spark of a match or the glow of a cigarette could help snipers pick out enemy targets.

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"The cellphone is the new cigarette in the foxhole," Taylor said.

Ukraine has targeted Russian cellular data

The Russia-Ukraine war has been marked by the use of cellular data to target enemy positions.

A January report by the cybersecurity company Enea highlighted the Ukrainian strike on a Russian barracks in the city of Makiivka in eastern Ukraine on New Year's Eve 2022.

The Russian Ministry of Defense said the strike occurred after Russian reservists turned on their cellphones , allowing Ukrainian intelligence operatives to identify their location.

The area was then targeted by an M142 High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS). Russian sources claim 89 soldiers were killed in the strikes, while Ukraine put the number at around 400.

In a statement following the incident, the Russian Ministry of Defense said: "It is already obvious that the main reason for what happened was the switching on and massive use — contrary to the prohibition — by personnel of mobile phones in a reach zone of enemy weapons."

"This factor allowed the enemy to locate and determine the coordinates of the location of the servicemen to launch a missile strike," it added.

Russia is likely using similar tactics to its advantage, however.

It is known to be using the Leer-3 electronic warfare system, which is capable of identifying 2,000 phones within a 3.7-mile range, potentially exposing Ukrainian locations, Sky News previously reported.

Electronic warfare uses the electromagnetic spectrum, including signals like radio, infrared, or radar, to disrupt and degrade an enemy's ability to use those signals, according to defense manufacturer Lockheed Martin .

It has played a crucial role in the conflict so far due to its potential for identifying targets and combating drone attacks.

While the dangers of using a cellphone on the battlefield appear plentiful, the Enea report said: "A mobile device — despite its risks — has utility as a backup communication system; a means to document enemy movements, create after-action reports or other intelligence; and as a propaganda/content generation system."

Watch: DIY exploding drones are changing the game in Ukraine war

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