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Sprint Wants to Cut Your Bill in Half, What’s the Catch?

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Sprint wants to cut your cell phone bill in half with a new promotion aimed at convincing AT&T and Verizon users to switch to Sprint.

Starting Friday you can walk into a Sprint store or go online and show Sprint your AT&T or Verizon cell phone bill and the company claims it will cut the price you pay every month in half, without chopping your data, minutes or texting services in half.

The Sprint Cut Your Bill in Half Event is only open to Verizon and AT&T subscribers, so T-Mobile users will need to look elsewhere for savings. The deal will help you port your phone number over and Sprint will even pay off your contract so you can make the switch and pick out a new phone without waiting for your upgrade date to arrive.

This limited time promotion isn’t without a catch, but it could be just the plan you are looking for. Here are the details.

Sprint’s Bold Plan to Cut Your Phone Bill in Half

Starting Friday December 5th Sprint will offer a Cut Your Bill in Half Event. If you have a bill in English you can upload it online or go into a store to find your new plan, if it is in Spanish you’ll need to go into a store.

Can Sprint's Cut Your Bill in Half event save you big money on your AT&T or Verizon bill?

Can Sprint’s Cut Your Bill in Half event save you big money on your AT&T or Verizon bill?

A Sprint employee will figure out your current plan and offer you the same amount of data plus unlimited talk and text at half the price you currently pay. Sprint’s example is for a Verizon customer,

“For example, a Verizon customer paying $140 per month for 4 lines+ 10GB of data can get 4 lines + 10GB of data on Sprint for $70 per month.”

This is an interesting example, because the only way to configure this plan is with a Verizon Edge account, which means there is no ETF, but you still owe Verizon the full price of your smartphones.

When looking at an AT&T bill with a monthly cost of $212 including installments on two lines with 15GB of data it’s unclear exactly what my new bill will be on Sprint. This bill is $180 in service, but there is a $25 per line discount for using a Mobile Share Value plan that Sprint may factor in to drop the bill to $130 before installment payments.

This would leave an AT&T switcher with a bill between $65 and $90 for 15GB of data on two lines. You can upload your bill to Sprint on Friday to get new plan without doing the math yourself.

What’s the Catch?

When you start comparing a real bill instead of a pretty and standard one that Sprint includes in the promotional material you start to run into problems. For instance, Sprint will only cover the “base monthly service plan,” with no clear explanation.

Sprint also outlines that new plan features may not be an exact match. For most users it should be a pretty close match, but if you use special services or features like ringback tones, it may not be something Sprint can offer.

Can Sprint's Cut Your Bill in Half event really save you money?

Can Sprint’s Cut Your Bill in Half event really save you money?

Sprint will buy you out of your current contract, including a payment towards paying off your device if you owe installments, but there are two big catches. First off Sprint is only going to pay $350. This is more than enough if you are on a contract, but if you paid for your current phone with Verizon Edge or AT&T Next this may not come close to covering the price of an upgrade.

To switch right now from AT&T, our example bill would leave the customer with an outstanding balance of $412 for phones purchased in the last year on AT&T Next, a balance that is due when service is cancelled. You’ll need to pay all of this up front including what ETFs on all the lines. After you submit the bill to Sprint you’ll receive a pre-paid Visa card in 12 weeks. That’s a long time to be without $500 to $1000.

You’ll also need to trade those old devices in to Sprint when you go to the store, or with a pre-paid label if you do it online. So definitely keep that in mind.

One final catch is that you’ll need to pay for these Sprint devices on top of the monthly plan that they are chopping in half. You’ll need to do a lease or easy pay option, which means you’ll pay $20 a month to lease an iPhone 6 16GB for 24 months or $27 a month for 24 months to own the iPhone 6 at the end of the period.

Make sure you check coverage and service for Sprint in your area. The carrier is growing and expanding 4G LTE, but it is not at the same level as Verizon and AT&T yet. The video above shows a speedtest between the top four carriers. Coverage varies from block to block, so check locally with other Sprint users.

This deal is not good for T-Mobile customers. While it runs for a limited time you can keep the plan as long as you want. But if you need to make changes you’ll end up with a traditional Sprint plan. You can read more of the frequently asked questions for more information.

Is the Sprint Cut Your Bill in Half Deal Worth It?

Assuming you switched to Sprint from Verizon, using the planned example, your monthly bill would total up quite a bit higher than $70. Here are two options assuming you all went for the 16GB iPhone 6 on four lines.

BreakdownLease 16GB iPhone 6Easy Pay 16GB iPhone 6
Monthly Cost for Phone X 4$80$108.36
Base Plan Price$70$70
Total Monthly Bill (Before Taxes)$150$178.36

At the end of the day, Sprint is cutting your bill in half, but you’ll pay monthly for every phone you choose. This means you’ll end up paying $10 more than the base plan after it’s all said and done.

Every plan is going to be different, and Sprint’s example makes it look like an incredible deal by not factoring in the price you’ll pay for popular smartphones each month.

Before you sign a new contract to pay for devices, make sure you see what the monthly total is for the phones you want. This is not going to be as simple as paying 50% less each month.

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