If you're at all like me, then you like the convenience of having a cell phone, but you don’t use it enough to make a standard cell phone plan a cost-worthy option. Most cell phone plans are going to run you
at least $30 per month ($360 per year), and when you use your phone only a few times per month, it's just not worth it.
Luckily, because of people like us, there is a whole market for pre-paid cell phones. These generally give you the convenience of not having a monthly plan while still keeping your costs relatively low. Unfortunately, when you start to look for a pre-paid cell phone, you will find that there are a multitude of options available, and if you're not careful it's easy to get overwhelmed.
Some of the big players in the pre-paid industry are Tracfone, Net10, Go Phone, and Boost Mobile, but nearly all of the major monthly plan companies (Alltel, Verizon, T-Mobile, etc) have added pre-paid plans to their product list. The difficulty is in choosing the plan.
For me, it all boils down to recurring costs. The purchase of the phone itself is a one time cost for me because I won't be constantly upgrading it to something "cooler". I just need my phone to be a phone. I don't want it to take pictures, play music, play games, access the web, etc. I already have gadgets that fit all those categories. Now, if you want the other features, knock yourself out. This will be something to look at when choosing a plan because some providers (like Tracfone) come with very simple phones, whereas others offer a wider variety of “cool” phones.
Assuming the cost of the phone is a one time expense, we can then compare the different plans that are out there based on service costs. As I see it, there are basically two different times of pre-paid plans out there:
1. You buy a certain number of minutes that have a certain expiration date on them.
2. You put a certain amount of money into an account which is used to pay for your minutes and service as you use them. This money usually has an expiration date as well.
Tracfone's plans are type one. You buy a card that comes with a certain number of minutes that lasts a certain number of days. At the end of the minutes or days (whichever is first), you must purchase and activate a new card to keep using the phone.
Type two plans, like Verizon's InPulse plan, will allow you to add money to an account which will expire in a set number of days. To my knowledge, if the money expires, it's just gone. The money in the account is automatically debited as you make calls. Most of these plans charge a set rate per minute. Sometimes different rates will apply for roaming, nights, and weekends. Some plans also charge a daily fee, while some plans charge a use fee just on the days the phone is used.
To help me decide which plan to go with, I created a spreadsheet that I could use to help find the lowest cost plan to fit my needs. The spreadsheet files are attached at the end of this post for your convenience. Simply fill in the yellow boxes on the
Enter Data Here tab. This data is about your expected use for this phone. Based on that data, the spreadsheet will show you the lowest cost option from the plans I have added to the file. Switch to the
Plan Comparisons sheet to see the analysis.
The lowest cost option for me ended up being Tracfone. As you will see in the spreadsheet, Tracfone has an option called the Double Minutes For Life (DMFL) card. If you get one of these and activate it, every minute card you activate after that will give you double minutes. It’s hard to beat the per-minute cost of a Tracfone with DMFL as you’ll see in the file.
You can normally purchase the DMFL card separately for about $50, but most of the time you can find a deal on the Tracfone site to get it free with the purchase of a phone. I ended up getting a phone, a 1 year / 400 min card, and a DMFL card for only $99 (the regular price for just the 1 year card).
One nice thing about Tracfone is that if you run out of service, but still have minutes, the minutes will carry over as long as you keep the service active by adding cards. And when you add a service card, the additional service is added to any remaining service you still have. So you could theoretically add three 1 Year cards at once and have service for 3 years. Also, check to see if the phone you are buying is part of their Single Rate plan. If so, there is no roaming at all. If you can't get a Single Rate phone because of your service area, then roaming calls are charged double minutes.
I'm now using my cell phone for occasional calls home when out running errands, but we've also decided to start using the cell phone for our long distance needs since it is now cheaper than pre-paid long distance cards (a topic for another post). Hope you’ve found this helpful.
These files are donated to the public domain so feel free to do with them whatever you wish.
PrePaidCellPhoneCostComparison.ods - OpenDocument Spreadsheet for OpenOffice.org. (14KB)
PrePaidCellPhoneCostComparison.xls - Excel Spreadsheet for MS Office. (76KB)
If you have anything to add, or other plans that you'd like to put in the comparison list, leave me a comment.
