Best Value Family Cell Phone Plans 2023

Phone plans hold an unfortunately large portion of budgets. The average American spends almost $130 on their phone plan every month. That’s a ton. Two major items to lower the cost of phone plans are looking for the best value family cell phone plans and checking out MVNOs. With the rise of affordable plans, people enjoy a wide variety of options to find the plan that delivers exactly what they need. If you and your family use a lot of data, it locks you out of a lot of the most affordable MVNO plans, but multi-line plans make even the unlimited plans at major wireless networks much cheaper. A family plan is your holy grail for monthly savings on your cell phone bill. 

If you want an easy way to check out and compare phone plans, the Really comparison tool will bring up all the best deals in your area. For more analysis of the family plans, we will break down some of our favorite ones. Without further ado, let’s talk about the best value family cell phone plans. 

Value Family Cell Phone Plan 

Family plans shine because they provide more for less. You receive less expensive lines when you add more on, meaning the unlimited plans get cheaper, but so do the value plans. Value family cell phone plans for the right people will drastically lower your overall cell phone cost. The downside to those plans is, generally, a lack of data. Unlimited data plans get pretty cheap these days, but the most valuable family cell phone plans will always be ones that limit your monthly data. We’ll get more into that later when we discuss the plans. 

This article will cover family plan pricing based on their cheapest per-line deal (often four lines). 

Best Value Family Cell Phone Plans

This section will cover the best value family cell phone plans and the companies that provide them. We will give some insight into the other plans the company offers and how easy it is to switch between them. While there is no “best” value family cell phone plan, each analysis will touch on how the plan’s main strengths are best for a particular kind of customer. We’ve organized this list from least expensive to most expensive plan at its cheapest amount of lines, but keep in mind how many people you expect to be on your family plan so you know how much you’re going to pay.  

Tello Mobile Family Plans

Single-line plans perfect for low-data users

Quick Facts: 

• $10 a month
• Unlimited talk and text
• 1 GB high-speed data
• No contract 
• Runs on T-Mobile’s network

While this is not a family plan, and they don’t have multi-line savings, we want to highlight its extreme affordability. This is cheaper than most multi-line plans on the market because it only comes with 1 GB of high-speed data. This is a plan for people who don’t need much data. It is also a plan for smaller families who can’t get the major savings from multi-line plans. This is a great way to slice your phone bill down to size without, well, needing any other line. 

One GB does not get you far doing just about anything. This plan works best if just about all your phone usage happens within WiFi zones. Working with a plan like this means planning out excursions so the media you want to watch and listen to is already downloaded, and that you don’t keep GPS running in the background or let other processes run that chew through your limited data. 

Tello phone plans do not have a contract, and they have a variety of options ranging from no data to 25 GB of high-speed data. You can upgrade or downgrade month by month as you figure out your mobile needs.  New users can bring their own phones along if it is unlocked and compatible with Tello’s service. Almost every phone is, but it is worth double-checking. 

Reach Mobile Family Plan

Best family plan for low-data users

Quick Facts

• $40, $28, $24, $22, $20
• Prepaid Plan
• T-Mobile’s 4G LTE and 5G networks
• 15 or 20 GB of high-speed data
• Hotspot data

Reach Mobile is another excellent value family cell phone plan for low-data users. While their unlimited data plan is not included in the family plan package, they have a “best fit” program that only charges you for the data you use even if you are on a larger plan. Their limited data plans are 2 GB, 5 GB, 10 GB, and 15 GB. Once you have three lines you get an extra 5 GB added to the plan, but since it’s shared between every user, it is challenging to stay under the max data limit, but if you can you are met with extra savings. 

Due to their best-fit program, it makes sense to start at their highest data plan and try to keep your data usage low throughout the month. If you and the other members of your family are able to keep data low, great, but if your family has one high-data user and low-data users for the rest of the lines it can still work out. They have no contracts, letting you take it month-by-month as you figure out whether or not this is the right carrier for you. 

Reach mobile has a lot of good things going. Their give a plan, get a plan initiative is an amazing example of how larger companies can leverage their earnings for the greater good. Reach Mobile donates free data to women and students who need it all over the world. 

Google Fi Simply Unlimited 

Best family plan for three or more users

Quick Facts: 

• $50, $40, $25, $20 a month
• 35 GB high-speed data
• No contract 
• Runs on T-Mobile and US Cellular’s network

Next on our list, we have the simply unlimited plan from Google Fi. This is a great choice for families who use a fair bit of data but don’t need unlimited high-speed data. If you have at least three lines, the savings really start to pile up. With great coverage, fast speeds, and a very affordable plan for families of three or more, Google Fi’s simply unlimited is a great choice for a family plan. 

Google Fi is an MVNO that operates at a higher price point than other MVNOs but comes with more features and great service to make up for the increased cost. Purchasing a single-line plan at Google Fi is a hard sell, but the $15 per line savings that come with a three-line multi-line plan are fantastic. Another note about Google Fi — they have fewer compatible phones than some of the competition. It is important to check your phone’s compatibility before signing on to their network

Visible Unlimited

Best family plan for two users

Quick Facts

• $30 a month per line
• Prepaid Plan
• Verizon’s 4G LTE and 5G networks
• Unlimited data
• Unlimited hotspot

The major downside of the Visible unlimited phone plan is that there are no multi-line savings. While this makes it not a value family cell phone plan, we still want to highlight it because it is one of the best value unlimited cell phone plans on the market. 

Their basic unlimited plan is $30 a month per line with unlimited data and high-speed hotspots. We have this on the top of our list for people who want to save money with MVNOs while getting a really robust plan with as much data as you can use. Most MVNO unlimited plans come with a limited amount of high-speed data with unlimited low-speed data. This makes a lot of MVNOs not great options for people who use a lot (50 GB per month or more) of data. They will always hit the high-speed data limit and being stuck with low-speed data is terrible. This is not the case with Visible! They give unlimited high-speed data. 

We recommend this for family plans with two or three lines, where the multi-line savings from other carriers have not kicked to their fullest extent. Visible Wireless only offers one kind of plan—the unlimited kind. They have a very strong unlimited plan that provides users with excellent nationwide coverage on Verizon’s network. All of their plans have unlimited talk and text and true unlimited data, which means it will remain high-speed data regardless of your usage. While $30 a line is pricier, it is far less expensive than the major wireless companies. 

Verizon Start Unlimited

Best affordable family plan on a major wireless provider

Quick Facts

• $80/60/45/35 a month per line
• Postpaid Plan
• Verizon’s 4G LTE and 5G networks
• Unlimited data
• No hotspot

This is Verizon’s most affordable plan, with some of the best multi-line savings out there. Going from $80 a month to $35 is astonishing, making this an exceptional option for plans with many lines to gain access to a major wireless network without paying the premium often associated with it. This plan comes with unlimited high-speed data. There is another tier called “premium” data, which means that your data will never be slowed under any circumstances. This plan doesn’t come with much premium data, but we don’t think that will come into effect all that much. 

Keep in mind that before your data gets slowed down, they slow down all their MVNO customers. There are not many opportunities to pay this little for coverage with a major wireless network, and this is a great plan for those who want to stick with the big three no matter what.

Your data will only get slowed in times of serious congestion, like major sporting or concert events. And if you’re at the big game you don’t need to be on your phone anyway, right? Joking aside, this is a fantastic way to get an amazing deal at a major wireless company for incredibly competitive prices. A plan at Verizon allows you to get an even more robust plan if you need it, but when you’re looking for a family plan with the hopes of cutting down your wireless bill, we recommend looking for a plan that will leave you paying less than $50 a line. 

Mint Mobile Family Plan

Best value family cell phone plan for mixed-data users

• Mix and match phone plans per line
• Prepaid Plan
• T-Mobile’s 4G LTE and 5G networks
• Data-dependent on plan
• Hotspot data

Next up is Mint Mobile’s Family Plan. This plan lets every user pick their data allocation for the month. This is one of the best-value family cell phone plans if some of your family members don’t use that much data. A mix-and-match plan like this lets members take a cheaper option while letting high-data users get one of Mint Mobile’s more robust offerings. Mint Mobile’s savings are available for single-line users in the form of longer contracts. They offer three, six, and 12-month contracts. The longer the contract, the less you pay per month. 

With a family plan (which starts at two lines) users receive the lowest price no matter the contract. This gives families a lot more flexibility, especially if there are kids whose data you want to limit, or if anyone is uncertain of how much data they really need. 

This is a great choice for people wanting to find a cheaper option for their cell phone service while being able to use some mobile data when out and about. Family plans evade the major downside of Mint Mobile, which is the 12-month contract on their cheapest plans. As a general rule, we recommend starting with more data than you expect to use. Once you hit your data limit and are throttled down to 3G speeds you aren’t able to do much of anything on the mobile network. 

T-Mobile Essentials

Best family plan for three or more lines on a major wireless network

Quick Facts: 

• $60, $45, $30, $25 a month
• Unlimited talk and text
• Unlimited high-speed data
• 3G Hotspot
• No contract 

Last but not least in our list of the best value family cell phone plans is a plan from T-Mobile. We had to sneak in another family plan from a major wireless network because of how amazing the T-Mobile Essentials family plan is. The $60 a month for a single line is expensive, but with more lines, the savings add up fast. Halving the cost with the third line is spectacular, and it gives every plan member as much data as they can use. We recommend this affordable cell phone plan for families who need a lot of data during the month. The major benefit of using a major wireless provider instead of an MVNO is that you are certain that you will have the highest-speed data that the carrier can provide. 

This plan comes with 50 GB of “premium” high-speed data, which means you will never be slowed down until you get through those first 50 GBs. And after that, you are in a similar spot as Verizon Start unlimited customers and you will only get slowed down if the T-Mobile network burns through all their MVNO customers and still has an overfull bandwidth. Unless that happens, you and all the members of your family plan will enjoy lightning-fast speeds all night long. 

Another big benefit of going to a major network is that they often have a pretty good new customer deal waiting. There are dangers in these deals, and make sure to examine them with a critical eye to ensure that there are no hidden strings that will cost you more in the long run, but for right now, the third line is completely free! 

These are our best value family cell phone plans

The best value family cell phone plans allow customers to save big on their cell phone bills. Family plans are a stand-in for what most companies have switched to — “multi-line plans.” Now you don’t have to be family to enjoy the savings. So, grab some friends and family and chip in together to find the family plan that’s best for you! 

Talk to all the members of this plan to find out what they want out of their cell phone service. While unfortunate, it is possible to end with a group of people too different to capitalize on any value family cell phone plan.