The best cheap cellphone plans: Our top 5 picks from budget carriers

In our testing, we spend at least a week with a specific plan from a phone carrier, often longer, and primarily assess the quality of the plan and carrier by the following criteria:

• Plan offerings and flexibility: We consider the pricing and features included in a carrier’s range of plans and assess its flexibility in allowing you to switch out of or between plans. 
• Coverage area: For MVNOs, we note the approximate coverage area provided by the network or networks backing a budget carrier and evaluate whether particular locations consistently match their purported coverage type (e.g., 5G or 4G/LTE). 
• Service reliability and speeds: In consistent testing locations, we assess the reliability of phone and video calls, note how fast videos and apps load over cellular data, and, with MVNOs, mark any apparent effects of deprioritization on service speeds.  
• Customer support: We make a holistic assessment of a carrier’s customer support system and online (or in-person) user experience for setup, use, and troubleshooting. 

We also take into account secondary considerations such as ongoing discounts and any other notable perks or outstanding features.

If you aren’t in the market for the best cell phone plans from major carriers, you have no shortage of options for spending less monthly on a phone plan, as affordable carriers have proliferated in recent years. 

The best cheap cell phone plan for you will primarily reflect your needs for monthly data and minutes, the constraints of your budget, and the coverage of your local area by the network or networks backing a particular plan. 

We set a few baseline criteria in choosing plans for this guide, in that all the plans listed above cost less than $50/month and, as with most MVNO plans, do not require a contract.

Before signing up for a service, take a granular look at the coverage map that an MVNO should make readily accessible on their website — marking the US network range of its backing carrier — and appraise the coverage of your location to ensure dependable service.