Whether you're switching carriers, leaving your family plan, or signing up for your very first one ever, there is a lot of consideration that goes into purchasing a phone plan. You need the coverage and qualities to stay connected without breaking the bank—and with our help, you'll succeed at all three.
We've already dug into what we consider to be the best cell phone plans on the market this year, but we know that you may have some lingering questions about which factors should go into your buying decision.
Here are some more considerations when picking the best cell phone plan for yourself or your family, including details on phone coverage, small carriers versus bigger ones, and some information about cell phone contracts.
What to look for in a cell phone plan
Over hundreds of phone plan evaluations, we've pinpointed five key factors that go into choosing a phone plan: coverage, price, high-speed data, plan inclusions, and available discounts.
Let's break down why each of these is critical to getting the most value out of your phone plan.
Before you shop: 4 questions to ask yourself
Your personal priorities will determine the best cell phone plan for you. Here are some basic questions to ask when shopping for a phone plan.
- How much can you spend?
Phone plans can run into the hundreds of dollars, especially if you're bundling multiple lines together. Look for inclusions that might lower your costs elsewhere (like the aforementioned streaming subscriptions). The best phone plans will also be upfront about their taxes and fees, so you know exactly how much you're paying each month. If you're looking to save money, think about picking a prepaid plan over a postpaid plan. - How do you use your phone?
The best cell phone plan will take into account your habits. Do you talk, text, stream music, watch videos, play games, and generally use your phone as a personal entertainment system? An unlimited plan is your best bet. If you really only talk and text while occasionally checking email or social media, you can probably get away with a smaller data package. Check out our guide to help figure out how much data you need. - How many people will be on your phone plan?
If you're sharing with the whole family, you'll likely want a higher data package or even an unlimited option. The best cell phone plans for families also offer perks that offset other costs, like included streaming subscriptions. - Where do you live and work?
It's important to make sure the carrier you're considering has good coverage in your area. T-Mobile, for example, has great coverage in urban cities but relatively little coverage in rural locations—which also applies to any smaller carriers using its network. In this case, the best cell phone plan might be from a Verizon-backed carrier, which has broad coverage in remote areas. Also consider if you prefer to have a local store location in your area.
1. Network coverage
Cell phone coverage is, in our opinion, the most important factor to consider when choosing the best cell phone plan for your needs. After all, your plan won't do you much good, regardless of its price or inclusions, if you can't actually use it in the places you spend time due to poor reception.
The United States is dominated by the Big Three carriers—Verizon, T-Mobile, and AT&T. To put it succinctly, Verizon offers the best 4G LTE coverage in the country, which is still the prevailing network type to which our phones connect. T-Mobile lays claim to the best 5G network. In between for both network types is AT&T, which is a few percentage points off Verizon and T-Mobile in terms of its national 4G and 5G coverage, respectively.
You'll want to look at the coverage quality not only where you live but also where you work and often travel to. All three major carriers and their MVNOs (which we'll explain in detail below) typically offer great coverage in urban areas and metro areas, with the network differences becoming more prominent as you branch out into more suburban and rural neighborhoods. And when you don't have easy access to secure Wi-Fi, your 4G and 5G coverage are critical to staying connected to GPS, making emergency calls, and dozens of other necessities.
Cell phone coverage is one of our specialties at WhistleOut, and in addition to using our tool to find a plan, you can use our maps to get a sense of which carriers offer broad service in specific areas throughout the United States. Select a network below to see their coverage footprint and zoom in to compare carriers.
Major carriers vs. MVNOs
The Big Three are the major mobile carriers that own and operate their own cellular networks. However, there are a variety of smaller carriers—known as mobile virtual network operators, or MVNOs—that purchase network space from these big carriers and offer service at generally far cheaper prices. Indeed, the best deals in the market often come from these "little" brands. This includes MVNOs like Metro and Mint Mobile, which operate on T-Mobile's network; Visible, a Verizon-backed carrier; Cricket and Straight Talk, which piggyback off of AT&T's network; and US Mobile, which operates on all three major networks.
MVNOs offer the exact same coverage as their parent or host carriers, but with a caveat. In times of high network traffic when lots of people are using their phones (think mornings and evenings outside of typical work and school hours), your plan could be subject to deprioritization. This means the parent carrier can give network priority to customers that subscribe directly to its own plans, slowing the speeds of those subscribed to a supported MVNO plan.
Is this actually a problem to worry about? Not in our experience. We've tested plenty of MVNOs like Mint Mobile and Boost Mobile in times of peak network traffic and have yet to experience significant slowdowns. But it's definitely a possibility to be aware of as you choose your phone plan and carrier.
Find your MVNO's network
Not sure which MVNO operates with which major carrier? We've got you covered. Check out the guides below to explore your options.
2. Plan cost and relative value
Just because a plan is expensive and full of bells and whistles doesn't mean it's actually worth that cost. Conversely, just because a plan is priced affordably doesn't mean you'll necessarily be sacrificing a great experience. The trick here is to be very clear on what your most important plan aspects are, then determine whether the given makes sense for those elements.
Perhaps you pay separately for lots of streaming subscriptions; in this case, finding a pricier phone plan that includes one or more of those entertainment services for free or at a discount could save you plenty in the long run. For others who don't use those services, though, the added premium might not cut the mustard.
This is often where MVNOs can sneakily beat out the major carriers, depending on what your priorities are. Let's compare Visible's $35/month unlimited plan to Verizon's mid-tier unlimited option.
Visible vs. Verizon unlimited plans
| Plan | Premium data | Hotspot | Price | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
 |
Visible+ | Unlimited | Unlimited (10Mbps) | $35/month |
 |
Unlimited Plus | Unlimited | 30GB high-speed, then reduced to 3Mbps | $80/month |
Verizon's $80 Unlimited Plus plan offers unlimited premium data and 30GB of high-speed hotspot data before speeds reduce to 3Mbps. Visible's $35 Visible+ plan, on the other hand, offers unlimited premium data and unlimited hotspot data, but at 10Mbps speeds.
Most people rarely use their hotspot, much less a whopping 30GB of it, nor do they exceed 15-20GB of basic data usage in a given month. As both carriers use Verizon's network, and neither carrier includes additional extras like cloud storage or streaming subscriptions, the $35 Visible plan is a far better deal for most folks than the $80 Verizon plan.
Postpaid vs. prepaid plans: Which is better?
These days, the differences between postpaid and prepaid plans have really shrunk down to just one: when you pay for your service. Postpaid plans charge you at the end of the month for whatever you've used throughout that time. Prepaid plans charge you at the beginning and allow for top-ups throughout the month if you need more talk, text, or data.
While prepaid plans were previously much more bare-bones than postpaid ones—and some still offer that approach—most now are practically indistinguishable from postpaid plans in terms of available features and quality of service. Perhaps the only other difference to be aware of is in their customer service options, as several repaid carriers are online-only and may not offer the fastest call centers or chat responses.
3. High-speed or "premium" data
Nearly all phone plans these days offer unlimited talk and text as basic inclusions. The main factor that now differentiates one plan from another is how much high-speed data you get with your plan.
Often marketed as "premium" data, high-speed data is the amount of gigabytes you get each month at full 5G and 4G LTE speeds, before you'll either have your data throttled (i.e., slowed immediately and automatically), deprioritized (i.e., possibly slowed in favor of other customers on the network), or cut off entirely until the next month (in the case of some pay-as-you-go prepaid plans). Many fully unlimited plans are priced according to how much premium data is included in that "unlimited" allowance.
For example, let's compare AT&T's unlimited options.
AT&T unlimited plans: Premium data allotments
| Plan | Premium data | Price |
|---|---|---|
| Extra 2.0 | 100GB | $70/month |
| Premium 2.0 | Completely unlimited | $90/month |
While all of these plans offer unlimited talk, text, and data, Extra 2.0 gets you a very healthy 100GB of guaranteed high-speed data per month, way more than most people actually use. (For reference, I only use around 15GB of data per month, and I stream a lottttttt of Instagram puppy videos and YouTube knitting tutorials.) For a pricey $90/month, you'll get completely unlimited high-speed data... no slowdowns ever. The question is do you really need it—and is it worth that premium cost?
Some carriers' limited data plans are hard cutoffs—you won't have access to data once you reach that monthly limit unless you purchase more (Mint Mobile is an example of this). However, other carriers simply slow your speeds once you reach the advertised threshold, meaning that their limited-data plans are actually technically unlimited—it's simply the high-speed data that is being limited each month.
Here's how Cricket, which also runs on AT&T's network, treats its data plans in terms of guaranteed high-speed allotments.
Cricket Wireless plan data allotments
| Plan | Premium data | Monthly price |
|---|---|---|
| Sensible 10GB | 10GB, then reduced to 128kbps speeds | $30/month |
| Select Unlimited | Unlimited—can be deprioritized anytime | $35/month |
| Smart Unlimited | Unlimited—can be deprioritized anytime | $45/month |
| Supreme Unlimited | Completely unlimited | $55/month |
In Cricket's case, you'll still have access to data once you've used up your high-speed allotment—you'll just be throttled down to 2G speeds until the next month rolls around. Interestingly, the Select and Smart Unlimited plans offer no guaranteed high-speed data at all. That's not to say you won't experience 4G LTE and 5G speeds regularly—just that you could be slowed at any point, rather than after a certain usage limit.
Not sure how much data you need?
Some activities are more data-intensive than others—live gaming uses up way more gigs than streaming music, for example.
Depending on what you do with your phone, you'll need more or less data to accommodate those habits. Hop over to our guides on mobile data and data usage to see how much data the most popular activities typically use up, so you can plan accordingly.
4. Plan perks and inclusions
With most folks subscribing to at least 3 streaming services, costs for entertainment and subscriptions can add up very quickly. So for many, roping those costs into their cell phone bill is very appealing—especially if you can get your carrier to pay for them. Major and MVNO carriers alike offer everything from free cloud storage, to grocery delivery, to music and movie streaming subscriptions to hook you into their phone plans.
Verizon, for example, offers several services as plan add-ons for just $10 each with any unlimited plan—cheaper than if you purchased them directly. You can choose from options like the Disney Bundle, a Walmart+ subscription, Apple Music Family, 2TB of cloud storage, and more. US Mobile, on the other hand, provides one completely free perk (up to $15 in value) from a bevy of options (like Spotify, Audible, and Apple TV+) with its Unlimited Premium plan—but only if you add three or more lines to your account.
The catch? Often, you must subscribe to the carrier's top-tier (i.e., most expensive) plan to get those free or cheap inclusions. This puts you at risk of overpaying on a plan you don't necessarily need, just to save a few bucks on a subscription that, most likely, costs a fraction of the overall plan cost. As mentioned, if you already subscribe to several services, bundling them with your phone plan at a discount (or even free) could indeed save you a pretty penny. But make sure you do the math to be absolutely sure you're actually getting good value out of the plan as a whole.
5. Family plans and discounts
While discounts technically roll up into the "cost" category, we think they're worth considering on their own when deciding on a phone plan. There are two main ways that carriers typically offer plan discounts:
- Multi-line/family plan discounts: The vast majority of phone carriers offer some form of family plan option, with each line getting cheaper as you add more lines to your account. However, some carriers' discounts are a better deal for, say, a family of four rather than a 2-line plan for couples. Some carriers offer no family plan discounts at all, but have options already cheap enough to undercut the competition (like Visible's $25 plan, for example).
- Membership discounts: Some carriers have relationships with businesses or organizations that qualify you for a discount on your phone bill. Consumer Cellular is well known for its relationship with AARP, offering members a 5% plan discount, a $10 bill credit for referrals, and a 45-day service guarantee for new customers.
A family plan is often a great way to make those uber-expensive unlimited plans from the major carriers much more affordable—especially if that carrier lets you mix and match different plans to create a customized option for your family (does your 12-year-old really need unlimited premium data with a 30GB hotspot?). Mint Mobile, US Mobile, Verizon, and AT&T all let you mix and match from their available phone plans. Again, make sure you do the math to see whether any multi-line discount makes sense for your specific family makeup.
What about phone plan contracts?
In case you haven't switched cell phone plans in a few years, there's good news—cell phone plan contracts are officially a thing of the past. You no longer have to lock in for a year or more with a carrier, as all plans are now effectively month-to-month.
Where carriers do work on locking you in for a significant period of time is device contracts. As the prices for premium phones have increased, so, too, has our reluctance to shell out a small fortune to buy them outright, so most consumers now sign up for device repayment plans that last anywhere from 12 to 24 months. So while you can theoretically just jump to a different carrier anytime since plan contracts are dead, you may still be beholden to that carrier until your phone is fully paid off.
Find the best phone plan for you
Once you've factored in your budget, your typical phone habits and data needs, your coverage area, and your preferred inclusions, you should have a good idea of what sort of phone plan you're looking for. To get you started, here are a few of our top roundups that we've compiled using the methodology outlined above:
- Best Cell Phone Plans
- Best Unlimited Data Plans
- Best Family Plans
- Best Phone Plans for 2 Lines
- Best Phone Plans for One Person
- Best Phone Plans for Kids
- Best Phone Plans for Seniors
- Best Cheap Phone Plans
We also encourage you to explore phone plans using our comparison tool. You can set filters based on the factors above to zero in on the plans that meet your specific needs.
Below are some of the most popular phone plans, as determined by other WhistleOut visitors like you. These plans are the ones that our readers have shopped the most often using our phone plan comparison tool.
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#1
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Visible
$25 Visible Plan
$25.00/mo
Taxes & Fees included
|
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#2
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Mint Mobile
Unlimited Data Plan
$25.00/mo
$75.00 upfront payment for 3 months (equals to $25.00/month). Intro pricing for new customers only.
|
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#3
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XFINITY Mobile
Mobile Select Plan
$0.00/mo
(for the first year of service) <br>Regular rate of $30/mo. thereafter
|
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#4
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T-Mobile
Essentials Saver
$50.00/mo
with Auto-Pay - Taxes & Fees NOT included
|
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#5
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US Mobile
Unlimited Starter Plan
$25.00/mo
$20/mo. for 6 months; $25/mo. thereafter
|
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#6
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Verizon
Unlimited Plus
$70.00/mo
+ Taxes & Fees. Price includes AutoPay & Paperless discount.
+ $40 Upfront
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#7
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Twigby Mobile
Unlimited Talk, Text and 2GB Data
$5.00/mo
for the first 3 months then $15.00/month
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#8
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Cricket
Supreme Unlimited Plan
$55.00/mo
with AutoPay; $60 for the first month.
+ $9.99 Upfront
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#9
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AT&T
Value 2.0℠
$50.00/mo
+ $35 Upfront
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#10
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Spectrum Mobile
Unlimited Data
$30.00/mo
+ $20 Upfront
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Lauren Hannula
Managing Editor
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