Cricket Wireless has revamped its prepaid plans to trim prices and offer more perks, including hotspot data and bundled extras like streaming services.
Cricket, owned by AT&T, competes with prepaid providers from other carriers like Verizon’s Visible, T-Mobile’s Mint Mobile and Dish’s Boost Mobile. Cricket has trimmed its offerings down to four plans (from five) and dropped prices on all of them.
Cricket’s cheapest plan, called Sensible 10GB, is still $30 per month if set up with autopay (or $35 normally) and offers 5G service with 10GB of monthly data (up from 5GB previously), with speeds dropping down to 128Kbps thereafter. As a basic plan, there’s no option to add fancier options like hotspot data, cloud storage or a bundled streaming service, nor can it be used in Mexico and Canada like pricier plans.
The mobile company’s cheapest unlimited 5G plan, Select Unlimited, is $35 per month with autopay (or $40 normally), a $5 savings from its earlier plan. While it also lacks extras, hotspot data can be added on. This is the presumed family value plan, as four lines can be included for $100 a month.
Those who do want extras can pick the 5G Smart Unlimited plan for $45 per month with autopay (or $50 normally), which is a bigger upgrade on the older version of the same plan; not only is it $10 cheaper per month, but it offers 15GB of hotspot data and 100Gb of cloud storage (up from 2GB). This plan can be used in Mexico and Canada, with texting available from the US to friends in more than 200 countries and territories.
The middle plans, Select Unlimited and Smart Unlimited, come with the caveat that Cricket may temporarily slow down data speeds if the network is busy.
Cricket’s priciest unlimited 5G plan, Supreme Unlimited, is $55 with autopay per month (or $60 normally), which is $5 cheaper than the previous version. It’s intended for mobile power users with 50GB of hotspot data (up from 15GB previously), 150GB of cloud storage and HBO Max Basic with Ads, along with use in Mexico and Canada as well as texting to friends internationally.
Note that all of Cricket’s plans have video streaming in SD (around 480p), below the HD (1080p) that’s standard on most other plans.
All of Cricket’s new plans include taxes and fees in the monthly price. Carriers such as T-Mobile have begun to split those out, which end up as additional charges on customers’ monthly bills.
Cricket’s price drops follow similar moves made by the prepaid mobile providers from other carriers. In April, Verizon’s Visible added a new $45-per-month higher-tier plan with 4K video streaming and international travel service. A year ago, Boost Mobile emerged from its transition to new ownership under Dish Network with refreshed offerings including a $25 monthly plan as its new cheapest option.
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