Other Prepaid Cellular Services

Mint Mobile a prepaid service that uses the T-Mobile network (T-Mobile acquired the company in 2024). Plans start at $15 for 5 GB, though they offer an Unlimited tier for $30 (and sometimes it’s on sale for less). Mint’s rates are low, but the company’s plans have some service and data restrictions, and Mint doesn’t offer smartwatch plans at all. International calling and data are also expensive.

Cricket Wireless is a prepaid service owned by AT&T. It offers unlimited plans starting at $35 a month, though the entry-level plan doesn’t include hot-spot data (it’s sold as an extra). Line discounts are decent for up to five lines, so Cricket can be good for family plans. Cricket Wireless has many stores in the US, which is unusual for a prepaid phone service provider, and makes Cricket a solid choice if you want to talk to a customer representative face-to-face.

Metro owned by T-Mobile. The company’s unlimited 5G plans, available for $25 per month or $20 per month (when billed on a six-month cycle), are robust, as Metro provides 35 GB of high-speed data along with unlimited talk and text. However, these plans lack hot-spot support, and even the most basic international support is an add-on service. Metro has a five-year price lock promise, but T-Mobile’s Boost has a “forever” price promise. Like other T-Mobile brands, Metro has multiple retail locations, which can be great if you want to deal with the service.

Straight Talk owned by Verizon and often sold at Walmart locations. It has unlimited talk, text, and data plans starting at $45 per month. These plans come with 10 GB of hot-spot data and unlimited international calling to Mexico and Canada. However, US Mobile and Verizon-owned Visible offer plans with better value and more features, such as bundled smartwatch support, for the same price.

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

Ting Mobile a prepaid cellular service that uses the Verizon network. It uses T-Mobile, and it’s owned by Boost. Ting offers Unlimited plans, although many of the Unlimited plans have lower high-speed data limits. Hot-spot data is included in all plans, but International is not included, so you will be charged extra for that. Smartwatches are not supported. I personally used it as my primary service five years ago, but switched because its plans became less competitive.

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

MobileX is a prepaid service on the Verizon network with a variety of pay-as-you-go and unlimited plans. Unlimited plans don’t appeal to me, because of their data limits and international usage.

RedPocket Mobile a prepaid mobile carrier with access to Verizon, AT&T, and T-Mobile (users choose the network at sign-up). It has a simple plan system with only three levels, from 3 GB to 50 GB of premium data. Only the premium level has a hot spot. All plans include some level of International coverage in 80-ish countries, with 100 minutes/100 texts and a decent chunk of data (1 GB to 10 GB), so it’s a decent 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 disappointed with the RedPocket Mobile app, which proved to be buggy and frequently threw errors claiming that my personal information was incorrect, but didn’t say what the specific error was.

Totally Wireless 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 Makita are more compelling overall.

UScellular is, until now, the oldest independent MVNO in the US, but it was acquired by T-Mobile in 2024, and T-Mobile plans to integrate the company with T-Mobile. So, while you can still buy the technical plan from the company, it makes more sense to go with T-Mobile.