Verizon expands unlimited plans with Unlimited Ultimate option — here's what you get

Verizon is expanding its unlimited data plans with a new offering that relaxes many of the remaining limits on coverage, especially if you travel internationally.

The Unlimited Ultimate plan launches this Thursday (August 31) as Verizon's highest-priced unlimited plan. Like the existing Unlimited Plus offering among the best Verizon phone plans, there's no cap on the amount of data you can use each month, and you have access to Verizon's fastest 5G coverage where available.

Unlimited Ultimate, which will cost $90/month for a single line of data after a $10 autopay discount, doubles the amount of hotspot data from Verizon's $80/month Unlimited Plus plan. Instead of the 30GB of hotspot data you get with Unlimited Plus, Unlimited Ultimate offers 60GB.

In addition, Verizon promises "full international connectivity" with Unlimited Ultimate, meaning you'll have unlimited calls and texting when you're travelling overseas. You'll also get 10GB of international premium data each month to use when you're outside the U.S.

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Verizon plan	Unlimited Welcome	Unlimited Plus	Unlimited Ultimate
Monthly cost, one line	$65	$80	$90
Data cap	Data can be slowed when network is congested	None	None
5G coverage	5G	Ultra Wideband 5G	Ultra Wideband 5G
Hotspot data	None	30GB	60GB
International coverage	Data roaming in Mexico and Canada	Data roaming in Mexico and Canada	Unlimited talk and text + 10GB of data

Unlimited Plus and the entry-level Unlimited Welcome include roaming in Canada and Mexico, but for true international coverage, you would have to tack on a Three TravelPass Days perk to your plan. For an extra $10/month, the Three TravelPass Days add-on gives you three days worth of coverage each month when traveling overseas. That's an extra Unlimited Ultimate users won't have to pay for, as international coverage is now built into their plan.

In exchange for those benefits, you'll pay more for Unlimited Ultimate than you would for Unlimited Plus and Unlimited Welcome. Four lines of Unlimited Ultimate cost $220/month, or $55/line, compared to $180/month for four lines of Unlimited Plus. Verizon offers additional per-line discounts when you bring your own device.

Verizon stripped down its unlimited plans back in May, going from half-a-dozen different options to just two — the $65/month Unlimited Welcome plan and $80/month Unlimited Plus offering. Customers had the option of augmenting those two offerings with a series of $10/month add-ons providing perks like Disney streaming services and cloud storage at a discounted rate. Unlimited Ultimate now joins those two options.

Verizon isn't the only best phone carrier to tweak its offerings as of late. Earlier this month, T-Mobile launched Go5G Next, which allows customers to upgrade to a new phone after they've paid off half of their current device through the carrier.

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Philip Michaels is a Managing Editor at Tom's Guide. He's been covering personal technology since 1999 and was in the building when Steve Jobs showed off the iPhone for the first time. He's been evaluating smartphones since that first iPhone debuted in 2007, and he's been following phone carriers and smartphone plans since 2015. He has strong opinions about Apple, the Oakland Athletics, old movies and proper butchery techniques. Follow him at @PhilipMichaels.