Can anyone beat Tello?

Can Tello’s $10 for unlimited minutes and text plus 1 GB of data plus customer support be beat? I know it’s on Sprint, but since most of the freebies are vanishing and our group has unlocked cellphones, they seem to be where our budget conscious group is heading towards.

I'd just get unlimited internet in my car for $20/mo and hang around my car all day. :wink:

Add mobile hotspot use and unlimited 2G data to the features you’ve mentioned and I don’t think Tello can be beat, although a few MVNOS aren’t far behind. The $14 2 GB plan, which charges but $4 for the extra GB is quite the deal as well.

Sprint is a deal breaker for me. Plus I'd have to pay an extra $1.60 a month in taxes with Tello. I do like their paygo plan though.

The ultimate budget plan in my opinion is the $60 a year plan from redpocket. Any network. 100mins/100texts/500mb data.

Mint mobile is also excellent value at $180 a year.

For cost only, Hello Mobile can beat Tello for a similar plan with a multi-line discount. 5 lines of unlimited talk & text + 1GB is $40, or $8/line. Fallback 2G, but no hotspot. Frasier1 says they have a pretty good dashboard, but customer service is certainly not on a par with Tello. (And I'm comfortable-- or at least as comfortable as I can get with an MVNO-- that Tello intends to keep value-leading pricing, while we've seen other MVNOs sometimes raise rates.)

If Mint Mobile is tempting, their buy-3-months, get-3-months offer is still available (ending Sept.9, I think). $60 for 6 months of 8GB. Buy through Rakuten (formerly Ebates) for $20 cashback, and use a referral to join Rakuten if you don't already have an account for an additional $10 cashback. (If you do all of that, $30 for 6 months of service is nice.)

mmfacemm writes:
"The ultimate budget plan in my opinion is the $60 a year plan from redpocket. Any network. 100mins/100texts/500mb data."

It's a great plan for those who value data more than talk/text, and can stay comfortably under 100/100. For some of my folks, that's the rub-- their T/T use hovers more-or-less around 100 units, and would necessitate semi-regular add-ons that drive up the cost and require monitoring the use closely.

For users with that issue, I like the Tracfone/Ebay $50 annual plan. It front-loads allotments with full rollover, with an average monthly use of 100/100/250mb. Add-ons for any bucket are relatively cheap, and also have full rollover. Verizon, AT&T, or T-Mobile networks.
One possible issue: that Tracfone plan is new, and it's perhaps less certain that refills will be available at the same price at the end of the year. (Tracfone doesn't usually discontinue plans, though--although they've been known to tinker with add-on prices.)

For super-budget (on the Sprint network), the FreedomPop/Red Pocket $3 plan with 200/500/500 is a good value, as is the Hello Mobile $5 plan.

So is redpocket coming out with a free plan?
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.androidauthority.com/red-pocket-mobile-freedompop-sale-1002909/amp/

This article was from 3 months ago, purely speculation. So far Red pocket has not done any thing to move FreedomPop GSM customers. However, this morning someone reported that his FreedomPop AT&T SIM phone number was moved to T-Mobile database. So something is happening.

Thanks for all the responses! For the tech challenged in our group, they've opted for Tello and their fabulous CS reps, for some of our more adventurous members the Tracfone annual card on Ebay won out!

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Just for filing away..... Tracfone's customer service is much maligned. I've had Tracfone lines for years (since well before RingPlus), and I've found their customer service to not be any worse than most lower-price MVNO's, and better than many. (It's not even in the same league as Tello, of course.) I strongly advise figuring out the ropes before trying to swap carriers, swap phones, add a bundled phone+plan purchase, or any other 'adventurous' move. (Exactly 'how' you do it can be the difference between success and frustration.) There's are a couple of active Tracfone specific forums (on Howard Forums, and at Welcome to Turk Forums ) where good, experienced Trac users will offer good advice.
In particular, Turk's forum always has an up-to-date list of bonus codes that will work if your folks should need to buy add-ons, soimetimes adding 50% or more to the purchased units. (Most effective on text and data add-ons.)

Thanks for the forum suggestions, KentE!

Is the FreedomPop/Red Pocket $3 plan VoIP?

No the Freedompop / Red Pocket CDMA $3 plan is not VOIP. It's the same Sprint standard calling the other MVNO's are offering.
But it's clear now the $3 plan is for 200 min, 200 MB, not 500 MB like some of us got the first month. It's still a good deal for good tech service support.

Well after taxes and fees it will be over $5

I was charged $2.99 - dunno why you think it otherwise?

I was charged $2.99 and the taxes were minimal. The total was about $3.05. I guess it depends on how much local taxes exist in your area?

Does Redpocket/FP $3 plan have overages?

No, it's hard capped.

(Edit after looking.....)
Add-ons are available for data only.
$2 / 100mb
$5/ 250mb
$10/ 1 gb
$15/ 2gb

It's too bad there isn't an add-on for minutes.
I hadn't really looked at that before-- thanks for giving me a reason to look, bingyee.
The 1GB price isn't bad. Paired with allowed hotspot use, it could come in handy sometime. (I had to ask customer service to enable hotspot on my line.)

Thanks for mentioning that. I hadn't thought about it.

I'm still debating whether that plan might be worthwhile for me for a tablet (so far I think the answer is "only if I can get a better tablet that fits the same keyboard case my G-Pad is in for Sprint but can't get one for AT&T).

I think for me personally, the 1GB would be the least likely I might actually use, but that's due to peculiarities of usage patterns...

KentE wrote: "It's too bad there isn't an add-on for minutes." You may be in luck, looks like they do have add-on minutes assuming this Help page is accurate -- https://help.goredpocket.com/hc/en-us/articles/360002889591-Can-I-add-more-LTE-data-minutes-and-texts-mid-month-