Top 10 Low-Cost Cell Phone Plans to Save Money on Your Phone Bill

Cell phone plans and related costs are eating up more and more of the budget. If you are on an unlimited plan that gets you as much high-speed data as you want and some miscellaneous perks and you are paying installments on a new phone it is common for bills to be over $100 a month. There are a lot of people who are willing to pay for the features it entails. New phones have crazy fast processors and stellar cameras, and premium plans ensure that users have high-speed data wherever they are and regardless of how much they use each month. 

Not every consumer wants to spend that much on their cell phone plan. There is an abundance of plans at a much lower price point that , while they offer fewer features, are still fantastic options because of how much money you can save. There are a lot of plans that allow for unlimited calling and texting with a small allotment of high-speed data for less than $30 a month. Pair that with an older model of phone or, even better, if you have one that’s completely paid off and you will enjoy tremendous savings every month on your cell phone plan. Before we jump into the 10 best low-cost cell phone plans, you can quickly bring up all the plans in your area and filter them by price with Really’s comparison tool, which is a quick way to bring up some of our favorite plans in the area. You’ll be sure to find some of these listed, no matter where you are in the United States!

Best Low-Cost Cell Phone Plans

Saving money on your phone plan is more than possible with the many offering available through MVNOs. There are a lot of options, and while the options are similar, each one has something unique that it brings to the table. This list will give you a few quick facts about the best low-cost cell phone plans, what makes them unique, and a bit of analysis of the price-to-value ratio of each plan. You can’t go wrong with any plan on this list, but we want to make sure you switch to the best plan for you. 

Freedom Pop’s Free Plan

Quick Facts: 

• $0 a month
• 10 minutes of talk, 10 texts (unlimited WiFi calling and texting)
• 25 MB high-speed data
• No contract 
• Runs on AT&T network

The free plan at Freedom Pop is uniquely cost-effective and we would be remiss not to include it in our top 10 best low-cost cell phone plans. It’s free! Now, it doesn’t give you much, but it is completely free. 

Freedom Pop’s limited plans are great for those who are able to take advantage of Wi-Fi, well, all the time. Wi-Fi is free, and it can be used in unlimited amounts no matter what the plan is. With a plan like this, it is good to tie certain talk and text apps to Wi-Fi, so they don’t use any data while you are going between Wi-Fi zones. The benefit of a Freedom Pop plan is that it lets you keep your phone number and contacts for free. If you really need to budget your cell phone bill, this plan is a great way to do it. 

Unreal Mobile’s 12 GB Plan

Quick Facts: 

• $40 a month
• Unlimited talk and text
• 12 GB high-speed data
• Contract optional
• Runs on T-Moible and  AT&T’s network

Unreal Mobile has a tremendous list of plans, but we want to highlight their 12 GB plan. It is a great mix between value and a good amount of data. Things are getting more and more data-heavy, and a 12 GB pool offers much more leeway in how much you are able to use your data each month. Somewhere between 10 and 30, we think, is the sweet spot. Twelve is on the lower end, but the nice thing about this plan is the discounts that come in when you take a contract. Going month by month is $40, taking three months at a time brings it down to $30 a month, and taking a year at a time brings it down even further to $25 a month. 

The $10 a month savings when getting 3 months at a time is awesome. Thirty dollars for 12 GB is competitively priced, and a three month contract keeps your options open way more than their 12-month contract. If you know that you are set with the Unreal Mobile 12 GB plan or one of their other plans then it makes sense to get the longest contract, but even then the savings are pretty sparse. You could get a cup of coffee for those $5, but we think the three month contract is the way to go. 

Mint Mobile’s Unlimited Plan

Quick Facts: 

• $30 a month
• Unlimited talk and text
• 35 GB of high-speed data
• 3 or 12-month contract
• Runs on Verizon’s network

Mint Mobile’s Unlimited Plan slides in at $30 a month, almost half of Verizon’s cost. In order to stay at the price point, you have to purchase the plan twelve months at a time, but the prices are excellent. Mint’s plan puts unlimited on the table if you are concerned about data usage. While these unlimited plans only offer 35 GB of high-speed data, 35 GB is still a lot. You can do a lot with 35 GB of data, including regular audio and video streaming on your mobile data. If you are concerned with using over 35 GB in a month, you can check out Unreal Mobile’s 50 GB plan, but the available MVNO plans that provide that amount of data are few and far between. 

If Mint’s unlimited plan is too pricey, they have three other options at lower price points that offer unlimited talk and text with limited data. A lot of MVNOs offer a nice selection of plans that offer different amounts of data at different price points. When you are figuring out what MVNO plan you want to use, knowing how much data you need is crucial before you choose a new plan. Running out of data on any plan is not good. We generally recommend starting high and working down whenever you make it a few months at a lower data allotment, but if you want to start saving money as fast as you can, jumping way down to one of the cheaper plans on this list is a good way to go. 

Twigby’s 4 GB Plan

Quick Facts: 

• $20 a month
• Unlimited talk and text 
• 4 GB high-speed data. 
• No contract 
• Runs on Verizon’s network

For $20 a month, Twigby’s phone plan offers unlimited calling and texting with 4 GB of high-speed data. For users who don’t need a lot of data, this plan or one of Twigby’s other limited-data plans (all well-priced) is an excellent way to save. Twigby is one of the carriers that have a lot of options for low-data plans, and plans get much cheaper when you are getting such a small amount of data. Unlimited talk and text are pretty common now among plans, and the talk and text portion of plans generally do not add much to the total bill. 

We think that these plans work fantastically well if you are in a WiFi zone most of the day. We have a variety of those as a part of this list with different MVNOs at slightly different price points, giving slightly different things to the user. We don’t have a favorite low-cost cell phone plan because whichever one will work the best will work the best for you but maybe not the next person over. Some people don’t need any data because they, say, work from home, some people are okay with a few, some a dozen, and others need a truly unlimited plan in order to make it through the month. 

Visible Wireless Unlimited Plan

Quick Facts: 

• $30 or $45 a month
• Unlimited talk and text
• 25 MB high-speed data
• No contract 
• Runs on AT&T network

Visible has two plans, each with unlimited talk, text, and data. Understanding the ins and outs of Visible Wireless phone plans are a great place to start because they offer pretty robust plans for the price. The two visible wireless phone plans are as follows:

• $30 per month for Unlimited
• $45 per month for Unlimited plus

Choosing Visible Wireless is a bit pricier, but the ability to get truly unlimited data for a price as low as $30 a month is a fantastic deal. People often use more data than they think just because so many processes on smartphones chew through data. A lot of stuff is going on in the background, and then loading webpages, social media, and streaming audio and video use so much data that it is altogether too easy to chew through any amount of data allotment and be left with 3G or 2G speeds for the last few days of the month. If you don’t remember what it’s like — that’s slow. Just about everything on phones is designed with 4G LTE data speeds in mind, so even applications that are optimized for mobile devices will take ages to load. 

T-Mobile Essentials

Quick Facts: 

• $60 a month
• Unlimited talk and text
• 50 GB high-speed data
• No contract 
• Runs on T-Mobile’s network

The only plan we have from a major wireless network comes in the form of T-Mobile Essentials. While at $60 a month this is the most pricey plan on the list, it does come with a fantastic list of benefits while not getting too out of hand. We recommend this low-cost cell phone plan for people who need a ton of data during the month. The major benefit of using a major wireless provider instead of an MVNO is, of course, that MVNOs have to slow down the data speeds of their users whenever the bandwidth is being used. If any area is running low, all the MVNO customers will get their data speeds capped in order to ensure that all of the major network’s customers are still able to enjoy their lightning-fast speeds.

Another big benefit of switching to a major network is that they often have a pretty good new customer deal waiting. Don’t fall for something that will result in you getting locked into paying more than you want to, but enjoying some savings is always nice. That being said, a lot of the options on this list regularly run promotions that result in great savings for a few months after joining their service. Make sure to take advantage of whatever you can find to optimize your low-cost cell phone plan. 

Tello Economy

Quick Facts: 

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

Tello Economy is a great plan for people looking to save big time on their cell phone bills. We have it as one of the best low-cost cell phone plans because it comes in at only $10 a month, runs on a great network, and comes with a little bit of data. With only 1 GB, this plan is for people who are able to spend most or all of their days within Wi-Fi zones and don’t plan on using too much data when they are out and about. Downloading songs, and podcasts, and waiting to boot up social media are all crucial changes when you are on a plan with just a bit of mobile data. If you go over your data allotment for the month you get throttled down to 2G speeds. These speeds are very, very slow, but you always have the option to purchase more high-speed data for the month, albeit at an increased price. 

This low-cost cell phone plan shines when you are looking to save money, and since there is no contract, you are free to upgrade to one of their options with more data and go right back down if you find that you aren’t using that much. 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. As an added bonus, this plan comes with free unlimited talk and text to over 60 countries. This is a great boon in a plan that’s designed to have few features in order to be at such a low cost like this one. 

Mint Mobile’s 10 GB Plan

Quick Facts: 

• $20, $25, $35 a month
• Unlimited talk and text
• 10 GB high-speed data
• Three, six, or twelve-month contract 
• Runs on Verizon’s network

Coming in later in this list is Mint Mobile’s 10 GB cell phone plan. This is a great choice for people wanting to find a cheaper option for their cell phone service while staying in that band of being able to use some mobile data when out and about. The major downside to Mint Mobile’s plans is that the savings come through the contract. If you get three months at a time it costs $35 a month, and that is a bit on the pricey side when it comes to this kind of phone plan. If you can swing it, the 12-month contract that brings you down to $20 a month puts this at a fantastic price. One of the great thing about Mint Mobile is that you start with a three-month contract at the lowest price, which lets you try it out. 

Boost Mobile Unlimited 

Quick Facts: 

• $50 a month
• Unlimited talk and text
• 35 GB high-speed data
• No contract 
• Runs on T-Mobile’s network

The unlimited plan at Boost Mobile is pricier than we would like, but it does have a good set of benefits that come along with it. We don’t think the price alone competes with the other cell phone plans on this list, but it deserves a spot as a good place to find an affordable plan at a company where you can rely on their service and speed at all times. 

Google Fi Simply Unlimited 

Quick Facts: 

• $50 a month
• Unlimited talk and text
• 35 GB high-speed data
• No contract 
• Runs on T-Mobile and US Cellular’s network

To round out our list we have the simply unlimited plan from Google Fi. This is a great choice for people who are looking to use a lot of data and don’t want to use one of the major wireless networks. Check this plan out if you know you want to use a fair chunk of data each month and stay on an affordable plan, Google Fi’s simply unlimited plan is a good place to start. You should keep in on your short list if you are interested in a truly unlimited plan, but limited data plans are your best bet to find a low-cost cell phone plan.