If rising prices are raising your blood pressure, the best cheap cell phone plans offer some budgetary relief. And even if you spend $40 or less each month on your wireless bill, you can still count on more than enough data to keep you connected.
1. Best overall: Mint Mobile
2. Best unlimited plan: Visible
3. Best tiered data: Verizon
4. Best rate guarantee: Boost Mobile
5. Most flexible rates: Tello
I've spent a decade at Tom's Guide researching the best cell phone plans. And over the years, I've discovered that the days of having to sacrifice wireless service to keep your monthly bill low are long gone. Nowadays, you can get more for less — provided you know where to look.
That means going beyond the bigger name phone carriers for your wireless service. And while that may seem scary at first, these lesser known wireless providers are actually using the same cellular networks. Having tested a few of these services, I can tell you there's very little difference in performance whether you're a customer of Verizon or getting your cell phone coverage through Visible, which relies on Verizon's network for coverage.
Visible and Verizon are both among my best cheap cell phone plan picks — Visible for its unlimited data options and Verizon for providing the best low-cost plan among big name carriers. But my top pick overall is Mint Mobile for offering very low rates to anyone who's willing to pay for a year of service in advance.
When coming up with these picks, I'm certainly paying attention to how much each option costs as well as the data you get in return. But I also look at who provides the wireless coverage for each plan, especially since the likes of Mint, Visible and Tello don't have cellular towers of their own. And while low-cost plans usually mean giving up perks, I look at the extras that do come with each plan besides talk, text and data.
Read on for more details on the best cheap cell phone plans under $40 that I've managed to find.
I'm the managing editor for mobile devices at Tom's Guide, and I've been covering personal technology since 1999, with a focus on smartphones since the first iPhone debuted back in 2007. I joined Tom's Guide in 2015 when I started following wireless carriers. In addition to keeping tabs on the big three carriers, I've also studied plans for smaller mobile virtual network operators, so I'm well versed on what different wireless providers charge for monthly coverage. I spend far too much time looking at my phone screen.
The best cheap cell phone plan overall
The best cheap unlimited data plan
Best tiered data plan
Best guaranteed rate
Best cheap plan under $20
Best cheap plans compared
Here's what each of our top picks for best cheap data plan charge and how much data you get in return. We've also listed what happens if you use all your data, whether in a tiered data plan or you hit the high-speed data cap on an unlimited offering.
| Row 0 - Cell 0 | Cost | Data | Data cap reached |
Mint Mobile | $15/month | 5GB | Data slowed to 128 Kbps |
Visible | $35/month | Unlimited | Speeds can be slowed after 50GB |
Verizon | $35/month | 15GB | Data slowed to 128 bps |
Boost Mobile | $25/month | Unlimited | Data slowed down to 512 Kbps |
Tello | $19/month | 10GB | Data refill required |
Cheap cell phone plans from the big carriers
While our picks for best cheap cell phone plan highlight smaller carriers for the most part, we recognize that some people prefer to get their wireless service from more established providers. If the Verizon prepaid plan or Mint's unlimited data offering up aren't a good fit for you, both T-Mobile and AT&T have options that cost less than $40 a month that certainly make them strong contenders for your next cell phone plan. However, we'll also highlight the drawbacks that we think put those options behind our recommendations from above.
T-Mobile: T-Mobile offers low-cost wireless coverage through its Connect by T-Mobile plan, where you get 5GB of data every month for a very low $15/month. Coverage comes through T-Mobile's extensive network and includes 5G coverage — that's important since T-Mobile's 5G is the fastest in the U.S. according to third-party test firms.
Since introducing this low-cost option, T-Mobile has expanded the amount of data in its plan annually while keeping the price at $15. However, those increases are set to end in 2025. If the current 5GB limit is too low for you, you can opt for 8GB and 12GB plans instead — at $25 and $35, respectively, they're still under our $40 limit.
The trouble with Connect by T-Mobile is that when you use up all your data in a given month, you've either got to pay for more data or go without until the end of the billing cycle. That's different from other plans like Mint's, where your data speeds are merely slowed when you hit your cap.
AT&T: The best low-cost option at AT&T is an unlimited data plan where you get 16GB of high-speed data each month. (Use that allotment up, and your data speeds slow down.) The monthly cost is just $25/month, which is actually cheaper than Mint's unlimited data plan. However, like Mint, you've got to pay for a year of service up front — that's $300 in AT&T's case. And that can be an awfully big payment to make when you're on a budget, even if it means lower monthly costs over the long haul.
You do get some perks with AT&T's prepaid plan: 10GB of hotspot data, 5G coverage where available, unlimited texting to 230 countries and calls to Canada and Mexico from the U.S. So for people not put off by the size of the annual payment who live in areas with strong AT&T coverage, this deal may be worth it.
Other cheap cell phone plans to consider
Our research has turned up a few other cheap cell phone plans under $40 that deserve some attention, even if they didn't make the cut for our top picks. We're including them here so that you can see what they cost compared to our favorite cheap cell phone plans and what you get in return.
- Consumer Cellular: For $35/month, you can get 10GB of data on the networks of AT&T or T-Mobile. AARP members get a 5% discount, making this a top choice for seniors.
- Cricket: A 10GB plan costs $40/month on this AT&T-owned prepaid carrier. (Cricket does offer a $5 autopay discount on plans at $40 or more, so that should reduce your payment to $35.) Like AT&T, Cricket lets you pay in advance for an unlimited data plan, where your one-time payment works out to $25/month — nice if you can afford that $300 upfront.
- Google Fi: Google has introduced a cheaper Unlimited Essentials plan that costs just $35/month with 30GB of high-speed data. However, the Essential option misses out on the overseas travel benefits that makes Google Fi's $65 Premium plan so appealing.
- Metro by T-Mobile: Metro's Starter Plus plan promises unlimited data for $40/month with a 5-year price lock. It's an in-store option and you have to bring your own number.
- Now Mobile: This low-cost service from Comcast provides an unlimited data plan for $25/month, with taxes and fees included in that rate. You will need to get your broadband service from either Xfinity or Now to sign up for Now mobile coverage.
- TextNow: Pay nothing for talk and text at TextNow and use Wi-Fi for your data connection. Need cellular data? Prices range from 99 cents for an hour of data to $40 for a month of unlimited data, though TextNow's free plan includes some data for essential tasks like checking email and accessing ride-sharing apps.
- Total Wireless: Verizon's renamed prepaid service has a Base 5G Unlimited plan that hits our $40/month limit for cheap phone plans. You get some pretty good perks like 5GB of hotspot data and a $200 credit on a 5G phone purchase after 12 months of service.
- Ultra Mobile: We like the low-cost options available at this T-Mobile-owned carrier, where you can pay $15/month for talk and text plus a mere 250MB of data. There are more data-packed plans available at Ultra — only the unlimited data plans cost more than $40/month — and you can pay in advance to lower your monthly rate further.
Frequently asked questions
What is a prepaid data plan?
You may have noticed that most of the plans included in our best cheap cell phone plan round-up are prepaid options. These are plans where you pay up front at the start of a month, and the amount of data you've bought is the amount you get. (Some carriers will simply slow down your data if you hit your cap, while others require you to buy more data, which is why we specify that information in the chart above.)
Prepaid plans are the opposite of postpaid plans, as those latter options will charge you at the end of the month for the data and services you've used. Postpaid plans offer more flexibility, but they almost always require a credit check. Prepaid plans don't since you're paying in advance; they also tend to be cheaper with fewer perks than postpaid options. But since you're on the lookout for the best cheap cell phone plans, that's a feature, not a flaw.
What should I consider when looking for the best cheap cell phone plan?
Overall price is going to be your biggest consideration. That's why we imposed a limit of $40 a month to make sure we're evaluating plans that will fit in many budgets.
But price isn’t the only criteria to look at. You'll want to concentrate your search on who provides the best cell phone coverage in your area and whether the discount carrier you're considering uses that carrier's network. With the exception of AT&T, T-Mobile and Verizon, none of the discount carriers we've mentioned here operate their own network. Rather, as mobile virtual network operators, or MVNOs, they piggyback on the cellular networks built by one or more of the major carriers. Some carriers, such as Republic Wireless and Google Fi, also offload calls and texts to Wi-Fi when available, as part of their efforts to keep monthly costs low.
You'll want to look at the variety of plans each carrier offers and whether you could move to a different plan if your talk, text and data needs change.
What about family plans?
We've focused on plans for individuals in this guide, but if you're searching for the best family cell phone plan, look into whether a carrier offers discounts on multiple lines. While perks generally aren't included with cheap cell phone plans, look to see if there are some added benefits such as hotspot data.
Our pick for the best prepaid family plan coms from Total Wireless, which charges a total of $110/month for four lines of its unlimited data plan. That works out to $27.50/line if you're still trying to keep those per-line costs under $40. Total, which uses Verizon's network, includes 5G Ultra Wideband coverage, 15GB of hotspot data, and six months of Disney Plus with this plan.
As an alternative, consider Cricket Wireless' Unlimited + 15 GB Mobile Hotspot option on AT&T's network. It costs $130/month for four lines — $32.50 for each line — and its included perks include the aforementioned hotspot data and a subscription to the ad-supported tier of Max.
How do you pick the best cheap cell phone plans?
We are constantly looking at what phone carriers offer, as part of our research into the best cell phone plans. That includes looking at what's available from the major carriers — AT&T, T-Mobile and Verizon — as well as from discount carriers. We check prices monthly, comparing what different services have to offer.
For our best cheap cell phone plans guide, we set a limit of $40 per month, only looking at plans that fall under this threshold. Price is paramount in our rankings, though we do make note of how much data each plan provides as well as any perks to keep in mind. That can help distinguish two equally priced plans — or even make a slightly more expensive plan a better value overall.
Because cell phone coverage can differ from area to area, we try to include a wide variety of cell phone plans priced at $40 or less, so that you can find the best rate for the wireless service with the strongest coverage in your area.
