Mint Mobile vs. T-Mobile Review

Mint Mobile is the ultimate pick for the budget-conscious user, but T-Mobile remains a solid choice for those who want a no-frills plan that guarantees fast speeds and lots of data. Let's compare them:

• Network coverage: Mint Mobile and T-Mobile are on the same network, meaning their coverage range is identical.
• Data: T-Mobile has higher premium data caps, whereas Mint Mobile has lower data caps and less priority on T-Mobile's network during congestion.
• Speeds: Mint customers get a lower allotment of high-speed data, whereas T-Mobile's cheapest plan comes with 50GB of premium high-speed data
• Prices: Mint Mobile is cheaper than T-Mobile per month, with its Unlimited plan (Mint Mobile's most expensive plan) coming in at only $25 per month for three months, then $40 per month
• Bundle discounts: You can only get bundle discounts with T-Mobile, which offers hefty discounts on its 5G home internet plan as well as a five-year price guarantee when you also have a wireless plan
• Family plans: T-Mobile will hook you up with a hefty discount when you bundle multiple lines into a single family plan. In fact, when you’ve got three or more lines with T-Mobile prices can become similar—or even cheaper—than Mint’s.

Mint Mobile and T-Mobile offer a range of plans that work for a variety of budgets, but a key difference is that Mint Mobile only offers prepaid plans, whereas T-Mobile offers a mix of prepaid and post paid plans.

Mint Mobile plans cost $15 to $30 per month for its three-month plans, although you can also get plans that six months or a year. Plans increase in price depending on how much data you want to purchase from 5GB to unlimited (40GB of premium data).

What makes Mint Mobile different to other providers like T-Mobile is that you pay upfront for the entire number of months you signed up for. For example, it costs $45 to purchase your first three months of service on the 5GB plan. After your three months are up, you can sign up for a period of three months, six months, or year-long plans, with the bigger time commitments offering the biggest discounts.

T-Mobile also offers prepaid plans from $40 to $60 monthly with 10GB to unlimited 5G data. All plans are paid monthly and there are no contracts. You also have the added benefit of using hotspot data that is taken out of your monthly data allotment. 

Mint Mobile and T-Mobile both offer plans with "unlimited data," but keep in mind that even if you can stay online, your speeds might slow down when you've used a certain amount of data. 

All Mint Mobile technically come with unlimited data, but signing up for the Unlimited data plan gets you 40GB of high-speed data, after which you get slower speeds.

MVNOs like Mint Mobile have a lower priority compared to T-Mobile users, which means that even though you may have access to high-speed data on your Mint Mobile plan, you still may experience slower speeds when the network has high traffic. 

T-Mobile post-paid unlimited plans cost $50 to $100 monthly, with some plans offering limited-time discounts. All T-Mobile unlimited plans provide unlimited 5G and 4G LTE data, which is high-speed data. Depending on the unlimited plan you choose, you get differing levels of premium data, which means you get a higher priority compared to other users, so during times of congestion, you get the fastest speeds. 

It doesn’t take a mathematician to see that Mint’s prices are significantly lower than T-Mobile’s prices. But price is not the same thing as value. The higher cost of T-Mobile’s plans may be worth it for those who want perks and premium features. Plus, you can usually find a few tips for lowering your T-Mobile bill. Compared to T-Mobile, which offers 50GB of premium data, it's $20 to $25 cheaper per month to go with Mint Mobile.

When you go to the grocery store you don’t just buy food for yourself, you buy food for your whole family. Why not do the same when you’re shopping for a cell phone plan? Family plans can make paying your bill easier, and they can save you a few bucks.

Mint Mobile doesn’t offer any deals or discounts on multi-line plans, but they're still affordable on their own. Family plans with four lines cost $60 to $120 monthly for the first three months of service.

For families that want to bundle with Mint Mobile, you simply will need to buy individual lines, although you can each get different plans if you have different data needs.

It's pretty clear that you’ll save a ton of money when you bundle with T-Mobile. For example, a single line on the Essentials unlimited plan costs $60 a month. But three lines on the same plan costs just $90. That means you’re paying half as much per line.

The cost of multiple lines of Mint Mobile is still cheaper than most T-Mobile plans. However, the T-Mobile Essentials Saver plan with four lines is $20 cheaper than four lines on Mint Mobile's 3-month Unlimited plan. 

When you count the savings offered by family plans, T-Mobile and Mint’s prices start to look pretty similar. So if you’ve got a family, you’ll definitely want to consider signing up for T-Mobile together.

You use cellular data for everything, from sending silly GIFs to your friends to playing PUBG Mobile during your lunch break. Having unlimited data might be even more important than having unlimited talk and text. But, not all data is created equal.

Things like data speed (especially 5G speed, which is quickly taking over for 4G LTE), throttling, and deprioritization will all affect your experience as a cell phone customer. So, let’s take a closer look at T-Mobile and Mint Mobile’s data performance.

According to Reviews.org's own research, T-Mobile's network offers the fastest upload and download speeds of any mobile network. That's great news for both Mint and T-Mobile customers.

T-Mobile

• Average download speed: 32.73 Mbps
• Average upload speed: 12.9 Mbps

But just because T-Mobile and Mint are on the same network, that doesn’t necessarily mean you’ll get the same exact service, which brings us to deprioritization and throttling.

Slow data speeds are the last thing you want when you’re FaceTiming with your parents, streaming the newest show, or gaming with your friends. In order to avoid slowdowns, you’ll need to avoid throttling and deprioritization. If you don’t know what those are, you’re not alone.

• Throttling: Every cell phone plan—even unlimited data plans—has a data cap. Once you go above that data cap, your data will be throttled. That means you’ll experience significant slowdowns (like going from 4G LTE to 3G speeds), including with your mobile hotspot data.
• Data Deprioritization: Certain cell phone plans—usually cheaper ones—can be deprioritized when the network is busy. This means their data speeds will be reduced in favor of other customers on the network.

Mint Mobile’s unlimited data plan has a 40GB cap before throttling, while all of T-Mobile’s unlimited data plans come with a 50-unlimited GB. That’s a lot of extra high-speed data for all you streamers, gamers, influencers, and web surfers.

When it comes to deprioritization, Mint Mobile customers are always subject to data deprioritization after they hit their soft data cap. Those on T-Mobile’s lowest-tier unlimited data plan (Essentials) can also experience deprioritization, but those on higher-tiered plans will not.

As we’ve stated before, Mint actually uses the T-Mobile network. That means the two companies offer virtually the same coverage. That’s good news for customers of both companies because T-Mobile’s coverage is pretty great (especially since the company absorbed Sprint).

But before you sign up for Mint or T-Mobile you should check out this map. What’s coverage like in your specific area?

If you’ve got an unlocked iPhone (or other device), then you can use your new Mint Mobile or T-Mobile plan on that device. But you’ll be missing out on an opportunity to snag some great deals on new devices.

Both Mint and T-Mobile will sell you a brand new phone when you sign up. Here’s a gander at some of the most popular devices sold by each company.

Unfortunately for T-Mobile, sharing its network with Mint doesn't guarantee a shared customer experience. Mint's customer reviews rave about its friendliness and efficiency. Of course, there are inevitably poor reviews. Many of Mint's lower reviews are due to spotty reception or connectivity issues.

T-Mobile has definitely less-than-ecstatic reviews, especially compared to Mint. Customers have reported having difficulty speaking to a real human being. And when they do finally reach a person, a lot of time is spent discussing new plans or upgrades instead of the customer's issue.¹

We've heard of positive in-store experiences for T-Mobile, but it's not always realistic to go into a store for every phone issue you might have. 

Here are the best ways reach Mint Mobile and T-Mobile:

Mint Mobile customer service

• Call 1-800-683-7392
• Chat with a representative at  mintmobile.come/chat

T-Mobile customer service

• Call 1-800-937-8997
• Tag @TMobileHelp on Twitter
• Visit t-mobile.com/customers/customer-care
• Use the T-Mobile app for iOS or Android

The long story short is that Mint’s prices are unbeatable if you just want a simple, individual cell phone plan. But if you want a discounted family plan or some fancy perks, T-Mobile is the way to go.

If neither of these companies seems right to you, be sure to read up on the very best cell phone plans in the industry. You might find what you’re looking for in one of those.

We’ve spent years tracking the prices and performance of all the major carriers, including Mint Mobile and T-Mobile. For this review we dove deep into the current data so that we could compare these two carriers on nearly every metric.

We used our own proprietary data from over 100,000 customers to evaluate 4G speeds and we used the latest OpenSignal report to rate 5G speeds.² Along with this data, we used our hands-on experience and publicly available plan information to evaluate Mint Mobile and T-Mobile.

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