My AT&T Prepaid Review: It’s Affordable but Inconvenient

For all our mobile reviews, we give a rating based on four main criteria:

• Dollar value ↓
• Network coverage ↓
• Data performance ↓
• Customer service ↓

Then, we average the scores to make an overall rating.

AT&T Prepaid is a back-to-basics service that offers talk, text, and data. It’s an alternative to AT&T’s regular postpaid plans and offers a range of prices for those with different budgets.

Here’s a quick overview of what you can expect from an AT&T Prepaid cell phone plan:

• Unlimited talk and text
• High-speed data (select plans)
• AT&T Level Up*
• SD streaming
• Unlimited text from the U.S. to over 230 countries

According to AT&T Prepaid’s broadband fact labels, data speeds vary across the 4G LTE, 5G, and 5G+ networks, spanning roughly 13Mbps up to 472Mbps. This is a large range, but it’s typical for speeds to fluctuate depending on your location, device, network congestion, and interference.

So, for me, it was just my luck that it didn’t work well in my home. I could hardly use social media, and even a simple speed test took a few tries before loading. This was different elsewhere: When I was outside in downtown Provo, I got fast speeds that supported video streaming and web browsing without any issues. At the Reviews.org HQ in Draper, I could download Candy Crush Saga, a 319MB file, in under 10 seconds.

It’s worth noting that the 5GB of data was not enough for me, and after one day, I already wiped through it just by scrolling through social media for a couple of hours. If you’re someone who likes to use their social media apps while you’re out and about every day, you might need to connect to Wi-Fi or opt for a plan with more data. On the contrary, if you don’t use a lot of data, you can actually roll over any unused data for the following month on the prepaid 5GB or 15GB plans.

My experience with AT&T’s customer service was stressful. When I signed up online, I didn’t expect a week-long wait time for the eSIM to be shipped to my house. To skip the wait, I signed up in person at a Walmart AT&T kiosk. Without asking which plan I wanted, the worker signed me up for an expensive postpaid plan and then refused to switch it to the correct prepaid plan.

In a panic, I rushed back to my car to call customer service. At first, the call center agent refused to help, and said it was company policy to have an active account for 30 days before switching plans. Only after I started to cry and asked to speak to his manager did he eventually give in. I personally don’t like asking for a manager, but sometimes it is necessary, and thankfully I was able to switch to the plan I wanted.

Besides this awful sign-up experience, the other touch points of the service aren’t great either. I can’t see any information about my current prepaid plan in the myAT&T app. Instead, I can only view a bill for the postpaid plan I was briefly signed up for against my will.

The obvious alternative to an AT&T Prepaid plan is a postpaid plan, but because regular AT&T plans are so expensive, I don’t recommend that either.

US Mobile is the best alternative to AT&T Prepaid, thanks to its triple-network access, low monthly cost, and large allotment of high-speed data. However, I would also recommend Visible to access Verizon’s network or Mint Mobile for T-Mobile’s network. Both providers offer unlimited data plans on top networks and include a large allotment of high-speed data.