Your Mom Could Save $50/Month With This One Trick

The average monthly cell phone bill is $60, which in a year, totals to over $720. As someone who reviews and tests cell phone plans, my best savings trick is to switch to a MVNO cell phone plan and slash your bills by up to $50 per month.

MVNO cell phone carriers share the same network towers as mainstream cell phone carriers, but they don’t have the same overhead costs. This means you get high quality service and strong coverage, but you don’t get charged high prices.

Sometimes, you get less add-ons or perks with MVNO plans. But chances are, you, your mom,  and your friends are paying for more perks and data than you’ll ever use within a month. If you want to save hundreds of dollars every year, it’s totally worth the (hopefully short) period of time you spend on making the switch.

On this page:

• Why popular cell phone carriers drain your budget ↓
• How MVNOs offer the same coverage for less ↓
• How much data do you need? ↓

To understand why you end up paying so much for your cell phone plan, let’s take a quick look at how most cell phone plans are set up in America. Major cell phone carriers, like T-Mobile, Verizon, and AT&T, push their customers to sign up for postpaid cell phone plans, because that’s how they can earn the most money.

Postpaid plans cost more than prepaid plans, are often paid via automatic payments, and include extra features and perks. For example, you can finance a new phone through monthly installments at 0% APR, use high-speed and priority data, or access streaming platforms at no cost.

However, perks come at a price. These attractive features keep you locked into a “premium” service long term, even if there’s no contract. The financial payoff of this strategy is massive. For example in 2025, T-Mobile generated $57.9 billion for its postpaid services, and 81% of T-Mobile’s total service revenue came from postpaid services. In other words, for every $5 T-Mobile brought in from its services, $4 of it came from postpaid customers.

Prepaid MVNO plans, like postpaid plans, have the basic features you need. At the core of it, prepaid plans include these three things:

• A limited amount of high-speed data every month, with unlimited standard data (some plans have a hard cap)
• Calls and texts
• Consistent coverage, in the places you use your phone the most

However, in a postpaid unlimited plan, you might also be getting:

• Premium or high-speed data that rivals a home broadband connection
• Mobile hotspot data
• Phone upgrade discounts or deals
• Streaming services
• 4K video streaming quality
• Talk, text, or data while travelling internationally
• Scam protection and blocking

Some MVNOs still include some of the above features in their own premium plans. You may also be able to add features such as hotspot data for an extra fee.

A mobile virtual network operator (MVNO) is a cell phone service provider that doesn't own its own wireless network infrastructure. Instead, it leases network access from one of the major carriers (like T-Mobile, AT&T, or Verizon) and resells service to customers.

These services are often at a fraction of the cost of a major cell phone plan, while offering the same domestic coverage. For example, Mint Mobile uses T-Mobile network, so has the same coverage as T-Mobile customers because it uses the same towers. However, Mint Mobile offers plans with smaller data allotments and less additional perks like streaming services.

The biggest difference between MVNOs and major carriers is that they often use a prepaid pricing model, although you definitely should check the fine print as some cell phone plans that come bundled with an internet service are postpaid.

The table above includes my top recommendations for MVNO plans. Each of these providers gets strong coverage and plenty of high-speed data to last you through the month. For more recommendations, check out our list of the best cell phone plans.

If you were on a mid-tier postpaid plan from these mainstream carriers, you would save around $40 to $50 per month, based on the average cost of a phone plan ($60/mo.) from Reviews.org State of Consumer Media Spending 2025. Over the course of a year, you would save over $400 on your phone plan.

The most important thing to look for in an MVNO plan is if it has enough high-speed data every month. The amount of data you need depends on your usage. If you mostly connect to the internet using Wi-Fi, then you only need a few gigabytes of data per month.

However, if you’re away from a consistent Wi-Fi connection every day and connect to 5G to watch TikTok videos and reels, upload stories, and listen to Spotify, you may need more data. I would recommend the following amount of data depending on your usage:

High Data User: 50GB high-speed data

You don’t connect to Wi-Fi for most of the day.

While you’re out:

• 2 hours of social media browsing
• 2 hours of web browsing
• 1 hour of SD video streaming
• 1 hour of music streaming

Medium Data User: 10GB high-speed data

You connect to Wi-Fi for 4+ hours per day.

While you’re out:

• 30 minutes of social media browsing
• 30 minutes of SD video streaming
• 1 hour of music streaming

Low Data User: 2GB high-speed data

You connect to Wi-Fi for 4+ hours per day.

While you’re out:

• 30 minutes of social media browsing
• 30 minutes of SD video streaming
• 30 minutes of music streaming