T-Mobile Essentials Plans: Review, Cost, & Price
The T-Mobile Essentials plan is an excellent option for people who want unlimited data, minutes, and messages for a great price.
The T-Mobile Essentials plan is an excellent option for people who want unlimited data, minutes, and messages for a great price.
| Plan | T-Mobile Essentials |
| Data | Unlimited |
| Minutes | Unlimited |
| Messages | Unlimited |
| Unlimited Data |
|
|---|---|
| Line Fees | $65.00 |
| Data | Included |
| Minutes | Included |
| Messages | Included |
| Discount | $5.00 |
| Total Cost | Unlimited Data |
|---|---|
| 1 Line | $60.00 |
| 2 Lines* | $90.00 |
| 3 Lines* | $90.00 |
| 4 Lines* | $105.00 |
| 5 Lines* | $120.00 |
*May include additional discounts
T-Mobile's Essential Plan does exactly what its name suggests — gives you all the essential features of a cell phone plan at a great price. The plan includes unlimited talk, text, and data as well as 3G mobile hotspot and standard definition video streaming.
One of the biggest benefits of being a T-Mobile subscriber is the customer rewards program. This plan makes you eligible for T-Mobile Tuesdays, a program that gets you free stuff, coupons, discounts and more every week!
Unlimited minutes, messages, and data are included with the Essentials plan.
This plan's data is 4G LTE. Your speeds may be throttled if you use more than 50 GB a month. Videos stream in standard definition.
You won't be charged overages on the Essentials plan.
The Essentials plan includes unlimited texting to more than 200 countries as well as unlimited minutes, messages, and 2G data in Mexico and Canada.
This plan includes unlimited mobile hotspot at 3G speeds.
T-Mobile USA, a subsidiary of T-Mobile, was founded in 1994 and is currently the third largest wireless carrier in the United States. Headquartered in Germany, T-Mobile has a massive global customer base of more than 230 million people (~71 million US).
T-Mobile’s customer service is really what separates this wireless carrier from the rest of the pack. From 2004 to 2011, T-Mobile was an 11-time winner of the J.D. Power Award for “Highest Ranked Wireless Customer Service Performance”. The self-proclaimed “Un-carrier” has also consistently won the J.D. Power Award for U.S. Wireless Customer Care, taking first place in Vol. 1 of the award in 2018.
In 2013, T-Mobile introduced it’s affordable, no-contract pricing model that still is used today. Customers also have the option to finance payments for a phone over a 24-month period, meaning you can get the latest iPhone and pay it off in small chunks, rather than having to pay thousands of dollars upfront. If you already have an unlocked smartphone, you can usually bring it over to T-Mobile. That way, you’ll have a no-contract plan and no monthly phone payments.
Although T-Mobile has historically lagged behind Verizon in terms of speed and coverage, things are beginning to change. In 2018, speed tests conducted by OpenSignal found that T-Mobile had the fastest 4G download speeds of any wireless carrier.
If you use a lot of data, T-Mobile may be the best carrier for you. Unlike Verizon, Sprint, and AT&T, T-Mobile doesn’t throttle your speed after you’ve used 22 – 23 GB. T-Mobile recently set the bar at 50 GB, meaning you can use up to 50 GB of data before being throttled or deprioritized.
Another perk of being a T-Mobile customer is T-Mobile Tuesday, where customers receive free gifts and special offers on a weekly basis. If you’re a T-Mobile customer, all you have to do is download the T-Mobile Tuesdays app to start receiving these gifts and deals.
Although T-Mobile is already a massive company, they’re making it a priority to continue to grow. In 2017, T-Mobile opened more than 1,000 new stores!