Tello vs. Consumer Cellular: Which Has the Better Deal?

Tello easily beats out Consumer Cellular when it comes to price. The fact that Tello’s unlimited plan costs the same as Consumer Cellular’s base 5GB plan tells you everything you need to know about the price difference between the two carriers.

Tello’s unlimited talk, text, and data plan comes with 35GB of high-speed data, which is actually pretty generous for a plan that only costs $25 a month. You also get 5GB of mobile hotspot data every month with Tello’s unlimited plan. Consumer Cellular’s unlimited plan gives you 50GB of high-speed data (just 15GB more), but costs twice as much.

Consumer Cellular clearly isn’t trying to compete with Tello from a price standpoint. Instead, Consumer Cellular positions itself as a provider geared toward older adults. If you’re an AARP member, you get a 5% monthly discount on your cell service, which adds up to about $24 a year in savings for most customers. Along with the discount, AARP members get a 45-day risk-free trial period to try out Consumer Cellular.

Even with the discounts, though, Consumer Cellular can’t quite compete with Tello’s prices. Consumer Cellular also works over AT&T’s network, while Tello uses T-Mobile. So you may find that its coverage works better for you if you’re in an AT&T-rich area.

Consumer Cellular uses AT&T’s network for coverage, and Tello uses T-Mobile. AT&T’s network barely edges out T-Mobile in overall coverage, but that difference mostly affects rural areas of the country. T-Mobile’s network shines when it comes to data speeds in bigger cities, but it lacks coverage in more rural areas of states like Nebraska, Idaho, Utah, and Oregon.

AT&T, on the other hand, fills in a lot of those coverage gaps. Overall, Consumer Cellular customers can expect better coverage than Tello customers in rural areas of the country, but the experience will still feel pretty much the same in more populated areas.

Before you decide on Tello or Consumer Cellular, make sure to check out the interactive coverage map below to look at the different coverage networks.

One of the trade offs of going with an MVNO carrier like Tello or Consumer Cellular is you don’t get sweet discounts on new iPhones or Androids. Major cell phone carriers can give you “free” phones if you lock yourself into a two-year contract, but since MVNOs don’t generally operate with contracts, you won’t see the same kind of deals.

You can either transfer your current phone to a Consumer Cellular or Tello phone plan by inserting a new SIM chip, or you can buy a phone directly from either provider. To give you an idea of what people are buying, these are the five most popular devices on Consumer Cellular and Tello.

Both Consumer Cellular and Tello offer cheaper cell phone plans than you’d normally find from major carriers, but Tello goes above and beyond when it comes to price.

Prices and plans: Tello’s $25 unlimited plan costs half of Consumer Cellular’s unlimited plan, but comes with a 35GB data cap. Consumer Cellular gives users a 50GB data cap and a 5% discount to AARP members.

Coverage: Tello uses T-Mobile’s network, and Consumer Cellular uses AT&T’s network. Consumer Cellular technically has more coverage overall than Tello, but it’ll likely be a similar coverage experience in more populated areas.

Cell phone deals: Neither carrier will hook you up with a free new phone, but you can easily transfer your current phone to Consumer Cellular or Tello.