The Cheapest Cellphone Plans in 2021

If saving money is the most important thing to you in a cellphone plan, you’ve got a couple of different options. You can choose the absolute cheapest cellphone plan out there, but what if you want some wireless data or better cell service?

Let’s break down the best value cellphone plans in 2021, depending upon what you want — including the absolute cheapest options if that’s your jam.

The absolute cheapest cellphone plans

The absolute cheapest cellphone plan we could find is from GenMobile, and will cost you $6 per month for 300 minutes of talk, unlimited text and 1GB of data. GenMobile uses T-Mobile’s network and even includes 5G access.

Just keep in mind that you’ll burn through 1GB data incredibly fast while using 5G speeds. But as long as you keep to Wi-Fi wherever you can, it’s conceivable that you can get by with so little data. Of course, paying only $6 per month for your cellphone service sounds pretty incredible.

But if you know it’s not realistic for you to send less than 300 texts in a given month, you can pay an extra dollar every month and go for US Mobile’s Unlimited Talk & Text plan with 1GB of data.

Plus, US Mobile uses Verizon’s awesome network to provide cell service. If the cheapest cellphone possible is what you care about most, it’s probably worth forking over the extra dollar every month to get unlimited texts on a better service network.

The cheapest cellphone plans with unlimited data

If you want to keep your costs low, but still have unlimited data, there’s some surprisingly affordable options out there. In particular, there’s two cellphone plans that reign supreme when it comes to cheap unlimited data — Mint Mobile and Visible Wireless.

Starting with Visible Wireless, you can actually get unlimited data for as cheap as $20 a month for the first three months of your service (along with a free $100 Prepaid Mastercard Virtual Account when you switch). Once those three months are up, your price will jump to $40 a month, which is still a stellar deal for unlimited data. Especially when you consider that Visible uses Verizon’s super-reliable network to provide cell service.

Mint Mobile, on the other hand, can’t quite match Visible’s introductory price, but it does offer a cheaper monthly rate going forward. Currently, you get an unlimited data plan with Mint Mobile for $30 a month. Mint Mobile is a prepaid cellphone carrier that uses T-Mobile’s network to provide service. Considering the cheapest T-Mobile unlimited plans cost upward of $60 per month, getting an unlimited plan on T-Mobile’s network for half that price is a pretty great deal.

The cheapest family plan

As for family plans, the best deal you can get on a major network is the T-Mobile’s Essentials plan split across at least four lines.

The price comes down to a little less than $27 per month per line, and you get unlimited talk, unlimited text and unlimited data on T-Mobile’s proprietary network.

You even get free coverage in Canada and Mexico, and unlimited texting in over 200 countries. Going the family plan route instead of the individual plan route allows you to save money and still use a major carrier.

Major carriers offer perks (like family plans, for example) that smaller prepaid carriers can’t match. For example, the T-Mobile Essentials plan comes with unlimited DVD-quality streaming, 5G network access and affordable financing options for new smartphones.