7 Best Prepaid Phone Plans (2026)

Other prepaid cellular services

Mint Mobile It is a prepaid service that uses the T-Mobile network (T-Mobile acquired the company In 2024). Plans start at $15 for 5GB, although they offer an unlimited tier for $30 (sometimes on sale for less). Mint’s prices are low, but the company’s plans have very few service and data restrictions, and Mint doesn’t offer smartwatch plans at all. International calls and data are also expensive.

Wireless cricket It is a prepaid service owned by AT&T. It offers unlimited plans starting at $35 per month, although the entry-level plan does not include hotspot data (it is sold as an add-on plan). Line discounts are up to five lines, so Cricket can be good for family plans. Cricket Wireless has several stores in the US, which is unusual for a prepaid phone provider, and makes Cricket a solid choice if you prefer to speak with a customer representative face-to-face.

subway Owned by T-Mobile. The company’s Unlimited 5G plans, available at $25 per month or $20 per month (when billed on a six-month cycle), are solid, with Metro offering 35GB of high-speed data along with unlimited talk and texts. However, these plans lack immediate support, and even basic international support is an additional service. Metro has a price lock-in promise for five years, but Boost by T-Mobile has a “forever” price promise. Like T-Mobile’s other brands, Metro has multiple retail locations, which can be good if you want face-to-face service.

Straight talk It is owned by Verizon and is often marketed at Walmart locations. It has unlimited talk, text, and data plans starting at $45 per month. These plans include 10GB of hotspot data and unlimited international calls to Mexico and Canada. However, US Mobile and Verizon-owned Visible offer better value plans and more features, like bundled smartwatch support, for the same price.

Tracphone It is a prepaid cellular service owned by Verizon. Like Consumer Cellular, its marketing focuses heavily on older users. As with Consumer Cellular, the plans aren’t the best value. On the more positive side, many TracFone plans include rollover data, which is unusual. This may be attractive if you don’t often need a lot of data, but sometimes use more than usual.

Ting Mobile It is a prepaid cell service that uses the Verizon network. He was using T-Mobile, which is owned by Boost. Ting offers unlimited plans, although many unlimited plans have very low limits for high-speed data. Hotspot data is included in all plans, but international data is not, so you’ll be charged extra for it. Smart watches are not supported. I’ve personally been using this service as my primary service for five years, but changed it because their plans became less competitive.

Consumer cellular It is a brand that markets itself to older individuals with the promise of simple and inexpensive service. However, the company’s plans tend to be more expensive than competitors’ plans, starting at $20 per month for just 1GB of data. The company ranked highly in Consumer Reports’ user surveys, at least. Consumer Cellular has retail locations and opened its 50th store in July 2025.

Mobile X It is a prepaid service on the Verizon network that has a range of pay-as-you-go and unlimited plans. The unlimited plans don’t seem convincing to me, given their limitations on data and international usage.

Red Pocket Mobile It’s a prepaid mobile carrier with access to Verizon, AT&T, and T-Mobile (users choose the network when they sign up). It has a simple plan system with just three levels, from 3GB to 50GB of premium data. Only the premium class has a hotspot. All plans include some degree of international coverage in 80 countries, with 100 minutes/100 texts and a generous chunk of data (1GB to 10GB), so it’s a good choice for people who travel internationally but don’t use enough data to justify the more expensive Google Fi Unlimited Premium plan. I was also frustrated with the RedPocket Mobile app, which proved to be buggy and would often throw up errors claiming my personal information was incorrect, but not specifically stating the error.

Total wireless It is also owned by Verizon and offers unlimited plans starting at $40 per month. They’re reasonable plans, but again, the alternatives from US Mobile and Verizon’s own Visible are generally more compelling.

United States Cellular It was, until recently, the oldest independent MVNO in the United States, but it was acquired by T-Mobile in 2024, and T-Mobile plans to merge the company into T-Mobile. So, while you can technically still buy a plan from the company, it makes more sense to switch to T-Mobile.