Prepaid Plan Renewals Need A Price Check

Phone plans are one of those bills that become invisible until the renewal email shows up.

The last useful comparison I did was not complicated. Mint Mobile wanted $203.49 for the renewal. Actual usage was closer to 1GB a month because WiFi did most of the work. Tello had a $6/month plan with 100 minutes, unlimited texts, and 1GB of data. Even after the $3 eSIM charge, the first month came out to $10.80.

That is enough of a spread that the renewal should not be automatic.

My rule now: before renewing any prepaid plan, write down three numbers.

• the renewal price
• the actual data used last month
• the cheapest plan that still supports hotspot

If those three numbers are not on the same screen, loyalty is doing accounting work it was never hired to do.