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New Verizon Data Plans: Do They Save You Money?

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Verizon will be launching new data plans later this week, but will these new plans save you money?

Last week, Verizon announced that it would be bulldozing its current data plan offerings (including More Everything and Edge) in favor of an all-new system that makes things a bit simpler for both Verizon and its customers.

Instead of More Everything and Edge data plans, Verizon will simply have one set of data plans to choose from that come in four different sizes: Small, Medium, Large, and X-Large.

Obviously, the bigger plan you get, the more GB you get per month, but the more you’ll pay. The new data plans are as follows:

  • Small: $30/month for 1GB of shareable data
  • Medium: $45/month for 3GB of shareable data
  • Large: $60/month for 6GB of shareable data
  • X-Large: $80/month for 12GB of shareable data

On top of this, users will pay a $20 monthly line-access fee for smartphones ($10 for tablets), as well as a monthly payment the pay off the actual smartphone, since these new data plans are contract-free and subsidizes no longer exist.

Early iPhone 6 Release Date Hours - Verizon Prep

This means that instead of being able to buy the iPhone 6 for $200 up-front, customers will need to pay full price for the device, which starts at $650 for the entry-level 16GB model.

You might think that you’re going to pay way more for these new data plans than More Everything or Edge, but that’s not entirely the case. Even if you were only paying $200 up-front for your iPhone 6 when you got it, that other $450 was certainly included in your monthly bill — you probably just didn’t notice.

Comparing New vs Old Verizon Data Plans

To see if these new Verizon data plans will save you money compared to the More Everything plans, let’s look at the new data plans and compare the cost to More Everything.

iPhone-6-pair

With More Everything, you can get a 6GB data plan for $70 per month that can be shared amongst several people. On top of that, you need to pay the monthly line-access fee for the smartphone, which is $40 per smartphone. So if there are two people on your plan, you’ll pay $80 for the smartphones and then $70 for the 6GB of shared data, totaling $150 per month that you’ll spend if you were to go with More Everything.

With the new data plans, 6GB of shared data costs $60 per month, and line-access fees for smartphones are $20 per smartphone. On top of that, you’ll have to pay anywhere from $15-$30 per month to pay off the full price of the smartphone over two years, depending on how much the smartphone is and if you’ll be able to put down any cash up front.

iPhone-6

With that said, the iPhone 6 is $650, so over two years you’ll be making payments of around $27 per month per device to pay off the device. Adding all of this up for two people will be $154 per month.

This is just $4 more per month than More Everything, and over the course of two years, the new data plans will only cost you $96, which is pocket change compared to the total costs you’ll spend over that amount of time, which will be well over $3,000.

So the argument that you’ll be spending way more with these new data plans because you have to pay full price for the smartphone is slightly fallacious, and it’s why many people are doing away with contracts and going pre-paid instead.

T-Mobile has changed the industry quite a bit over the last couple of years by getting rid of contracts completely. Both AT&T and Verizon have attempted to follow suit by introducing versions of their own, and Verizon is finally moving completely in that direction.

9 Comments

9 Comments

  1. elaine

    08/15/2015 at 8:31 am

    Yes, but the fact remains Verizon is making around an extra $100 per 2 year plan, which multiplied by the millions of people is far from chump change. They are just finding inventive ways to get more money…and for me $96 is still significant.

  2. Charles

    08/25/2015 at 11:42 am

    My current Verizon plan is $80 for 10 GB data and 4 phones at $40 each MINUS $25 per phone for not being under contract. So I pay $15 for each phone instead of $20 under the new plan. So I get 2 GB less data, that I never go over, for $20 less per month and have 25GB storage with VZ Cloud vs. 5GB storage with VZ Cloud under the new plan.
    On Verizon’s comparison page they show me saving $80 per month, but they don’t count the -$25 per line for no contract.

    • Alexandra Lloyd

      08/27/2015 at 3:58 pm

      How are you getting the minus $25? I’ve got 3 phones that are out of contract and one still in. I pay the same $80 for 10 gb, but then $40 for each of the 4 phones for the more everything plan. So a total of $240 every month. I’m not getting any discount of $25 for phones not in contract. Did I misunderstand what you meant? Or am I missing out on some sweet deal?

      • Anne

        08/27/2015 at 7:06 pm

        It’s when you have purchased a phone on the Verizon Edge service they give you a $25 credit per phone. So if you aren’t on Edge then you don’t get this $25 credit.

      • Sid

        09/09/2015 at 4:43 pm

        If you’ve paid off your device through Edge, they also have a month to month discount available, which should be the same price as your previous Edge discount. You must call and ask for this to be added!

  3. RT

    08/26/2015 at 11:11 am

    You excluded the cost of the subsidized phone up front for the More Everything plan. Say that’s $200. So in reality the new plan is actually $100 cheaper when you factor that in.

  4. BE

    09/11/2015 at 5:02 pm

    And it’s $200 up front for 2 phones – which is $400. So you save $300 by switching to new plan.

  5. tena heffernan

    09/24/2015 at 7:54 pm

    You don’t pay anything up front if you get the phone without a contract. Plus, you can turn the phone in after paying 1/2, owe nothing, and get a new phone. The $25 discount on each phone on the plan for the Edge plan is only if you have at least $10 GB of data, which I do. I need to see if that discount still exists. If it doesn’t, I am not switching.

  6. Braxton J Millar

    07/16/2016 at 3:58 pm

    The $25 discount is for both Edge phones and contract phones that are eligible for upgrade. The trick is you have to contact Verizon and ask for the discount. They do not automatically apply it.

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