Consumer Cellular offers flexible, no-frills plans aimed at the senior demographic and those who don’t use their phone often. It topped the most recent Consumer Reports wireless survey in customer satisfaction among all postpaid carriers, including the Big Four cell phone carriers: Verizon, AT&T, Sprint and T-Mobile.
However, anyone looking for a standard unlimited talk and text plan with data will be disappointed with Consumer’s high prices.
Consumer Cellular
At a glance
- Plans start at $12.50 per month.
- Strengths: Great customer service, flexible plans for those who don’t use their phone much.
- Weaknesses: Very expensive if you want an industry-standard plan.
Consumer Cellular cell phone plans
Consumer Cellular’s plans are split into voice calling plans and text-and-data plans. You can combine allotments of minutes, texts and data to tailor a plan to your usage. Simply add the prices together to get your monthly cost.
Monthly voice rates are as follows:
- 250 minutes: $15.
- 1,000 minutes: $25.
- 2,000 minutes: $30.
- 4,000 minutes: $40.
- Unlimited minutes: $50.
There’s also a 25-cent-per-minute pay-as-you-go rate available for $10 per month.
Monthly text and data rates:
- 30MB, 300 texts: $2.50 per month.
- 200MB, 2,000 texts: $5.
- 500MB, 5,000 texts: $10.
- 1.5GB, unlimited texts: $20.
- 3GB, unlimited texts: $30.
- 4GB, unlimited texts: $40.
If you go over your minutes, texts or data for the month, Consumer Cellular automatically bumps you up to the next tier, along with the increased price. Any data usage over 4GB comes with a $10 per gigabyte overage fee, along with slower speeds. Consumer Cellular does not allow more than 10GB of data use in a month.
» COMPARE: Best cell phone plans
Consumer Cellular’s network
Consumer Cellular is a mobile virtual network operator that operates mostly on AT&T’s network, but depending on relative network strength, some customers might be connected to T-Mobile’s network instead.
AT&T finished second out of the Big Four in both network reliability and data performance in RootMetrics’ latest Mobile Network Performance report.
Where to buy Consumer Cellular
You can buy Consumer Cellular phones and plans at independent cell phone stores, Target, Sears and some AAA stores in Oregon and Idaho. You can also shop on its website.
Current Consumer Cellular deals
Until the end of June 2016, Consumer Cellular is offering $20 off your first month of service for any new line, including new lines added to an existing plan.
It’s also offering 5% off your monthly plan price if you’re an AARP member.
How Consumer Cellular compares on prices
Compared with other carriers’ standard unlimited talk and text plans, Consumer Cellular is really expensive. An unlimited talk and text plan with 1.5GB of data on Consumer Cellular will run you $70 per month.
You can get unlimited talk and text with 3GB of data on Verizon — often the most expensive carrier — for $65 per month. Getting 1GB of data with unlimited talk and text on a prepaid carrier like MetroPCS costs just $30 per month.
But Consumer is generally aiming for the senior demographic, hence the AARP discount. If you dial back your monthly minutes and texts, Consumer Cellular might have a reasonably priced plan that fits your cell usage. For instance, if you hardly use your phone, you might just want 250 minutes and 300 texts per month. That’s only $17.50.
Check out our roundup of the best cell phone plans for seniors before making any decisions, as Consumer Cellular didn’t make the cut.
» MORE: 3 steps to finding a cheap cell phone plan
How Consumer Cellular compares on features
Consumer Cellular is no-frills. Of the features we usually look at, it has just one: family plans that share minutes, texts and data from the same bucket. Adding a line costs an extra $10 per month on top of your plan charge. So if you were going to share 1,000 minutes ($25 per month) and 2,000 texts ($5 per month) between two people, your total monthly cost would be $40.
Is Consumer Cellular right for you?
Consumer Cellular’s current customers love it, according to the most recent Consumer Reports wireless customer satisfaction survey. If one of its low-minute, low-text plans fits your phone usage, Consumer Cellular is a great choice.
Stephen Layton is a staff writer at NerdWallet, a personal finance website. Email: slayton@nerdwallet.com.
from NerdWallet
https://www.nerdwallet.com/blog/utilities/consumer-cellular-cell-phone-plans/
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