Why you should break up with your phone plan, stat!
Blame autopay, busy schedules, or just a plain distaste for crunching numbers, but too many of us don’t look at our phone bills nearly enough. According to U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data, the average cost of wireless telephone services in the U.S. has grown since Q1 of 2020. Factor in a bevy of hidden fees (some of which, such as regulatory fees, are made to cover the carriers’ own bills), compromised data speeds (thanks to overages accrued in family plans), and hot-spotting charges, and the truth is, many Americans are likely paying far more for their cell service than they signed up for.
Here’s the good news: There are options that make cutting your phone bill by more than half pretty easy. Take Visible, the wireless service provider backed with Verizon’s blanketed coverage, and which offers clearly priced phone plans with no hidden fees, activation charges, hot-spot charges, or autopay requirements. What’s more, users can group anyone in their Party Pay plan for costs as low as $25 a month (for groups of four or more in good standing) and earn even more discounts by referring others to join the group.
With pricing and perks like these, it may be time to break up with your old wireless plan. Find five ways to know whether it’s time to pull the plug, ahead.
You’ve had it with ballooning bills, thanks to hidden fees
You thought your phone bill would cost about $65 a month, because, hey, that’s what was mapped out in the plan you signed up for. But come time to pay the bill, the number you’re being charged just doesn’t add up. A deep dive into your bill will likely show hidden fees that you couldn’t have even imagined when signing up for your phone and data plan — charges for activating a line, a universal service fund fee (something the FCC charges the carrier — and the carrier can pass along to the consumer), regulatory charges (the carrier’s own costs to cover federal, state, and local regulations, again, passed along to the consumer), administrative charges, and more.
Visible, on the other hand, doesn’t charge an activation fee and figures all taxes and fees into the monthly cost, so your bill matches the rate you agree to pay.
You’re over the spotty coverage
Love the idea of a no-BS phone plan made with the disruptor ethos of a start-up but fear missing the dependable service and connectivity coverage that legacy cell service companies provide? Maybe you’ve tried services from smaller brands only to find spotty coverage makes using your phone too frustrating an experience altogether.
A compromise is finally here. Visible offers the straightforward pricing and clear benefits that a progressive new startup might, while also delivering Verizon coverage nationwide. It’s something that allows for more affordable bills without gaps in coverage.
Hot spotting from your phone sucks data limits dry
Cellular hot-spot capabilities (in which you use your phone’s cellular data to create a Wifi connection) are a must for on-the-move workers looking to connect a laptop online from just about anywhere (like the back of an Uber, a restaurant, or while on public transportation).
The only hangup? Most cell service providers either charge for hot spotting from your mobile device, or apply cellular data caps to hot-spot usage, which can kick data usage past its monthly limits — and fast. Visible’s plan offers an unlimited 5G/4G mobile hotspot, which means you can login from your laptop anytime without having to worry about racking up massive data fees while working on the fly.
You’re sick of getting docked for not signing up for autopay
Between a rise in gig economy work, the Great Resignation, a spike in inflation, and other wobbly economic indicators, fewer and fewer people can count on a specific amount of money earned and deposited into their bank accounts every two weeks. For freelancers, gig workers, and others whose income is a little more sporadic, auto pay can be a surefire way to rack up banking overdraft fees. Unfortunately, not all mobile service companies recognize this, and dock customers who don’t sign up to have their bill automatically paid on a given day of the month.
Visible doesn’t penalize those who want to pay their bills without an automatic deduction — the monthly service fee remains the same, whether you use autopay or not.
You’re fed up with family drama
In theory, mobile family plans seem like a good idea. After all, your nearest and dearest can join the same plan and save money, too. But with soft caps for data (even on unlimited data plans), shared access to usage information, and grouped billing, keeping it all in the family can quickly become more trouble than it’s worth. To get the perks of a group plan without being subject to crawling data speeds after a certain someone streamed too many movies on their phone or even having to deal with the red tape of severing a plan post breakup, try Party Pay instead (in which any four or more people can form a group plan — all with individual billing and no annual contract — for as little as $25 per month).