Best AT&T phone plans in 2025: What's right for you?

To find the best AT&T phone plan, you need to identify what it is you're looking for from your wireless coverage. Do you need a lot of data or a low monthly bill? Do you want a plan the covers every member of your family? Are you happy to pay upfront if it significantly lowers your monthly cost?

The good news is that AT&T offers enough plans to meet all of those needs. The challenge is identifying which plan fits in with what you're looking for — and with navigating AT&T's website to find its top options. But I can help you on both accounts.

I'm regularly looking for the best cell phone plans, which means knowing what each phone carrier charges — and that includes AT&T. In addition to the trio of unlimited plans that the carrier touts on its main website, I've found another AT&T unlimited data, almost hidden in plain sight, that costs less and happens to be one of the best unlimited data plans you can find. AT&T's prepaid offerings are usually pretty good as well, especially if you're willing to pay for a year of coverage upfront. And AT&T has dropped a long-standing restriction on its phone plan aimed at seniors, allowing more people to take advantage of a great rate on unlimited data.

Beyond its phone plans, AT&T routinely offers great deals on phones, whether you're an existing customer or planning on switching service, and we've got a range of AT&T Mobility promo codes to make those prices even better. So you've got plenty of incentive to find an appealing phone plan with the carrier.

I've looked at every option available through AT&T — both postpaid and prepaid — to find the best AT&T phone plans for both individuals and families. Whether it's unlimited data or a lower-cost plan, I can point you in the right direction.

The quick list

Philip Michaels

My name is Philip Michaels, and I'm the managing editor for mobile devices at Tom's Guide. My focus includes our smartphone coverage as well as keeping track of what U.S. phone carriers charge for their monthly service. I've been doing that for 10 years at Tom's Guide, so I'm quite familiar with AT&T's different offerings. I've also covered the launch and growth of AT&T's 5G network. And I can also tell you all about the smaller carriers that use AT&T's network to provide lower-cost coverage.

The best AT&T phone plan overall

AT&T Value Plus VL | unlimited data | $50.99/month - AT&T's best phone plan
AT&T's best phone plan gives you unlimited data for the lowest possible rate — just $50.99 per month. Finding the plan on AT&T's website can be tricky, as AT&T promotes its other unlimited plans more prominently. On the menu above AT&T's Premium, Extra and Starter plans, click on AT&T Value Plus VL to find this more attractive option. (By default, AT&T shows the per-line price on each plan when you have four lines — clicking on select plans lets you adjust the number of lines you're shopping for to see the actual price.)

Value Plus perks are minimal — you get 5G coverage and unlimited talk, text and data between the U.S., Canada and Mexico plus free texting to 200-plus countries, but that's it. And AT&T can slow your speeds whenever its network gets congested. But if those are acceptable terms, you won't find a cheaper way to enjoy all the data you can consume.

Best of all, you can add multiple lines of Value Plus, though per-line discounts don't kick in until you've added three lines. Three lines of Value Plus drop the per-line cost to $37.99 each month.

Pros: Cheapest unlimited postpaid plan at AT&T; Includes 5G
Cons: Minimal discounts on multi-line plans; Speeds can slow at any time

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Best AT&T phone plan value

AT&T Unlimited + 10GB of hotspot data | unlimited data | $25/month — Low monthly prepaid rate
AT&T's best prepaid phone plan shows how you can save by paying upfront. By paying $300 for a full year of service, you get an unlimited data plan that breaks down to just $25 a month for coverage on AT&T's network. That adds up to a $240 annual savings over AT&T's basic $45 prepaid unlimited data plan. the $25 monthly rate also compares favorably to low-cost unlimited data plans at Visible and Mint Mobile, two of the better options for the best cheap cell phone plans.

There is a 16GB cap on high-speed data including 5G, and if you go over that, your speeds slow down to a pokey 1.5Mbps for the remainder of the billing cycle. But 16GB is a pretty generous chunk of data, and you can enjoy 10GB of hotspot data with your plan, too.

AT&T has a lot of different prepaid unlimited plans on its website, so make sure you're selecting Unlimited + 10GB of hotspot data to get this discounted monthly rate..

Pros: Hotspot data; Low monthly rate
Cons: Big upfront payment; Speeds slow down after 16GB of use

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Best AT&T family plan

AT&T Unlimited Extra UL | unlimited data | $163.96/month (four lines) — Best option for families
The AT&T Unlimited Extra plan offers the best mix of price and features for families who want unlimited data through AT&T. And with T-Mobile now charging more for its new unlimited data plans, I think that Unlimited Extra is the best family cell phone plan among all the major carriers at the moment.

A single line of Unlimited Extra costs $75.99, but escalating discounts as you add lines bring the per-line cost down to $40.99 for a family of four.

With this plan, you get 75GB of high-speed data before AT&T slows down your speeds, and each line can use 30GB of data for hotspotting.

Pros: Big data cap; Hotspot data for each line
Cons: No streaming perks

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Best AT&T phone plan for seniors

AT&T 55+ Plan | unlimited data | $40/month — An improved offering for seniors
AT&T plans for anyone 55 years or older used to only be available if you also lived in Florida. But that residency requirement is no more — now, anyone who's 55 years or older can get a senior plan at AT&T, and the package is quite affordable.

A single line of unlimited data costs $40/month once you enroll in autopay. You'll get a discount on two lines, dropping the per line cost to $35. That makes AT&T much more competitive with T-Mobile's offerings as the best cell phone plan for seniors.

You'll get 10GB of hotspot data with AT&T's senior plan, plus unlimited talk, text and data when traveling in Canada and Mexico. Taxes and fees aren't included.

Pros: Plan is now open to anyone regardless of residency; discounts on multiple lines
Cons: Rate does not include taxes and fees

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Best AT&T phone plan for travelers

AT&T Unlimited Premium PL | Unlimited data | $85.99/month - Free coverage in Latin America
At $85.99, Unlimited Premium is AT&T's most expensive plan. But travelers will appreciate that it includes talk, text and data coverage in 20 Latin American countries at no additional cost.

Other perks to Unlimited Premium include 60GB of hotspot data and 4K video streaming support. Also, AT&T won't slow down your data speeds no matter how much data you use each month.

Pros: No data caps at all; Coverage in 20 Latin American countries
Cons: AT&T's most expensive plan

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Best AT&T phone plan with tiered data

AT&T 5GB prepaid plan | 5GB data | $30/month — Decent amount of prepaid data
Most of AT&T's plans offer unlimited data, but if you turn to the carrier's prepaid options and look past its Most Popular Plans tab, you can find this low-cost 5GB plan. (Our previous pick — a 15GB for $10 more each month — seems to have been retired by AT&T.)

AT&T charges double what you'd pay for the same amount of data with T-Mobile's low-cost Connect plan. But use up your data at T-Mobile, and that's it, unless you buy supplementary data. AT&T will simply slow your speeds for the rest of the billing cycle. Unused data rolls over to the next month with AT&T's plan.

AT&T lets you use your 5GB data allotment as hotspot data. You can also count on 5G access wherever AT&T's service is available.

Pros: Rollover data; Includes coverage in Mexico and Canada
Cons: Pricey compared to other prepaid plans; Speeds slowed to 128 Kbps when you hit your cap

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Other AT&T plans

Unlike the extensive options among T-Mobile phone plans and Verizon phone plans, our top picks for AT&T cover most of the different plans at that carrier. However, there are a few remaining plans you should know about as well.

The Unlimited Extra and Unlimited Premium options make up two-thirds of AT&T's three main unlimited offerings. The third option is the cheapest of the trio — Unlimited Starter costs $65.99 for just one line. It offers just 5GB of hotspot data and AT&T can slow your data at any time. Unless you need hotspot data or want the ability to add extra lines at a discount, Value Plus will cost you even less.

AT&T's prepaid plans now mostly skew toward unlimited data options, save for the 5GB plan we recommend and an 8GB option that requires an upfront payment of $33/month for three months. (That's $99 total.) Unlike the 5GB plan, 8GB subscribers can stream HD video; unused data rolls over with this plan, too.

Prepaid plans with unlimited data start with the basic $45/month plan, which comes with a 30GB cap at 3 Mbps maximum speeds. To get unlimited data without a speed cap, you either have to opt for the year-in-advance plan that we recommend above or pay $55/month for Unlimited Max with 25GB of hotspot data and a 50GB high-speed data cap. The Unlimited Max Plus plan has no data cap on high-speed data and increases hotspot data to 35GB, but at $65/month, it cots nearly as much as some postpaid plans.

Note that these last two options reflect discounts for enrolling autopay. Otherwise, they cost $10 more each month.

Low-cost AT&T alternatives

If you like AT&T's network, but don't care for AT&T's prices, there's more than one way to enjoy the carrier's extensive coverage. Mobile virtual network operators, or MVNOs, use AT&T's towers to provide their own service, usually at a lower rate than what AT&T charges. The trade-off is that AT&T gives priority to its own traffic so you may see slower data speeds.

The best-known AT&T MVNO is Cricket Wireless, which AT&T owns and operates. Cricket recently overhauled its plans, so the carrier is worth checking out if you haven't looked at its offerings in a while.

Plans at Cricket now start at $30/month for 10GB of data, with a bare-bones unlimited data plan available for $35. Cricket's best plan is its Supreme Unlimited offering, a $55/month unlimited data plan with a 50GB cap on high-speed data and a free subscription to the ad-supported tier of HBO Max. That's a perk you won't even find at AT&T.

Other AT&T MVNOs include the senior-friendly Consumer Cellular and Red Pocket Mobile.

Is AT&T a good carrier?

In our guide to the best phone carriers, AT&T ranks behind Verizon and T-Mobile among the major carriers, as T-Mobile offers better perks and Verizon offers an extensive network. That said, AT&T has a strong reputation for its own coverage, as Rootmetrics declared that AT&T delivered the best overall network performance during the first half of 2025. Other testing firms like Opensignal rate AT&T high for availability, while giving higher marks to T-Mobile for speed and reliability.

That puts AT&T in an awkward spot. It's not quite as large a network as Verizon, lacking that carrier's extensive coverage. Its plans aren't as affordable as what T-Mobile charges.

While some of AT&T's plans can be quite expensive, it offers ways around this, most noticeably through family plan discounts and savings for nurses, teachers, first responders, military and more; you can also save with some schools, organizations and employers.