How to Compare Prepaid Cell Phone Plans - Shopping - Electronics

If you are purchasing a prepaid cell phone plan, the enormous assortment of plans can certainly be confusing. Prepaid cellphones offer some obvious advantages over conventional contract plans. Prepaid cellular plans do not require credit checks, you do not need to sign a contract, plus they can be considerably cheaper than conventional cell phone programs. Unfortunately, because every prepaid cell phone provider structures its pricing differently, reviewing prepaid cell phone plans is often confusing.

When looking at prepaid cell phones you'll need to take a look at a single thing - the service period. The service period is the time period that the minutes you get are useable. Your minutes expire at the end of the service period.

If you take a step back from the details of these plans and start looking at the big picture, you will find that every prepaid mobile plan falls under either of two general groups: Pay As You Go Plans, or Monthly Plans. Pay as you go plans have varying activation periods, whereas monthly plans end after a 30 day time period. When ever you read through the review articles of prepaid cellular plans keep these 2 rate structures in mind.

Pay As You GoPay as you go plans offer you varying activation periods. These are usually the most flexible plans, but unfortunately pay as you go plans might also be the most confusing for shoppers. The basic principle is that you buy a phone card and you get to use the airtime for the amount of time affixed to that card. The average activation period is 3 months, but you are able to buy cards that have much more or much less time. Minutes expire at the end of the service period. If you deplete the minutes prior to when the service period finishes, you can just purchase more minutes and your service period begins again. Quite a few companies provide longer service periods if you buy a large number of minutes.

The normal service period is 90 days, but many providers offer more or even less service time. Most providers provide service periods of 30, 60, 90 or 180 days. A couple of providers even provide a daily plan, while several companies offer an annual service period. TracFone provides a separate card (with out any minutes connected) designed to extend your service period out one full calendar year.

MonthlyThis is the easiest of options. With monthly plans your minutes end at the end of thirty days. You purchase a set amount of minutes and they expire 1 month from the time you buy them. Obviously you're not locked into that one month period. If you use up your airtime just before the end of the service period, simply charge your cellphone with another card. As an illustration, if you bought a monthly card that had 500 minutes, yet you used those minutes up in 20 days, simply purchase another card and charge your cell phone with those minutes. Your one month service period resets when you charge your balance with the fresh card.

Like the pay as you go plans, you can purchase minutes in varying amounts. Plans are usually offered in 200, 500, and 1000 minute selections. A good number of providers also offer an unlimited monthly plan which usually offers you with unlimited text, unlimited talk, and unlimited web access. These unlimited plans may be considerably less expensive than a contract plan.

The Bottom LineWhether you go for a pay as you go option or a monthly plan, prepaid phones provide you the flexibility to customize your cell phone budget to the quantity of minutes you use. You are able to increase or decrease the quantity of minutes you buy based upon the number of minutes you really use.

So exactly what are the advantages of a pay as you go plan vs. a monthly plan? Both types of plans offer different amounts of airtime from 60 up to 1500 minutes. The main difference however is the time element - the service period. Monthly plans have a thirty day service period while pay as you go plans have service periods anywhere from 30 to 365 days. So, with that in mind, listed below are the benefits of each type of plan:

Pay As You Go. If you're an occasional cellphone user, you could use the longer service periods of pay as you go plans for your benefit. Pay as you go plans make sense for consumers that use their cellular phones occasionally. When you require a mobile phone for emergency use only, or if you go extended periods of time without making use of your mobile phone, say a month or more, then pay as you go plans will make sense for you. By using a lengthier service period, you can keep your cellphone activated in between the times that you use it. You could use a monthly plan for the same purpose, but many cell phone companies will drop your phone number if you don't continue to keep your phone activated.

Monthly. If you happen to use your cellphone consistently month in and month out, then select a monthly plan. Even if you just use a small amount of minutes a month, if you are certain you're going to use your cell phone, go with the monthly plan. Monthly plans are offered in varying minute bundles and that means you can customize your budget to your usage. Additionally, if you use a LOT of minutes each and every month, then you will definitely want to opt for an unlimited monthly plan. The unlimited plans offered by prepaid cellular phone companies are substantially cheaper than nearly every contract plan.

If you're shopping for a prepaid cell phone, visit for more information.

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