Prepaid is something all of us should consider in this day. As traditional postpaid wireless unlimited plans only increase in price, prepaid has remained as a much more budget-friendly option, all while the plan benefits from postpaid have crept over. There are so many great prepaid options, all of which will save you money each month without you having to give up much, outside of the cheaper phone upgrades.
Yes, when it comes to the differences between postpaid and prepaid, prepaid almost always wins, unless you really, really need to be able to finance your new phone with your carrier. A traditional postpaid wireless plan remains the option for those who finance phones over 2- or 3-year contracts with their carrier. If you don’t or you already own your phone, something like Verizon Prepaid is going to be worth a look.
Let’s dive into Verizon’s best option.
Best Verizon Prepaid Plan
Like with our choice for best unlimited postpaid plan, we’ll start by showing you what Verizon currently offers in prepaid. While Verizon does have other prepaid solutions (Visible and Total Wireless), below are the official Verizon Prepaid plans.
These plans come as 15GB ($35), Unlimited ($50), and Unlimited Plus ($60). To get those prices, you’ll have to enroll in autopay as that shaves off $10 per month. If you don’t want autopay, add $10 to each of those offerings. However, you really should enroll to take advantage of the full prepaid savings.
Verizon Prepaid Plan Recap
When it comes to Verizon’s prepaid offerings, I tend to believe there is only one choice if you want the full Verizon experience. The top tier plan is called Unlimited Plus and it costs $60 per month with autopay. That plan gets you access to Verizon’s 5G Ultra Wideband network, which is their best and fastest. You also get 50GB use of data on that better network before you may be throttled, plus this plan has 25GB of mobile hotspot.
The other two plans (Unlimited and 15GB) do not have access to 5G Ultra Wideband. You are essentially locked to Verizon’s not-that-great 5G network, so your speeds will undoubtedly be slower at all times and there isn’t much available for hotspot. While these plans are much cheaper at $50 and $35 per month, spending $60 for Unlimited Plus gets you a plan that is as close to Verizon’s best unlimited plan as you’ll find. In fact, this plan is $10 cheaper per month than the postpaid Unlimited Plus plan we called the best and the only difference is 5GB less in hotspot and the phone upgrade offers.
Verizon prepaid deals
To get further savings on prepaid, Verizon is almost always offering bundles that get you bigger discounts with multiple lines. As of today, Verizon is doing deals that will get you 4 lines of their prepaid Unlimited plan for $35/line or 2 lines for just $80/mo. These deals change regularly and so they are always worth looking at each month. Since you are on prepaid and not in a contract with these plans, you can change at any time between them whenever a fresh deal appears that works for you.
Which is the best plan?
For most people, Verizon Prepaid Unlimited Plus is going to be the best option.
Again, this plan has everything that Verizon’s best postpaid plan has except for the 3-year contract pricing on phones that locks you into Verizon. If you own your phone, buy them at full retail, or finance them outside of your carrier, this prepaid plan is going to save you a ton of money and the experience will be excellent.
Verizon's best prepaid plan is Visible
This. I don't understand why anyone would go Verizon prepaid over Visible
They're afraid of "Network Optimization".
Verizon prepaid has “network optimization” also
Visible and Verizon Prepaid (except the base plan) have the same data priority, QCI 8
From what I've read Visible uses a centralized routing system that leads to noticeably higher latency, while the actual VERIZON branded prepaid uses the distributed routing that postpaid uses. For most people that won't matter, but for those who have cause to care that would be a reason to stick to the main brand.
I have Verizon postpaid for my work and Visible + Pro for my personal. I do speed tests from both phones on the same server close to the same time. My latency is maybe within 5ms from each other and sometimes my visible latency is actually better. The only thing I really notice is that my location will be in a different state for a ping test. It’s just routing traffic to a different exit node.
Especially considering the 5G UW & tethering differences – I regularly make use of the unlimited tethering on Visible, and see speeds of 500+ Mbps regularly on the tethered connection, and 500-1000 Mbps on my phone. I haven't noticed any latency/"Network Optimization" issues, but if I had, they'd have to be pretty major for me to consider paying more than twice as much for the same network + a data-limited hotspot connection!