Mint Mobile Cell Phone Plans Review

Mint Mobile took control of the affordable-wireless world with its $30 unlimited plan. In 2023, Mint Mobile offers the most value out of any cell phone carrier on the market, and on T-mobile's network.

Do you like low prices? Unlimited data? Ryan Reynolds? Then you and Mint Mobile are mint to be.

But if you love the family plan model of cell service, Mint might not be the right choice. Don’t get us wrong—in some cases, putting the entire family on Mint will be cheaper than opting for a bulk plan with some other carrier. But having a separate plan and a separate phone bill for everyone in a household sounds like a pain, especially with minors.

We think the Unlimited Data Plan is Mint’s best cell phone plan. It’s exceptionally affordable and comes with unlimited data for your phone to gobble up.

You can upload, download, and stream with Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, TikTok, Twitch, and social media apps we’ve never even heard of. Go wild, go crazy, Mint doesn’t care.

Just know that deprioritization is A Thing. Mint Mobile piggybacks off of the T-Mobile network. So even with your tasty unlimited data, you might see your speeds go from running to crawling because T-Mobile’s customers are the priority, not you. It’s one of the unfortunate drawbacks of Mint’s otherwise clever business model.

Mint Mobile offers four prepaid data plans ranging from 4 GB of data every month to a true unlimited plan where you don’t have to worry about extra fees. You pay for your talk, text, and data three months in advance, but you get a better deal for it than you would if you paid for it as you went along. Prepaid phone plans have the same philosophy as buying in bulk at Costco.

Mint Mobile offers some of the most affordable data plans in the industry right now, including one of the cheapest unlimited plans we've seen since Sprint died.

Honestly, if you compare each of Mint Mobile's four data plans with similar plans, Mint Mobile comes out on top. So let’s compare each Mint Mobile plan with the competition.

Some carriers (like US Mobile, Twigby, and Good2Go) try to out-Mint Mint by offering discounts for the first three or six months. Those discounts bring those carriers’ prices below Mint’s for a short period.

But after those discounts wear off, Mint Mobile matches the price of the cheapest 4 GB data plans out there. Except Mint Mobile is still a better deal than Twigby Wireless and FreeUp Wireless because Mint operates on T-Mobile's network.

We’ll be honest—Mint doesn’t shine in the $20 bracket, at least not when you compare the initial prices. Mint Mobile charges $20 for 10 GB of data while other providers charge the same price for a similar data amount.

But remember, competitor prices will jump up after their discount is over. Mint won't.

As with the 10 GB plan, Mint Mobile's 15 GB plan offers you more data for a better price compared to other wireless providers. Sure, competitors offer initial discounts to get you on the hook, but after the honeymoon’s over, you’ll pay more than with Mint.

Mint Mobile used to hold the title belt for cheapest unlimited plan, but in the past few months carriers like Tello have edged ahead. It's only the difference of $1/month between Mint and Tello, but it's a whole $5/month difference between Mint and Boost. We'd love to see Mint drop its price even more and take back the cheapest cell phone plan title.

In summary, if you're in the market for an unlimited data plan, Mint Mobile is a no-brainer. At least until another provider drops its price even more (Visible wireless, maybe?).

Mint Mobile's family plans won't get you any extra discounts, but you can enjoy the ease of up to 5 lines on one family plan account. So you can get your whole family on the service, but you won’t get any special discounts or benefits when you do.

Granted, the monthly price for unlimited data is already pretty cheap. But it would be nice if we could get that price even lower with a family plan.

If you want to get your whole family on a wireless plan, you might get a better deal with another provider.

Because Mint Mobile uses T-Mobile’s network, you'll get the same T-Mobile coverage and data options. And lucky for phone users everywhere, T-Mobile offers one of the best networks in the country.

You shouldn't have to worry about T-Mobile coverage because it covers about 94% of the country. Chances are you’ll have coverage, but there are a few pockets where signal can get spotty—particularly in the Pacific Northwest and Mountain West region. Make sure to find your city is covered in purple on the coverage map below for committing to a Mint Mobile plan.

Mint Mobile offers super cheap unlimited deals, but here’s the dirty little secret about MVNOs like Mint Mobile—your data speeds can slow down at any time due to deprioritization.

In short, Mint Mobile uses T-Mobile’s network for its coverage and data speeds, but T-Mobile will prioritize its own customers over Mint Mobile’s.

Picture this—you (a Mint Mobile user) and a friend (a T-Mobile user) are at a basketball game. In theory, both of you should have bars because you’re on the same network.

Except when you pull up Instagram, nothing will load, while your T-Mobile friend has no issue uploading their story. Sadly, your data has been deprioritized.

With any MVNO, you’ll find that your data speeds can drop on a dime (especially in big crowds).

Not every MVNO supports the latest devices, but thankfully Mint Mobile satisfies all of our tech-nerd needs. With Mint Mobile, you can get the latest iPhone, Galaxy, One, or Pixel. Check out the top 10 most popular smartphones on Mint Mobile's network.

And guess what? You don’t have to buy a new phone with Mint.

The Mint Mobile BYOP (Bring Your Own Phone) program means that you won’t spend tons of money on a Mint-compatible device, or buy a new phone case, or re-download all of your vacation photos from the cloud.

You’ll just switch out your old SIM card for a Mint SIM card.

Mint Mobile really connects with its customers! It’s one of the most down-to-earth brands on the market, and it uses simple language and funny Ryan Reynolds ads to show that it gets its audience.

Mint has also shown great customer service in its day-to-day dealings with its customers. Many Mint Mobile customer reviews rave about how friendly and helpful the staff is when they’ve called with questions or issues.

Of course, there are negative reviews. Some users who went through Best Buy have tried Mint promotions and then not received the deals they signed up for. That’s not cool.

But overall, Mint seems to be one of those rare companies that excel at giving people what they want.

In our Mint Mobile review, we found that Mint offers some of the most impressive and cheapest unlimited data plans we’ve seen.

Your data speeds and coverage can vary, but your price will stay the same. If the latter matters to you more than the former, Mint Mobile makes a lot of sense for wireless users looking for a bargain.

• Cell phone plans: All of Mint Mobile’s plans include unlimited data. The only difference is your data cap. The higher tier the plan the higher your data cap, which means you’ll enjoy faster speeds.
• Family cell phone plans: Mint Mobile doesn’t have family plans! While the service is affordable enough to justify not offering them, we don’t blame you if you think it’s easier to have your whole household on a single bill.
• Cell phones and devices: Mint Mobile works with all the latest and greatest cell phones. It also offers an excellent BYOP program so you don’t have to buy an all-new cell.
• Customer service: Mint not only has low prices and stellar advertising, but many of its customer interactions are positive.

To research for this review, we read the whole internet. Well, just the parts about Mint. That includes both Mint advertising campaigns, Mint web pages, and professional and customer reviews on lots of different sites.

And we joined forces with our buddies at WhistleOut to get detailed information about Mint Mobile’s plans and prices—and how they compare to other brands.

Questions about Mint Mobile? We'll be your crystal ball.

The simplest way to sign up for Mint Mobile is to click the “Go” button from the list of popular plans below. It only takes a few minutes to do, and you’ll have a Mint SIM card delivered to your door in just a couple of days.

Go to Mint's website and choose a plan

Visit Mint’s website using your computer or mobile device. Then scroll down the page until you see Mint’s plan options. It should look like this.

Choose one of Mint’s cheap cell phone plans by clicking on the orange View Details button. This will take you to another page where you can see all of the features that come with the plan. Click the orange Buy Now button to begin your purchase.

Select quantity and enter your area code

Once you click the Buy now button, you'll be taken to the Shopping Cart page. Here you can select the quantity of lines you want to buy on any given plan (from one to four). You'll also be required to enter your zip code so that Mint can calculate shipping costs and time.

Once you’ve entered the quantity and your zip code, click on the Proceed to Checkout button to pay with a credit or debit card or the PayPal Checkout button to pay with PayPal.

Enter billing, shipping, and payment information

If you clicked on the PayPal Checkout button, then you’ll need to sign into your PayPal account on the browser window that pops up. Then follow the prompts to complete your payment.

If you selected the Proceed to Checkout button, then you’ll be taken to a new page where you’ll need to enter your billing, shipping, and payment information.

Be sure to double check that your order is correct and select the shipping method you’d like. There are usually two options: 2–3-day shipping or FedEx Next Day Air.

Get your SIM card in the mail and activate service

Your SIM card (and phone if you bought one) will arrive in the mail just a few days after you complete your order.

Just insert the SIM card into your phone and then activate your service. To activate your plan, just enter the 11-digit code on the back of your SIM card using Mint’s activation website or the Mint Mobile app on your phone.

And that’s a wrap! You’re finished. Now you can get back to watching TikTok videos and playing Pokémon Go (or whatever it is you do on your phone).

Yes! You can use your Mint Mobile data to power a mobile hotspot on your smartphone.

All Mint Mobile plans come with hotspot capability. But the 4G LTE or 5G data that you use will be deducted from your normal data allotment, so be careful about how you use the hotspot. (It won’t be ideal for online gaming, for example.)

Those with unlimited data plans from Mint Mobile will have a hotspot data cap of 5 GB. That should give you enough for some casual web browsing, standard-definition streaming, or for researching that final term paper you’ve been putting off.

To set up your mobile hotspot on Mint, just find the appropriate section in the settings of your Mint Mobile smartphone.

Apple Devices

1. Go to the Settings app.
2. Select the Cellular Data option at the top.
3. Then select the Personal Hotspot option.
4. Switch to the on position (the bar will be green).

Android Devices

1. Go to the Settings app.
2. Click on the Network & Internet option.
3. Click on the Hotspot & Tethering option.
4. Turn the Wi-Fi Hotspot toggle switch to on.

Paying your Mint Mobile bill is simple. There are three main ways that you can pay:

1. With the Mint Mobile app
2. On the Mint Mobile website
3. Via Auto Renewal

If you haven’t already, then download the Mint Mobile app for Android or iOS. Once you open the app, you’ll log in using your existing account information that you created when you activated your Mint service.

Using the Mint Mobile app

Once you sign in, you should be taken to your account Dashboard. This screen will show you your current account balance and how much time you have until you need to renew. You can click on the My Plan tab at the bottom to get more details on your current plan.

If your account is ready for renewal, then the app will notify you on the Dashboard. Follow the instructions to renew your plan (you’ll need your credit card information).

If your account isn’t up for renewal, but you’ve just been burning through your data on TikTok or PUBG Mobile this month, you can also buy additional data before your account is ready for renewal. Just click on the Add Data button on the Dashboard.

Putting money in your Mint Wallet

If you don’t want to worry about putting more money on your account every time you renew or add data to your plan, then you can just put money in your Mint Wallet. Just select the Account tab and tap Load Wallet to add $5, $10, or $20

Pay on Mint’s website

If you don’t want to pay using the Mint app, you can easily pay using your web browser. First, go to Mint’s website. (Note: Don't just Google “pay Mint bill,” because you’ll likely get a bunch of results for “Mint Bills,” which is a totally different company.)

In the upper right corner of the webpage, you’ll see a Sign In button. Sign into your account using the information you set up when you activated your account. You’ll be taken to a Mint Mobile account dashboard.

On the Dashboard you’ll see a section called My Plan. Here it will tell you how much data and time is left on your account. You can click the Renew Now button to renew your existing plan. If you want to renew with a different plan, click on the Manage Plan tab to the left.

Set up Auto Renewal

You may have already set up Auto Renewal by clicking this box when you first signed up for Mint Mobile.

If you didn’t, then you can still easily sign up for Auto Renewal on the app or the website. Just click the Set Up Auto Renew button on the website or click the Auto Renewal tab when you make a payment on the app. This will allow Mint to automatically charge your credit or debit card each time your plan ends.

There’s all this talk about GBs, but what the h*ck does it mean? Which Mint Mobile plan size is going to work best for you?

Let’s put those GB numbers in context. For every hour of HD streaming you do on Netflix or YouTube, you spend about 1 GB of your data.

Allow us to be a little vulnerable with you and share the data usage of one of our writers, Tyler. You probably don’t have the same NBA Twitter addiction that he does, but then again, maybe you do?

As you can tell, Tyler would surpass even the Large Mint Mobile data cap with his monthly Twitter usage alone. If you find yourself downloading podcasts, streaming, and refreshing social media while you’re out and about, you’ll probably want to opt for the Large Mint Mobile data plan, lest you risk 3G speeds.

As you can tell, Tyler would surpass even the Large Mint Mobile data cap with his monthly Twitter usage alone. If you find yourself downloading podcasts, streaming, and refreshing social media while you’re out and about, you’ll probably want to opt for the Large Mint Mobile data plan, lest you risk 3G speeds.

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