US Mobile Review

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Disclaimer

If you use my link, both you and I get a $25 referral credit. I didn’t include this link at first, but a reader emailed asking for it. Since it seemed silly to withhold a $25 benefit from readers, I’ve added it — you’ll just have to take my word that my opinions are unaffected. They are my genuine thoughts, and if you have found a better plan, by all means share your thoughts in the comments.

 

Intro

I’ve been on quite a few cell phone carriers over my life. T-mobile => Tello => RingPlus (RIP) => Lycamobile => RedPocket => Xfinity Mobile.

Over the past year, two trusted individuals migrated to US Mobile — my frugal brother and my cheapskate friend. I’d never heard of US Mobile before, but they raved about it.

I trusted my brother & friend’s recommendation so I took the plunge this month. I couldn’t be happier, nor could I recommend it more — they seem to be the best carrier in the country by a mile.

 

Why I Really Like US Mobile

  • Interestingly, they are a phenomenal choice for cheapskates (like me) and non-cheapskates alike (almost everyone else I know).
  • They let you choose which network you want to be on and switch between networks if you want to.
    • Perhaps the weirdest thing to get used to is that they have goofy nicknames to obscure the name of the network for contractual reasons:
      • Verizon = “Warp”
      • T-Mobile = “Light Speed”
      • AT&T = “Dark Star”
  • They give some pretty generous hardware subsidies relative to other MNVO’s.
    • The subsidies are slightly less generous if you opt for the cheapo plan vs. the more expensive plans.
    • Pixel 9 (released a year ago, $799 MSRP):
      • $299 with non-cheapo plan
      • $339 with cheapo plan (this is what Mrs FP and I went for)
    • Pixel 10 (released less than 1 month ago with $799 MSRP):
      • $419 with non-cheapo plan
      • $469 with cheapo plan
  • They were recently ranked #1 by consumer reports among all cell phone carriers.
    • Their (chat-based) customer service is great.

 

Downsides?

I guess they don’t offer iPhone hardware deals.

 

Conclusion

For cheapskates and non-cheapskates alike, US Mobile feels like an absolute no-brainer. If you enjoy burning money with reckless abandon, stick with the legacy carriers. Otherwise, take the plunge.

If you’re on the fence (like I was), try their 30-day trial with a burner Google Voice number. You can grab a free GV number, then port it to US Mobile after paying Google the $3 transfer-out fee. This is what I did to test the waters, and I was so impressed by my trial that I ended up moving the whole family.

And while saving a “measly” $100/mo on your phone bill might not seem life-changing, the compounding effects are huge. At a 12% return, $100/mo grows to $23k in 10 years, $99k in 20 years, and $349k in 30 years. It’s no exaggeration to say that frugal cell phone plans alone have added at least $100k to our net worth over the past two decades.

 

Screenshots for the Curious


The cheapo plan I’d recommend. Having spent the past 20 years using ~20 MB/month of data (yes, MB not GB!), the 2GB/mo is hilariously luxurious for me. I don’t think I’ll use more than a gig/mo.

 


Non-cheapo plans. I’m pretty sure the free smartwatch plan on the “unlimited premium” is limited to Verizon’s network. The multi-network add-on allows you to use a different on your second esim and have the phone switch automatically between the stronger one.

 


Our family is easily managed in a single login.


If you want to switch networks (e.g. from Verizon to AT&T), it is trivially easy to do so in the settings (screenshots below).

US Mobile offers pretty generous hardware subsidies if you don’t mind “slumming it” with Android/Pixel — I’ll never understand the cult-like disdain Apple/iPhone fanboys have for Android products.

 


I cannot think of a single reason why anyone would need 428 Mbps download speeds on their phone (enough bandwidth for twenty concurrent 4K streams…on a 6 inch device), but the 5G speeds during my trial were very fast.

47 thoughts on “US Mobile Review”

  1. Thanks for the testimony. We’re on the cheap Telli plans and are happy. Coverage and speed are fine for our needs. But they are a tad more. Switching 3 lines could save us a few bucks a month.

    Reply

  3. I had a 3 month trial with US mobile I would have to say that they are probably the best provider.

    I’m using infimobile.com (on Verizon) for the last 18 months and they also work great. Usually I get 10GB/month for $100/year when it’s on sale.
    I also like silent.link if I need more data, hotspot, my infimobile plan expires or international data.
    I don’t trust infimobile (or most prepaid providers) enough to port my number so I still use google voice.

    Reply

    1. I hadn’t heard of infimobile.com nor silent.link before. There are more MNVO’s than I can keep track of.

      For what I wanted: reputable, cheap, infinite calling/texts, low data, US Mobile seemed to check all of the boxes.

      Reply

    1. I’m probably not the perfect person to answer since I use almost no mobile data myself (about 20 MB/month).

      That said, during my US Mobile trial I clocked 428 Mbps on a speed test, which seemed stupidly fast to me (see last screenshot of post).

      US Mobile explains how priority works here: https://www.usmobile.com/blog/what-is-qci/#the-qci-numbering-confusion-why-the-same-numbers-mean-different-things

      In practice, if you’re on one of their premium plans, I think it’s very unlikely you’ll notice any slowdown outside of rare peak-congestion situations.

      Reply

  5. Thanks for this. I’d been considering switching to Visible but have been too lazy to investigate the details so this is a timely reminder, and another option, to research. I don’t think I’d ever heard of US Mobile.

    P.S. How do you manage to pull off that little data use? Do you turn off data on your phone? I ask bc while I do spend a significant amount of time on WiFi at home and work – and download podcasts/music over WiFi, I simply cannot fathom using that little data 🙂

    Reply

    1. I’d give US Mobile a hard look. I’m guessing they are more competitive than Visible.

      I spend enough time staring at screens at work and home that when I’m out in the wild I try to not stare at a device (with mixed success). Turning data off is a good way to reduce your data consumption. You learn quickly that life goes on without it. Or at least that is what the last 20 years of cell phone use (largely) without data has taught me.

      Reply

  7. Do you have any cheapskate suggestions for kids? My older two are 9 and 8. It’d be nice to have a way to call or text them sometimes, but I wouldn’t want a data plan. A thought I’ve had is to get a flip phone with a $5/mo plan from Tello and let a kid take it when necessary or use it as the kitchen phone if we left them at home for a short time.

    Reply

    1. Assuming your kids have wifi at home/school, our go-to cheapskate solution for younger kids has always been a hand-me down smartphone & $0/mo google voice plan (unlimited calls & texts). Google meet for video if you want. All of our kids have followed this path through the years before getting upgraded to a real plan, including FC3 until he reached his freshman year this year. They would would bring their phone to school and communicate with us (as needed) from the school wifi. For a kid, 99% as functional as a phone plan for 0% of the cost. Wifi texting works great on Google Voice.

      Reply

      1. Wow a free google plan. Didnt know that one.
        Another not free but cheap option is what we have which is buying a QVC/hsn phone with bundled annual low text/data plan with tracfone. I think i paid 50 for TWO flipphones each with 1200 mins/text/data (but remember for a year) so basically an emergency phone for a middle schooler. If interested i can share my tracfone rewards pin and anyone (and i) can get 1500 points. 1000 points gets you 3GB data add on (which is what i do to add to the kids plan). However this is not a good plan if you have a teenager that loves data/talk!

        Reply

        1. I’ve been with google voice for about 20 years now. When it started, it was called GrandCentral.

          It is a phenomenal, free service. Perfect use case is for kids on wifi at school/home. Free texting/calling.

          Flip phones seem smart for kids. We aren’t smart, so they get hand-me-down smartphones.

          Reply

          1. Cool. I should look up the free google plan. I like the tracfone annual cheap plans (on sale can be around 25 to 30 for one year/line and was replying also partly to @Seth) but will look into google’s free one. Thanks

          2. Google Voice is here: http://voice.google.com/

            The one slight complication when signing up for a new number for a kid is:
            * You need to link to a real phone number, albeit temporarily, when signing up for a new number.
            * The purported benefit of GV is to have a single number that is forwarded to all of your phones (home (back when that was a thing), cell, work, etc). But this model is pretty archaic these days.
            * After using a real phone number to get a new GV number, you should be able to delete the real number from the account.

            The result is a new GV number for your kid to use for unlimited texting/calling. I’ve only tried it on a smartphone. I don’t think it would work on a flip phone.

          3. There must be a nesting limit as i dont see a reply button under the last reply you sent me.

            Thanks for the link. Aah now I get it. I thought this was a new plan. I had at one point a google number that i gave out when i was getting quotes but forwarded to my main cell number. I guess adding it to a smartphone on wifi effectively lets you make free calls and texts provided you are on a free wifi (as in school). Cool method. My spouse would say we need a phone for emergencies so outside school etc but I see this as a good solution for 99% of the time like you said.

          1. Hey Seth. Like I mentioned in my first reply, buy a QVC/HSN flipplan or an android cheap combined with minutes. Often i get for 50 or 60 for TWO phones/lines for 1200 mins/tex/MB. A lot of us buy these plan plus phones just to harvest the minutes since its cheaper this way than buying them outright from tracfone. If you watch you may find even better deals on QVC/HSN closer to the holiday season, and codes for new customers making it even cheaper. You will get one year of minutes/data/text but remember it is a pretty small number. So like I said before not a good idea for someone who uses the phone a fair amount. This is meant to be an emergency phone for my kids. Best

  8. I’d been using US Mobile for over a year without major issues, but one problem stood out: in crowded areas the service on light speed could completely stop working, not just slow down.

    This happened to my daughter twice — once when she was at a small concert with friends and again at another crowded event. Both times her phone lost all service and she couldn’t even make a call. She had to borrow a friend’s phone to reach me. After that, I decided to switch her line over to dark star. I’m not sure if the same issue will happen there, but we’ll see.

    Reply

    1. It was super easy for us when we migrated numbers from Xfinity Mobile and Google Voice. US Mobile simply asked for our provider/number/account number. I simply provided the info they asked for and didn’t need to reach out to customer service.

      Reply

  10. My spouse has been on US mobile for a couple of years on the 2GB plan (used to be 1GB but they kindly upgraded at one point) for $10 including taxes/month. Paying per month with an amex card provides warranty so we do that instead of the discounted annual plan.
    Good part: Taxes included, which is a very reasonable price, reddit rep support is great, add another member for just 8 if u are OK sharing the data too.
    So so part: Their web chat (and many redditors will agree with this) is variable and often they are wrong in their replies. This has been reported before.
    Bad part: We were in yellowstone recently. My primary phone (verizon) had some signal so i could book stuff and change restaurant bookings etc, My kids tracfone was similar (and thats a super cheap annual plan) but my wife’s on light speed/tmobil was SOS entirely. Now some of this is an Tmobil vs verizon part but there were others we talked to in the trip who said they had Tmobil post paid that said they did not have SOS the entire time. Her phone was basically a paper weight. I dont know if we need to change settings as 3 months earlier they made us change a SIM as the previous one was ‘expiring’. Also two years back when her us mobile was on verizon, there were times at the grocers where she would have no signal or data (and she practically uses no data so it wasnt usage) and thats when we switched her to Tmobil/light speed.

    Reply

    1. Cool trick about the Amex. Is that any Amex?

      Thanks for sharing the good, so so, and bad.

      So far, it has been smooth sailing for us on Verizon’s network. That said, Verizon’s network is really good in our neck of the woods.

      Xfinity mobile (that I was with for almost 10 year prior) also used Verizon’s network. I was amazed that I had coverage on parts of my infamous Denali packrafting adventure: https://frugalprofessor.com/alaska-packrafting-adventure-whales-tail/

      If you aren’t a fan of US Mobile, what are you personally using instead?

      Reply

      1. Thanks.
        Amex: I have it on my Delta Platinum card. Not sure if other Amex’s have that benefit. It basically is a lot cheaper than having insurance on an old iphone

        I actually dont mind US mobile as you pointed it out they run on the big three and are very well priced. By the way i have been on a marathon chat for over an hour with Us mobile trying to get them to correct the issue and they suggest i should move to dark star. Their chat like many others i guess is verrrry slow. Each reply takes 4-5 mins. But very polite and pleasant

        I personally am still on the old post paid verizon. I keep planning to switch but never do at least for the primary line. I still have multiple loyalty and other discounts but at one point will switch as US mobile or Visible (including the deal on the visible plus currently) is still much less. I am clinging onto to for no good reason!

        Thanks

        Reply

        1. I agree that chat can be slow, but they’ve always come through for me. I’d say they are much better than Xfinity mobile’s customer service which was always infuriating.

          It seems you know the pros/cons of US Mobile better than me, but I could never go back to a legacy carrier ever again. MNVO or bust, and US Mobile seems like the best of them (again, acknowledging that I haven’t experienced nor priced every single competitor out there).

          But if you can find me a better plan out there with unlimited texts/calls & >2gb on Verizon’s network (they are the best for our area) for less than $8/mo, I’d switch.

          Reply

          1. Yeah ouch comcast/xfinity. They were terrible as an ISP, no surprise with your experiences with the phone service.

            I agree for $10 or 8/month very hard to beat. We had redpocket for the cheaper line before and while it wasnt unlimited text/calls it practically was for us, and while we liked it US mobile seems even better.

            Best

  11. I have experienced the sudden “dead” phone using T-mobile thru Google Fi….. my guess is that US Mobile is in the same boat as everyone else with this occasionally. T-mobile will deny it happens. Reality is: it does.

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  12. I’ve been a long-term T-Mobile customer. During COVID they were giving away free lines for life. As a result, I get rates as good if not better than FP is noting with US Mobile. Con is if you want to upgrade phones there are almost never any deals. Plus side, I pay $137/month for 11 lines and Netflix.

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  13. We have multiple people on our VZW postpaid plan now (2 adult children). Having multiple people on a Verizon account helps keep costs down.

    I’m SO tempted to switch to US Mobile. They seem to be the only MVNO worth the hassle.

    Did you have any issues with the porting process? Any phone compatibility issues? Is RCS working for you?

    We change our phones about every 4 years. US Mobile would give us the flexibility to not have an Unlimited plan for everyone, and switch to a different plan if doing a lot of international travel. I’m just trying to avoid headaches in the name of being frugal. I don’t want to regret the decision.

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  15. Might the thinking here change if you confine the analysis to committed iPhone users (with 2 iPhones in the family for now), for whom there should be quantifiable value from said hardware discounts offered elsewhere? Could those hardware discounts outweigh or at least diminish into immateriality the potential savings?

    Reply

    1. Seems like a pretty easy math problem.

      Overpayment on service per month vs US mobile * number of months = total overpayment for service. If overpayment < phone subsidy, your coming out worse than buying your own phone. Without running your exact numbers, my intuition says that us mobile will still come out ahead.

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  16. Do you still use Google Voice at all? Or fully migrated to the normal phone/messages app on your phone for texts/calls? Is there a desktop option if that’s the case?

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    1. Good question…

      I still do a decent amount of texting through GV (because of the ability to do so on desktop), and my GV number is my preferred number to give to doctors, etc. because of the great voicemail features. I hardly ever call using GV because of the tiny lag it introduces with the extra servers.

      But my immediate family & frequently contacted friends use my “real” number. Sometimes I miss the texting via computer option there. Texting on a device is so darn clunky.

      My current equilibrium, therefore, is a bit of a mix of GV and my “real” number. Kind of clunky, but it works okay for me. I like that I’m not giving out my “real” number very much (to doctors, contractors, etc).

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  17. I am a US Mobile emigree. When I retired, I took the long, painful path of migrating my Verizon business line (paid for by my employer), to US Mobile. It was my employer contract that made that painful… getting out of Verizon Post Paid to Prepaid. Ultimately I spent in ONE MONTH what a full year of US Mobile service cost me!

    Before the retirement, cessation of my plan, I had opted for the cheapest plan and so had US Mobile *AND* Verizon on my phone. Pretty cool to have two major carriers on one phone (as well as a “private” line).

    I still keep two lines on my phone, both by US Mobile, but on different carriers. One is the bare-minimum plan, the other the “unlimited flex plan” ($210/yr). And about 3 months ago, I went “full data” streaming NFL games on my phone. Now I know I can scale from next to zero usage to full usage.

    The coup-de-grace was convincing my wife to abandon her Eh T & T and get a an unlimited premium plan at US Mobile ($390/yr – the priciest option). Switching was a breeze and despite her reluctance, I have yet to hear a complaint. Trying to get my adult daughter to see the light. I suspect she’d not even notice if I downgrade her plan.

    US Mobile customer service is spectacular… at least for me. Their website is crisp, and (mostly) clear. There is pretty much zero reason, in my mind to bother with any of the major carriers or their discount offspring (Mint, Straight Talk, Cricket, Boost, Visible, Metro, Total, TracFone).

    Reply

    1. Glad to hear another positive experience from US Mobile! It’s hard to believe that anyone sticks with the legacy carriers there days.

      Reply

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