According to J.D. Power, Americans spend about $141 per month on mobile services. There are more than 100 wireless carriers in the United States, but the big three — AT&T, Verizon, and T-Mobile — dominate the market, with a reported nationwide coverage of 99%.
With each major carrier offering multiple varieties of plans, as well as hundreds of smaller budget-friendly carriers and Mobile Virtual Network Operators (MVNOs) contributing their own options, there certainly isn’t a shortage of choices for mobile phone plans in the market. This variety of options is not a bad thing, but it can make it more difficult for you to choose the right plan for you and your budget.
It gets more complicated if you’re just an individual looking for affordable plans that balance price with coverage and data needs. So, which carrier has the cheapest phone plans for one person in 2025? We’ve narrowed it down to the two best budget-friendly picks.
Visible offers three plans, all running on Verizon’s network: Visible, Visible+, and Visible+ Pro. The most affordable is the basic Visible plan, which costs $25 per month; but for the first 12 months is $19 per month under a limited-time promotion. With the basic Visible plan, you get unlimited data, talk, and text on Verizon’s 5G and 4G LTE networks, along with spam and robocall blocking.
This plan also includes video streaming in up to 480p SD quality, unlimited mobile hotspot usage, as well as unlimited talk and text to Mexico and Canada. You also can get a few optional extras for additional cost, such as Global Pass network coverage for international travel, a discount on Fios home internet service, and free shipping new smartphone purchases made through Visible.
When you read the fine print though, you see that data can be slowed during times of network congestion, and that hotspot speeds top out at 5 Mbps with the basic plan. Reviews on Reddit also suggest that the trade-offs are worth it, and that Visible offers a solid deal for the price. With that said, the experience may vary depending on where you live and the coverage available.
Tello provides four ready-made plans ranging from $10 per month to $25 per month. However, Tello’s biggest selling point is the customizable Build Your Own Plan option, which lets you choose exactly how much talk, text, and data you want each month, and adjusts the price accordingly.
If you go with the most basic option: You get 1GB of data and 100 minutes with free texting, and you pay just $6. To be fair, this is probably not enough for most users, but even if you opt for a more generous 5GB data and unlimited talk, or 300 minutes with unlimited text plan, you still pay $12 per month. No matter which plan you choose, you can upgrade, downgrade, or cancel it with no penalties. Every Tello plan includes hotspot usage, free Wi-Fi calling, and free international calls to over 60 countries.
So, what’s the catch? Tello runs on T-Mobile’s network as an MVNO, and is deprioritized. This means that your data speeds may be slowed in favor of customers on regular T-Mobile plans when the network is busy, which can be an issue in crowded places and busy cities. It’s up to you to decide if that downside is worth the overall monthly savings for Tello’s data plan.