This is a guest post written by my husband Scott who runs a blog and social media page promoting mental health awareness among healthcare and public safety professionals. You can find more about his work at PeerCheck360.com or on facebook/insta @PeerCheck360.
If you haven’t checked out our previous posts on saving money with cell phones, check it out here (about PagePlus) and here (about RedPocket). As we mentioned in the posts, we are always considering other ways to save money on our cell phones and thought that we found great success with RedPocket, however, after only a few short months, we began having issues with receiving Multimedia Messages (MMS). After dozens of discussions with RedPocket and a solid 2 weeks of performing device resets, we discovered that they cap their MMS to 600mb per message. The typical picture message is 700-800mb. When we began to search further, we discovered that many cell providers cap their MMS data limits to 1kb-1.5kb. This led us on yet another cell phone provider search :(.
We believe we have found great service at an amazing price!
Do you hate paying outrageous monthly bills? Do you hate paying $80, $100, $120 or more per line per month for cell phone plans that isn’t even UNLIMITED?
What if I told you that you can SAFELY cut the cord from Verizon, be on Verizon’s network, have a decent smart phone, have reliable service, and get it all for…
Is a discount possible?!
SERIOUSLY!!!! (Scroll to the bottom to see how to get a referral credit of up to $10.)
Disclosure: This post may contain affiliate links meaning I receive a commission if you decide to make a purchase through my links, at no cost to you. Prices listed below are current as of the original writing of the blog post.
In our previous post, I shared with you all about MVNOs and why we love them! All the benefits without the cost. We also discussed how we liked the Page Plus Cellular phone service we were using and would consider another option if a similar provider could beat the awesomely low price of $30 per line per month. RedPocket was able to beat that and got the price all the way down to $10/month but we discovered the issue noted above which led to a new search.
As a reminder, our criteria included the following:
- Good service
- CHEAPER than Verizon
- No contracts
- Keep (Port-in) the same phone number
Almost all of the MVNO providers worked in larger towns, but move away from those areas and your phone would become nothing more than a paperweight. The only company at that time matching all of my criteria was PagePlus cellular.
Enter…US Mobile
They have awesome plans starting as low as $5/month (for 75minutes, 50 texts, and 50mb…enough for a very low use individual – thinking this could include senior citizens) and also include unlimited options, too, for a little higher price. Their highest monthly plan is ONLY $30 and includes unlimited talk/text/data (up to 30gb on CDMA/Verizon or GSM/T-Mobile).
Update: If you want truly UNLIMITED data, it is only $45 for unlimited EVERYTHING!
We tested the $15/month plan which includes unlimited talk, unlimited text and 5GB of 4G data (available on 5G, too).
Spoiler alert: we liked it so much we ported over from our previous carrier!
What are Some Pros/Cons?
Pro #1 Coverage.
As mentioned earlier, we are using the same network as Verizon! But…you have the option of using ANY of the Big 4!
Pro #2 Cost.
For 2 phones through Verizon on their entry level plans, you will be paying $60/line plus taxes, surcharges, and other fees. Compound this for 2 phones over a 2 year contract and you will be paying $2880 BEFORE TAXES AND OTHER FEES! Once you add in the costs of a phone lease and phone insurance then these costs skyrocket!
Through PagePlus we were paying $29.95/line (taxes and fees already included) and this includes unlimited talk/text and 3gb of data which has proven to be more than enough for our needs. Compound this for 2 phones over a 2 year timeframe (no contracts EVER) and we have spent $1437.60.
And now through USMobile…
$15/month = $180/year!
$30/month for 2 lines = $360 per year or $720 for 2 years.
A SAVINGS of over $700 from PagePlus
OR, almost
$2200 from Verizon!
We understand that this comparison may not be an exact 1:1 comparison between USMobile and Verizon. A better comparison would be to look at USMobile versus PagePlus. Even then, a savings of $700 is pretty amazing!
What would you do with an extra $700 or $2200?
Pro #3 NO CONTRACTs!
Not much to say other than I am thankful we are not indebted to a company and can leave anytime we want (if we would want to).
Pro #4 Referral Program
USMobile has an awesome referral program. SERIOUSLY!!!! (Scroll to the bottom to see how to get a referral credit of up to $10.).
Hint: you will need this referral code to get the referral credit.
Now for the cons…
Con #1 No Phone Discounts.
I don’t see this as a con and let me share why.
So Verizon likes to offer phone deals if you sign up by a specific date, or if you change your contract dates, or if you sell your right leg. I like my right leg, but could probably do without my appendix (already removed anyways). Those phone “discounts” aren’t real discounts at all and may cost you longer. Not to mention the “insurance” those companies sell you for using phones that they don’t own anyway. It’s like a car lease (a bad idea) in which the salesman makes commission by selling you all of the add-ons he has convinced you that you NEED.
So where do you get a phone from? You buy it from a site like Amazon , eBay, Facebook Marketplace, or wherever you desire. The sky is the limit! I prefer the Amazon Renewed Store as you can get so much for so much less :).
Con #2 You must buy your own phone.
Again, I don’t see this as a con, but it may be something you feel is a downside to moving away from the Big 4. There are so many more options available outside of the Big 4 carriers so you can get a truly personalized phone.
Or…go all out with a personalized phone case!
And for the conclusion…
Overall, we enjoyed the service with Verizon and PagePlus and wanted to pursue other carriers to help us save even more money. We feel that USMobile will help us continue to decrease our monthly cell phone spending while increasing the services we previously enjoyed. We do agree that for some people the Big 4 carriers provide good services and each person must weigh the pros and cons for themselves before determining if they should consider saving more money by switching to an MVNO like USMobile. There are many MVNOs available on each of the Big 4 networks and some may be better in your area than others.
We have been so excited with USMobile that we have ported our numbers from Page Plus! That’s a pretty big move for having been with the previous carrier for the past 8 years!
So…have you tried an MVNO and if so, what have been your experiences?
If you would like to help us out and get up to a $10 discount, too, please use our referral code below...