Best Verizon Prepaid Plans

For context, here are all the postpaid Verizon plans available right now.

When you’re comparing prepaid and postpaid Verizon plans, the main variable you want to look at is the amount of data you get every month. All of these Verizon plans come with unlimited talk and unlimited text, but the data is what pushes the monthly price up. Verizon offers one limited data prepaid plan that offers 15GB of data while the rest offer unlimited data.

Verizon's cheapest and most expensive prepaid cell phone plans (not including the $30/month with AutoPay no-data plan) offer the most value. We recommend either the 15GB Prepaid Phone Plan for $35/month with AutoPay or the Unlimited Plus Prepaid Phone Plan for $60/month with AutoPay.

Okay, if prepaid plans are so much cheaper than postpaid plans, why isn't everyone on a prepaid plan? The catch with prepaid cell phone plans is that you have to pay at the beginning of the month instead of the end, and you usually don’t get the same perks you would get with a postpaid plan.

For example, Verizon’s postpaid unlimited plans come with a Disney+, Hulu, and ESPN+ subscription, and free Apple Music for six months. Verizon’s Unlimited Plus Prepaid Phone Plan is positively perkless. It’s only a $15 difference between Verizon’s Prepaid Unlimited cell phone plan ($65/month with AutoPay) and Verizon’s Unlimited Plus plan ($80/month with AutoPay). In this case, it would probably be better to go with the basic postpaid Verizon unlimited plan rather than the Verizon prepaid plan because the perks outweigh the price difference.

If you want a prepaid unlimited plan that works on Verizon’s awesome network, we highly recommend Visible Wireless. Visible, an MVNO wireless provider that operates on Verizon’s network, offers an unlimited data plan that costs $45 a month.

This is one of those delightful situations where a prepaid plan can both save you money and give you more monthly data. The 15GB Prepaid Phone plan for $35/month with AutoPay comes with unlimited talk, unlimited text, and 15 GB of data. This is a great choice for someone who doesn't need unlimited data, especially since all of Verizon's other postpaid plans have unlimited data.

Now, compare that with the cheapest postpaid unlimited data plan that costs $65 a month with AutoPay. So, to recap, you pay $30 less a month with the prepaid plan and you get the right amount of data every month. No need to pay almost double the cost when you don't need unlimited mobile data.

You don’t even need to stress about missing any cool perks, either. Verizon’s big perks only kick in when you opt for a postpaid unlimited plan. So if you’re not interested in a Verizon unlimited plan, the only real downside here is that you’re paying at the beginning of the month instead of the end of the month.

If you’re saving $30 every month, who really cares when you pay?

The other Verizon prepaid plans are the Unlimited for $50 with AutoPay and the Unlimited Plus for $60 with AutoPay. Compared to the Prepaid plan for $35 with AutoPay, you pay an extra $15–$25 a month for unlimited data and 25 GB hotspot data (when you choose Unlimited Plus.) As a friendly reminder of why prepaid plans rule, a comparable Verizon postpaid plan, Unlimited Plus, gets you 30 GB of hotspot data, but it costs $80 a month with AutoPay—$20 more a month than what you would pay for the 25 GB of hotspot data on the Unlimited Plus Prepaid Verizon plan for $60 a month with AutoPay.

This plan doesn’t come with any cool perks, but if you ask me, saving money is a pretty cool perk in and of itself. You can use that extra money to buy your own dang perks.

To make a long story short, if you’re on a Verizon limited-data postpaid plan, you’re doing it wrong, friend. You can save $10–$20 every month by switching from a Verizon postpaid plan to a Verizon prepaid plan.

To get the most value, stick with either the 15GB Verizon Prepaid Plan for $35/month with AutoPay or the Unlimited Plus Verizon Prepaid Plan for $60/month with AutoPay, and avoid the Unlimited Verizon Prepaid Plan for $50/month with AutoPay because it's terrible.