Best prepaid phone plans 2025

The best prepaid phone plans are flexible enough to include all the essentials (e.g., unlimited high-speed data, bulk discounts), while still remaining affordable for your wallet. Offered by nearly all of the best MVNO carriers, these well-priced plans go well with majority of the unlocked phones out there, and don't require you to get into any pesky contracts either. As such, you're free to switch plans (and by extension, carriers) as you please.

Perhaps this is the reason why the 'Big Three' carriers have bought up many of the popular alternative service providers over the past few years. This benefits you as the customer, as you get the network coverage of mainstream carriers, but at much lower prices. Of course, prepaid carriers aren't perfect. They often deprioritize your connectivity when the network is busy, and don't come with extras like bundled streaming services. However, if you couldn't care less about all that and just want a wireless service that gets the basics right, going prepaid can save you a whole lot of cash in the long run. With that said, here are some of our favorite prepaid phone clans that you can consider.

• MVNO deals: Mint Mobile | Visible | Boost | Tello | Cricket Wireless

At a glance

Best overall

For a prepaid carrier offering four plans and multiple service durations, Mint Mobile is surprisingly easy to understand. The basic premise is that the longer the term you're willing to get, the cheaper your monthly cost will turn out to be. While it does mean you'll be signing a bigger check upfront, you won't have to pay again for multiple months. Now owned by T-Mobile, Mint Mobile uses its parent company's vast network infrastructure with full access to 5G, so for most customers, coverage and speeds will be great.

Mint Mobile's cheapest plan comes with 5GB of high-speed data, complete with unlimited talk and text. If you're a light user, this is the place to start. And if you end up going over 5GB, there's no need to worry as there are 15GB and 20GB per month plans available as well. Our Mint Mobile review found that the speeds do slow down to about 500kbps after you've used up all your data. This includes the unlimited plan too, that now has no data cap. And if you need more data than that consistently, Mint Mobile likely isn't the right choice for you.

One thing to keep in mind is that Mint Mobile offers low introductory prices for a period of three months, which you can lock by paying for an entire year. You can also sign up for six months, but the prices go up slightly if you do so. Mint Mobile also has a penchant for regular promotions, so there's a good chance you can try it for even less, especially if you bundle your wireless service with one of the best Android phones available in the market.

Best budget

Tello manages to be an extremely value-for-money wireless carrier, thanks to its straightforward plans and super low costs. It even allows you tailor your plan to a perfect fit via its 'Build Your Own Plan' online tool, offering a number of data and talk time combinations that usually end up being cheaper than other carriers. You can save quite a lot by going for a plan with the bare minimum number of minutes, even more so if you primarily use the best text messaging apps to keep in touch with family and friends.

Tello has four pre-configured plans as starting points, with the base 'Economy' plan coming in at just $10 per month with unlimited minutes, texts, and 2GB of data. If you spend majority of your time connected to Wi-Fi, this plan could be all you'll ever need. The unlimited 'Data' plan costs $25 per month and offers up to 35GB of high-speed data. While it's a bit less than what competitors like Mint Mobile offer, most consumers shouldn't have any issues at all.

Since Tello uses T-Mobile's network, you get full 5G access (including mid-band coverage), provided you have a compatible phone. Speaking of which, T-Mobile's network means that just about any of the best unlocked phones should work on Tello just fine.

Best for unlimited

Visible is a prepaid carrier owned and operated by Verizon and offers three well-priced yet feature-laden unlimited plans. Unlike many other prepaid unlimited plans, there's no hard cap with slower data after; you can use as much data as you want. This works by the data on Visible getting lower priority than the data on Verizon, which means in a side-by-side comparison a Verizon plan will almost always come out ahead. Still, our Visible review found the carrier to offer plenty of speeds for everyday usage, though this will vary depending on the strength of Verizon's network in your area.

The base plan is simply called 'Visible' and has a regular price of $25 per month. It includes unlimited high-speed 5G access, unlimited hotspot usage at 5Mbps, and much more. Next is the 'Visible Plus' plan, which costs $35 per month and upgrades your hotspot usage speed to 10Mbps, while also unlocking access to Verizon's super-fast 'Ultra-Wideband 5G' network. Lastly, the latest 'Visible Plus Pro' plan offers unlimited hotspot usage at 15Mbps, up to 4K video streaming, as well as a bunch of extra perks. The prices of all the plans include taxes and fees, and you can save even more by paying for a full year of service in advance.

Perhaps the biggest drawback with Visible is that it has a much more limited list of compatible phones as compared to a T-Mobile-based MVNO, which is why we recommend checking your phone's compatibility before you proceed. For the most part, the latest iPhones, as well as high-end Android devices such as the Google Pixel 9 series and the Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra are going to work on the network perfectly. Some older phones might be compatible as well, so it's worth checking them on the IMEI Checker tool on Visible's website.

Best for customization

Since US Mobile uses the networks of both T-Mobile and Verizon, it allows you to choose from two SIM cards to get connected. However, to get the most out of it, Verizon is the preferred choice. Although T-Mobile SIMs work as expected, they don't get as much priority data. While US Mobile originally used to have a fully custom plan structure, its current unlimited plans are incredible when it comes to overall value. You can save even more when you bring over multiple lines.

The two main plans are called 'Unlimited Starter' and 'Unlimited Premium' and have regular single-line costs of $25 per month and $44 per month, respectively. Both include unlimited talk and text (both in the U.S. as well as internationally), mmWave and C-band 5G access, and lots of dedicated hotspot data. Unlimited Starter gives you at least 70GB of high-speed data, while Unlimited Premium makes it, well, unlimited. The higher plan also makes you eligible for multi-line subscription perks (if you get three lines), through which you can add a bundle of services (e.g., Audible, Hulu, and Xbox Gamepass) to your plan for just $15 per month.

There's also a third 'Unlimited Flex' plan that effectively costs $17.50 per month, but it's available only as an annual option. US Mobile's 'By the Gig' feature allows you to get chunks of data which can be shared among devices across multiple lines and includes the price of first line too.

Best for families

Cricket Wireless is a prepaid carrier owned by AT&T and remains one of the best options for getting more affordable service on the former's network. The fact of the matter is that some users just get a more consistent coverage through AT&T, so it's nice that Cricket Wireless offers competitive rates, along with the option of unlimited high-speed data on its highest plan. Still, the operator's cheaper plans are quite compelling too.

Cricket Wireless has five primary plans, with the base plan offering 5GB of data at $30 per month. Next, the $40 per month plan increases the data allowance to 10GB. There's a third plan that also costs $40 per month, which upgrades data to unlimited but lacks some extra perks. Then there are two unlimited plans, with the cheaper one priced at $55 per month and offering hotspot functionality as an optional add-on. However, the data on this plan gets a lower priority so if you live in an area with a lot of AT&T customers, you may notice your speeds getting reduced when the network is busy. Lastly, there's the $60 per month plan that not only offers unlimited premium data, but 15GB of dedicated hotspot data as well. It also comes with 150GB of cloud storage (all other plans, except the $40 per month unlimited offering, have 2GB cloud storage) and ad-supported Max.

If you want to get multi-line discounts, Cricket Wireless is definitely worth taking a look at. For example, if you get five lines, you can grab the lower unlimited plan at a mere $25 per month for each line.

Best high-speed data

As its name suggests, Metro by T-Mobile is a prepaid carrier owned by T-Mobile and offers plans that quite resemble the parent carrier's offerings, along with a few extras. For one thing, the prices are inclusive of all taxes and fees for all main plans, so what you see is what you pay. You also get some nice perks generally available with the best T-Mobile plans, without having to get into any contracts.

The cheapest plan costs $40 per month and gives you unlimited high-speed data and a five-year guarantee, if you bring your own number. Of course, you get unlimited talk and text too. Next up, the $50 per month plan offers you 8GB of dedicated hotspot data, 100GB of cloud storage via Google One, among other goodies. Then there's the $60 per month plan, which increases your dedicated hotspot allowance to 25GB and also adds unlimited texting to more than 210 destinations around the world, along with Amazon Prime.

It's worth mentioning that all plans of Metro by T-Mobile include some exclusive benefits like T-Mobile Tuesdays promotions, and Scam Shield for blocking spam and robocalls.

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How to choose

Get the right prepaid plan for your requirements

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Even though the best prepaid phone plans come with a diverse range of perks, you should consider your individual requirements before picking one up. To start off, think about how you use your phone. You'll also want to get a good Android phone so that you can take advantage of the latest 5G networks. Of course, the phone has to be unlocked so you can take it with you if you decide to switch carriers in the future.

If you need a ton of data for cheap, Visible is a great starting point. However, it will struggle in more congested areas, so getting a plan with some premium data such as US Mobile's Unlimited Premium plan may be well worth the extra cost for you. If you don't need truly unlimited data, you can get Mint Mobile's 15GB or 20GB plans. These will save a lot of cash in the long run, and the phone compatibility won't be an issue either.

• MVNO deals: Mint Mobile | Visible | Boost | Tello | Cricket Wireless