Finding the best family cell phone plan is a great way to save money on your monthly wireless bill. But there's more to a great plan than just a low monthly rate.
The best family cell phone plans also include great perks, whether that's included streaming services, data roaming when you travel or even the ability to mix and match various kinds of plans for different members of the family. Top plans also feature generous discounts for people who add extra lines.
1. Best overall family plan: T-Mobile (opens in new tab)
2. Best for coverage and speeds: Verizon (opens in new tab)
3. Best plan for bargain hunters: Mint (opens in new tab)
4. Best plan for small families: Xfinity Mobile (opens in new tab)
Our research into the best family cell phone plans takes all these factors into consideration. And we've come up with the following recommendations for plans that can meet a wide array of monthly budgets.
Whatever plan you ultimately get, make sure it's one of the best unlimited data plans. That way, you don't have to worry about which family member is consuming all the data on your plan. In fact, most of our best family cell phone plan picks focus on unlimited data, though there are some cheaper options available that we highlight.
Families of four can expect to pay between $120 to $220 a month for four lines from the major wireless carriers — in fact, four lines for $120 per month seems to be the sweet spot for plans these days. As a rule of thumb, the more expensive the plan, the better the perks. (We've also compared the cheapest unlimited data plans from AT&T, T-Mobile and Verizon if you're on a budget.)
Here’s a closer look at the best family cell phone plan options.
The best family cell phone plans
Best family cell phone plan value
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Best family cell phone plan for coverage and speeds
Best family cell phone plan for bargain hunters
Best family plan for Comcast customers
AT&T's best family cell phone plan
Cheapest family plan on AT&T's network
Verizon's cheapest family plan
Best bargain unlimited plan for families
How to pick the best family cell phone plans
Picking the right cell phone plan comes down to balancing the costs of multiple lines of data with the perks each carrier offers. If you do a lot of video streaming, for example, you’ll want to pick a plan that not only throws in a streaming service as a perk (Netflix with T-Mobile, multiple streaming services with Verizon) but also doesn’t slow your data if you consume a lot of data in a given month.
Because the thing about unlimited data is that, with the exception of one plan, it’s not truly unlimited. AT&T's Unlimited Extra customers will enjoy a 50GB cap, just like three of Verizon's four unlimited plans. T-Mobile has doubled the cap on its Magenta plan to 100GB, while the more expensive Magenta Max plan does away with caps entirely for a truly unlimited plan; AT&T followed Magenta Max's lead with its Unlimited Elite plan.
The lowest-priced plans at Verizon (Welcome Unlimited) and AT&T (Unlimited Starter) allow your data speeds to be slowed whenever there's network congestion. That's also a risk you run when you get your service from MVNOs like Mint and Cricket, which can see their traffic deprioritized in favor of other customers on their parent networks (T-Mobile and AT&T, respectively).
We’ve focused on unlimited plans, as only AT&T is the only major carrier that continues to offer a tiered data option (a 4GB in this case). If you prefer tiered data, you'd want to turn to service like Mint, which offers plans with different data allocations.