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I downgraded my Verizon phone plan — and am now saving more than $600 a year
When was the last time you looked at your phone bill? I know for me, it was probably the time I upgraded — to the iPhone 14 Pro.
Yes, I work for a tech site, but when it comes to the gear I use every day, I don’t have a compulsion to upgrade to the latest-and-greatest, which is why my phone is three years old, and the TVs in my house are far older than that.
We’ve long been Verizon customers, and while it’s not the cheapest cell phone provider, it’s reliable and covers our area well. Plus, we also use Verizon FIOS for internet service, so I get a bit of a discount by bundling.
Anyway, back when my wife and I upgraded to the iPhone 14 Pro, we also switched our plans to Verizon’s 5G Play More. That gave us unlimited data, as well as a Disney/Hulu/ESPN subscription for a total of $79 per month per line (before all the fees, of course).
Just as I did when we decided to cancel our Amazon Prime subscription, I took a look at just how we were using our phones, and realized that we could get by with much less.
Verizon’s 5G Play More plan has been phased out; the company now offers three unlimited plans: Unlimited Welcome ($55/month), Unlimited Plus ($70/month), and Unlimited Ultimate ($80/month).
The Ultimate tier includes such things as 5G Ultra Wide Band (UWB) service, unlimited international data, and unlimited hotspot use; the Plus plan has 5G UWB and 30GB of hotspot use, while the Welcome plan only offers Verizon’s slower 5G service.
Here’s a breakdown of what we’re currently paying, plus how much it would cost if we switched to a new plan.
| Row 0 - Cell 0 | Cost per line | Total for 2 lines | Annual | w/ Disney bundle | Savings |
5G Play More | $79 | $158 | $1896 | $1896 | n/a |
Unlimited welcome | $47.5 | $95 | $1140 | $1260 | $636 |
Unlimited Plus | $62.5 | $125 | $1500 | $1620 | $276 |
Unlimited Ultimate | $77.5 | $155 | $1860 | $1980 | $-84 |
On the surface, it looks like I could just swap my current plan for the Ultimate tier, but due to Verizon’s new policies, I would end up paying even more, because I would have to add the Disney/Hulu/ESPN+ subscription for an extra $10/month.
But do I need what the Unlimited or even the Plus plan offers?
It’s been a year since I traveled out of the country (and I don’t envision going abroad any time soon), I’ve never used my phone as a hotspot, and I spend most of my days within Wi-Fi range. If we were to travel, Verizon offers Travelpass, which costs $12 per day, as well as an International Monthly Plan for $100.
I will be curious to see how much of a performance impact there will be going from 5G UWB to 5G, but I only really use data when driving using navigation or streaming music, neither of which are huge data hogs. And if it becomes a problem, we can always go up a tier, and we’d still be saving a few hundred bucks.
Have you changed up your phone bill recently? Let me know in the comments.
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