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Carrier Verizon prepaid vs monthly bill

caligurl

caligurl

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Jun 8, 2009
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What are the benefits of going prepaid vs an ongoing monthly phone bill for an iphone?

My mom is getting an iphone... not sure if she would benefit more from prepaid or monthly. She's always has the prepaid cards in the past that she just keeps adding minutes to her phone... more when they are traveling and less when they are home. Not sure which is better for her.

Also.... she's never had a smart phone before... so if she goes for the monthly plan, should she start out at their smallest?

(This would be so much easier for me if she went with at&t that I'm familiar with! haha!)
 
she doesn't want at&t... she wants Verizon (but what is s6 active?)

hell... if she'd get at&t I'd just add a device on my plan.... I never use my 20GB so it would just be a device fee for her! haha!
 
I don't know why that poster suggested switching carriers so that she can switch phones (S6 Active is a modified version of the Galaxy S6). If you'd be willing to have her on your plan, I think thats the best way. Even a prepaid plan wouldn't give her the same benefits without a high price.
 
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Is she wanting to get the iPhone with one of Verizon's payment plans? If so then she has to go with a monthly bill, if she is paying full price then she can go either way.
 
caligurl said:
What are the benefits of going prepaid vs an ongoing monthly phone bill for an iphone?

My mom is getting an iphone... not sure if she would benefit more from prepaid or monthly. She's always has the prepaid cards in the past that she just keeps adding minutes to her phone... more when they are traveling and less when they are home. Not sure which is better for her.

Also.... she's never had a smart phone before... so if she goes for the monthly plan, should she start out at their smallest?

(This would be so much easier for me if she went with at&t that I'm familiar with! haha!)
Click to expand...

It might be easier to add her to your AT&T plan, but if she really wants Verizon...

Prepaid:
With any prepaid option she's going to need to get the iPhone separate from her plan. Verizon will sell you one for full retail, but there is no option for monthly payments or subsidies. If that's fine with her, she can choose between the Pay As You Go that's she's used to or a set monthly rate. They make the PAYG pretty complicated for smartphones. She'll be paying for each call and text. Data has a daily fee of $.99. She could get a monthly plan for as low as $45. That gives you unlimited talk and text with 1gb or data. I believe if you run out of data it just shuts off, but you can buy more if you need to.

Postpaid:
On the other hand, there's the more common postpaid plan. $20 for the line access gives you unlimited talk and text. Data plans start at $30 for 1gb. You can either buy the phone outright or break it up into monthly payments. The 5s starts at about $18. The 6 and 6s go up from there. Verizon no longer offers contracts to new customers, so don't even worry about that.
 
Out of curiosity, any particular reason why Verizon vs. AT&T? Just trying to see if ultimately it might be easier to end up going with AT&T rather than figuring things out and starting a new account with another carrier.
 
Verizon gets better coverage where she lives (upstate NY) and apparently in tennessee where they spend a couple of months each year. Her current prepaid phone apparently uses at&t towers and she gets a lot of crappy service whereas my dad's prepaid phone apparently uses verizon towers and gets service where my mom's phone doesn't!

if she went prepaid, she'd do the one where you pay for days (i.e. $45) with unlimited calls and text.
 
She doesn't have an issue with buying the phone outright.... or she could do the payments.... so that parts not an issue... if she saved money buying it outright (i.e. adding her discover card to my phone to use apple pay for the cash back) then she'd do that... otherwise she can just make payments if she wants....
 
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