I bought the 10GB plan for 1yr up-front. List price was $240, was $267.25 after taxes and fees. So their $20/mo was actually $22.27.
> If you don't want fancy phones and don't want unlimited data, it might not be worth it to you.
People bothering to try and save $20-30/mo probably aren't the target market for upgrading a $1000 device every year or two.
Also, I don't like the financial shenanigans pushing me to upgrade when I might not otherwise care to.
> Let's say you're on a family plan with 4 lines and paying $42.50/line.
Lets say I'm not, because I'm not. A huge market full of people don't need 4 lines. So their cheapest plan would be $60/mo before taxes and fees. No Netflix credit. No upgrade credit. Tethering is only at 3G speeds without paying more. I'm not even sure what the taxes and fees are for this T-Mo plan, but even including it with Mint means the plan is $452.75 more per year than what I paid for Mint. Sure, I'd get unlimited data, but I don't even regularly use the 10GB I pay for on Mint.
I do agree the economics of these larger carrier post-paid plans start to make a lot more sense when you're buying in a big family plan group and they start throwing in a lot of other perks that you may want anyways. But if you're just wanting a single line and don't constantly buy new devices, the larger carrier post paid plans still often work out to be a lot more expensive unless you actually really use tons of data in a month, really want faster speeds all the time, or live in a place where these MVNOs are just truly unreliable.
> If you don't want fancy phones and don't want unlimited data, it might not be worth it to you.
People bothering to try and save $20-30/mo probably aren't the target market for upgrading a $1000 device every year or two.
Also, I don't like the financial shenanigans pushing me to upgrade when I might not otherwise care to.
> Let's say you're on a family plan with 4 lines and paying $42.50/line.
Lets say I'm not, because I'm not. A huge market full of people don't need 4 lines. So their cheapest plan would be $60/mo before taxes and fees. No Netflix credit. No upgrade credit. Tethering is only at 3G speeds without paying more. I'm not even sure what the taxes and fees are for this T-Mo plan, but even including it with Mint means the plan is $452.75 more per year than what I paid for Mint. Sure, I'd get unlimited data, but I don't even regularly use the 10GB I pay for on Mint.
I do agree the economics of these larger carrier post-paid plans start to make a lot more sense when you're buying in a big family plan group and they start throwing in a lot of other perks that you may want anyways. But if you're just wanting a single line and don't constantly buy new devices, the larger carrier post paid plans still often work out to be a lot more expensive unless you actually really use tons of data in a month, really want faster speeds all the time, or live in a place where these MVNOs are just truly unreliable.