My colleague isn’t married yet and lives alone in an apartment. He got fed up with the plans he was using and asked me what is the best phone plan for one person?
I said there are a few but what’s your preference? Do you prefer more data regardless of the price or the cheapest one with minimal features?
He told me that he wanted the cheapest phone plans with unlimited everything. I immediately thought what a brilliant answer. As I couldn’t answer him immediately, I began to search according to his needs and found some great plans for a single line.
I thought about all the possible requirements and chose the best 3 phone plans. So, let’s know more and begin with the parameters that we considered to rule out the best phone plans.
Now it’s time for us to see the single-line phone plans. After the top three, you’ll find a bonus plan for seniors offered by T-Mobile.
What is the best phone plan for one person?
Everywhere, we see that the price gets decreased when we buy in bulk. But for many reasons, we have to buy mobile plans for a single person with one single line.
It is hard to find great data plans that meet our needs and pay less at the same time. So, we did the tough and time-consuming task for you listing the 3 cheapest phone plans for one person.
1. Our Top Pick: Sprint
Actually, we want to talk about 2 plans from Sprint. It’s because one plan is promotional and another one is a regular plan. Both cost less considering all other features. Sprint passed all our filters and made it to the top position.
However, let’s continue to know about the plans, and the first one is called the Unlimited Kickstart plan. You can buy it when you bring a phone to Sprint’s network or buy a new one from their store. This deal is for new customers who switch to Sprint, port-in, and activate it with a new unlimited plan.
You can get up to 5 lines in this line and pay very little to enjoy unlimited data, text, and talk. Other facilities and benefits are the same as the regular plan.
For $35 per month per line, you can enjoy SD video streaming, music streaming for up to 500Kbps, and a maximum of 2Mbps gaming speed. You’ll need to enable autopay to get this discounted rate.
The 2nd plan from Sprint is for all of their customers and it is not a limited-time offer. With the Unlimited Basic plan, you can stream SD video, get to share 500MB 4G data with the mobile hotspot, and have a Hulu subscription. Moreover, there are no yearly contracts and or additional fees other than some regulatory charges set by the government.
The plan costs only $60 per month which includes taxes and other fees. So, it costs less than the others. It also features unlimited talk, text, and 5GB LTE data while you’re in Mexico or Canada. Moreover, it allows unlimited text and basic data connection for more than 200 places worldwide.
2. The 2nd Best: Metro by T-Mobile
Metro by T-Mobile’s unlimited plan is our second favorite in hundreds of plans from more than 2 dozen of carriers.
They also don’t believe in yearly contracts which preserve the best interest of its customers. But it beats other carriers with its 5GB 4G LTE hotspot data sharing and Google One subscription for 100GB storage.
So, if you don’t travel outside the US much, this is the perfect plan for you. You’ll require to buy the SIM kit for $10 and another $15 for activation support. But you can avoid the activation fee by doing it yourself online.
For $50 only, you can get unlimited SD video streaming, unlimited talk time, and unlimited text inside the US. But you need to buy some add-ons to support your plan for international data connection, talk, and text while you’re traveling outside of the US.
3. The 3rd Best: Ultra Mobile
Twigby almost took this place but Ultra Mobile ultimately won this seat because of their cost and other features. We picked a carrier for this place not based on unlimited data but for the cheapest unlimited talk and text.
You may find a cheaper plan than this one but you won’t be able to meet your basic requirements properly with those plans. The only catch is that this pricing will only be applicable when you buy it 12 months in advance.
For only $14 per month, you can make domestic calls as well as more than 80 international calls. It also features unlimited text, 1GB 4G high-speed data, and mobile hotspot capability.
4. Bonus for Seniors: T-Mobile
We chose T-Mobile’s phone plan for the seniors because they are giving it at a lower price with more benefits. Sprint also offers a lucrative plan for seniors who want to switch but it involves 2 lines for a low cost.
It is not ideal for one person and we’re dealing with one-person plans here. Anyway, Essentials Unlimited 55 is the name of the plan and it features a lot of things that we’re going to see below. Also, it comes without any type of contract and promises to offer you free stuff every week.
For $40 per month per line, you can get unlimited everything inside the US, text abroad, use 2G data in Mexico and Canada, 3G mobile hotspot, SD streaming, and more.
But you can reduce the price by taking two lines for only $50. Other charges and taxes are not included and you can see the detail going to our link. If you cross 50GB of data within a month, you may notice reduced speed during network congestion.
What we considered choosing the best phone plan for one person
The first thing we considered was the price and then came the data limits, charges, and other features like mobile hotspot, roaming, etc. Let’s see which parameters guided us to eliminate other carriers.
Price
For unlimited data, talk, and text, we didn’t see much difference in pricing. All carriers cost the same amount one way or another for a basic unlimited plan. The only difference was made by Sprint and beware that it is a promotional limited-time offer.
Their regular price is the same as the others. The difference between the regular plan from Metro by T-Mobile and Sprint and other carriers is that they offer some extra benefits than others. So, we chose Metro and Sprint despite the fact that the costs of unlimited plans are the same.
Data
After the pricing, we need to consider the data limit and we mean the limit for 4G data. After reaching the limit, you’ll still be able to have a data connection with 3G speed for the rest of the month.
For the 3rd pick, we considered the 1GB data limit for light users and chose the one with the lowest monthly amount. If you’re a moderate user, we recommend you to go for unlimited plans. And for heavy users, you can check out the selected carrier’s top unlimited data plans.
Mobile hotspot
Mobile hotspot is important to share the purchased data and run other smart devices without getting an extra line and plan. This is important because we use gadgets every day and it won’t be cost-effective to buy different lines and plans for each of them.
So, we also considered the mobile hotspot feature as one of the vital deciding factors to choose the best phone plan for one person.
International talk, text, and data
Another important factor is to consider whether the carrier is offering talk, text, or data services when you go outside of the US. This is not important for everyone but it can be helpful for those who continuously visit Mexico or Canada. That’s why we also took this parameter seriously.
Overage charge
This one is not that important because you won’t have to worry about overage charges in case you are enjoying an unlimited data plan. For other cases, you can simply add extra data to your existing plan which will not happen often.
Taxes
Usually, taxes and other regulatory fees are excluded from the plan’s pricing. But Sprint is different from other carriers. This played an important role to decide Sprint deals as our top pick.
Contract
Having to agree on any contract to take a particular carrier’s service for a certain amount of time can reduce the plan cost but may take away the freedom to switch to better plans. So, no-contract plans also got more priority on our list.
Other fees
For the other fees or charges, we mean activation fee, cancellation fee, or any other hidden fees. We strictly prohibited any plan that didn’t tell us exactly what the cost was.
Final Verdict
So, that should answer what is the best phone for one person clearly, right? Also, you can check out our research on cheap cable and internet packages so that you don’t miss out on the entertainment at the end of the day.
On the other hand, you might think about why we haven’t included pay-per-use plans. It’s because we saw that those actually cost more than the monthly packs for moderate use.
So, you can choose the 3rd best option for the cheapest plan instead of pay-per-use. However, choosing any one of the plans, you can rest assured that you’re enjoying the best rate offered by the carriers.
