One of the most common questions we receive in reference to our wireless information is about Mint Mobile: are the good? Are they legit? Why haven't I heard of Mint? Mint is relatively new, and operates on the entire T-Mobile network with discount plans and packages.
Jump to: Pricing | Coverage | Customer Service and Satisfaction | Summary
Pricing
Rather than writing another dull comparison post, like any other result you might find in Google, we've put together data that illustrates how much people might save with Mint versus the other large providers. Please note, this graph uses current prices as of 9/5/2023. Prices and promotions change regularly, but in our experience the graph won't change much.
Unlimited Plans
Number of lines |
Mint |
T-Mobile |
AT&T |
Verizon |
1 |
15 |
60 |
75 |
80 |
2 |
30 |
90 |
130 |
140 |
3 |
45 |
90 |
150 |
165 |
4 |
60 |
105 |
160 |
180 |
5 |
75 |
120 |
175 |
210 |
Seen another way:
As you can see, the competition narrows at 5 lines, but Mint is currently priced much better. Even if there were no promotions with mint right now, only T-Mobile would catch up on pricing, and only at 4+ lines. Verizon and AT&T follow each other so closely on pricing it looks intentional: almost like an agreement to normalize higher pricing rather than competing. But that's just what it looks like… in our opinion. Regardless, Mint definitely keeps pricing the most simple. It might be wise to lower prices on 4+ lines under non-promotional pricing, but the unlimited plans are still new and pricing is still evolving.
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Details on the data above
We want to make it clear that we aren't cherry-picking data. These are the packages that were compared:
Mint family plans as of 9/1/2023. Data is unlimited, and the first 40GB of traffic (more than most users use) is prioritized.
Verizon Unlimited Plus family plans with auto-pay enabled. We are sorry we can't keep this simple. First, Verizon offers a $10/mo. discount for Unlimited plans enrolled in auto-pay. We included auto-pay discounts in all cases, as most people will opt for it, especially to get $10/mo. in savings.
Verizon does this annoying thing where they have 3 tiers of unlimited: Welcome, Plus, and Ultimate. Prices are currently $60, $65, and $75 for 1 line, respectively, with prices that decline (as you see above) per new line as you add more. Which is actually unlimited? Well if you want to use Verizon's fastest data, called “5G Ultra Wideband” you need to choose the Unlimited Plus plan – otherwise you'll be relegated to slower speeds. And if you plan to use any hotspot data (a feature, by the way, that your phone is capable of providing for free) you'll also need an Unlimited plan. Under the Welcome plan will actively restrict your data if it thinks you're using it as a hotspot, e.g. if your internet goes out or you want to run a smart TV off your phone's internet while traveling. The Ultimate plan includes more hotspot data (60GB instead of 30GB), discounts on their home internet product, and device savings. We used the mid-tier price as it seemed actually unlimited.
Verizon also includes a number of “perks,” i.e. Apple One for $10/mo or Disney+ for $10/mo. While one $10/mo perk is selected by default, and some may find them useful, we removed it for the most fair comparison.
AT&T Unlimited Extra plans. Once again, there are 3 tiers. By all accounts the Starter plan can be frustrating, especially at peak data-usage times, because the traffic from other plans (like the first 50GB on Extra plans) is prioritized above the lowly Starter users. Unlimited Premium plans are never throttled, but most users won't go through 50GB while not connected to WiFi. And
T-Mobile Essentials plan. Once known for simple plans and pricing, also has 3 tiers just for unlimited. It does, however, have the best pricing on its lowest tier among the major carriers. Since the other plans we've selected from Mint, Verizon, and AT&T have 40GB-50GB of what T-Mobile calls “premium data,” we chose the cheapest plan. Frequent travelers are about the only people we can imagine purchasing a different plan, e.g. the Go5G Next plan for double the price. The biggest problem with the Essentials plan is an arbitrary limit of hotspot to 3G speeds (basically unusable). There is a “high speed” hotspot upgrade available for $10-$30/mo, but even at $30/mo you only get 10GB of high-speed data, which isn't a good deal. Almost everyone will be better paying more for a plan with 50GB if hotspot use is a concern. T-mobile would also likely prefer to sell you its 5G Home Internet product, which is a better solution for many people.
Pay-per-GB Plan Pricing
For quire a while all Mint offered were pay-as-you-go per-gigabit pricing. A graph isn't possible here, since the other large providers don't offer enough plans to draw a line through. E.g. Verizon only offers one prepaid data plan that isn't unlimited.
Pre-paid Plans Total Price
Gigabits |
Mint |
T-Mobile |
AT&T |
Verizon |
5 |
$15.00 |
$20.00 |
$30.00 |
|
15 |
$20.00 |
$40.00 |
$35.00 |
|
20 |
$25.00 |
|||
30 |
$40.00 |
Pre-paid Plans Price per Gigabit
Gigabits |
Mint |
T-Mobile |
AT&T |
Verizon |
5 |
$3.00 |
$4.00 |
$6.00 |
|
15 |
$1.33 |
$2.67 |
$2.33 |
|
20 |
$1.25 |
|||
30 |
$1.33 |
The second table is really the one to pay attention to. Items in bold show the lowest price per GB in that tier. And unsurprisingly, Mint beats all 3 of the major carriers in price per gigabit.
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How Much Data Do I Need?
How much data you need will obviously depend on your usage and circumstances circumstances. The main question is how much video you watch and how long you're disconnected from WiFi. Even on a plan with unlimited data, most users don't need more than 20GB. Here are some examples of bills sent to us. All of these users were using unlimited data plans.
Some of these users could get by fine on a 5GB plan despite knowing they have unlimited data. It's not uncommon to see huge swings in data usage per month, especially if users aren't trying to conserve data. Users 3, 5, and 7 may have been traveling, or turned their WiFi off and forgotten to turn it back on. They might have gone to work and streamed some video, but didn't want to be connected to the work WiFi on their phone to avoid monitoring.
Let's answer the question. How much data do you need?
- Most users can get by just fine with 5GB per month if they stay connected to WiFi and are selective about playing video when they're not connected to WiFi.
- If you don't want to worry about it and are usually on the WiFi at work and home, 20GB is still probably plenty.
- If you use more than 20GB, either because you travel a lot or don't have home internet that you use regularly, you probably already know you need an unlimited plan.
You can check your last month's data in Apple and Android to see how much you've used. In Android, search for “mobile data”, then if necessary click “app data usage.” Use the drop-down to see previous month of usage and which apps use them. See data usage in Apple by going to Settings > Mobile Data or Settings > Cellular. If you don't see said options, you should be able to search settings for “Mobile Data.”
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Coverage
As you may know, Mint uses the T-Mobile network to cover its customers. There is no difference in speeds or coverage areas given the same tier of service, e.g. if you still have premium data remaining. The following images come from OpenSignal's Mobile report, and it matches with the data we have collected over the years:
T-Mobile's network offers the most reliable download speeds — probably because they aren't trying so hard to roll out premature 5G technology that offers little benefit and can be blocked by trees and walls.
In urban areas, there's a very good chance that all carriers have coverage these days. There are some weird pockets of deadzone within a city, but this is uncommon in 2023 in urban areas. Even along major freeways and in rural areas, most people will have coverage. As you may have noticed, no one is advertising that you can be heard on the other end of a call in different parts of the room, because that's no longer a unique selling point. Especially after T-Mobile's acquisition of Sprint, 0 coverage is a thing of the past for 99% of Americans.
But ultimately you care about coverage in your area. Click to read more about coverage by area, or enter your zip code to see coverage in your area. Just substitute T-Mobile for Mint, as the networks are 100% the same.
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Customer Service and Customer Satisfaction
In general mobile carriers do a lot better than internet service providers for customer service and satisfaction. The following comes from JD Power's 2023 Wireless report:
Major Carrier Satisfaction
Mint Mobile Satisfaction
So while T-Mobile does an admirable job versus Verizon or AT&T, Mint Mobile out-performs all the major carriers when it comes to customer service and satisfaction according to JD Power.
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Summary
Given the use of T-Mobile's vast network, Mint offers budget plans that don't force users to sacrifice … pretty much anything.
- Mint's prices for unlimited plans blows the competition away, especially given current specials. Even without the current special, Mint's individual and small family plans are by far the most affordable.
- Mint's plans don't add “service fees” (isn't “service” what I'm paying you for!?) or other nonsense. Pricing is up-front and more honest than most carriers based on our subjective opinion. But hey, feel free to go look at the terms and conditions on each plan if you want to check on us.
- Mint has excellent coverage and download speeds. Download speeds are reported better than AT&T or Verizon.
- Mint has better customer satisfaction than any of the large carriers.
So where's the catch? As a Mint user, there really isn't one. There are some fringe cases where other carriers might make more sense, such as for people who travel internationally a lot and use a lot of data while doing so. While Mint does have international roaming you can pay for, the data rates are more for travelers who don't want to switch carriers for a rare trip abroad.
We do have a financial relationship with Mint, but the same is true for Verizon and AT&T. At the risk of angering the later two, we'll be honest: Mint is what we'd recommend to our friends and family, and what many of us have switched to for its price, ease of use, superior customer service, and excellent coverage. So is Mint good? Yeah, it's better than any of the big wireless carriers in our opinion.