Trump Mobile is a bad deal
For that price, you get unlimited talk and texting, international calling, plus 20GB of 'high-speed' cell and hotspot data, which a customer support representative told me is 5G.
But while the plan's price might have been selected to appeal to Trump fans (he is the 47th president and was also 45th president), it was certainly not selected to compete aggressively on price.
For a prepaid phone service, Trump Mobile is a bad deal.
There are cheaper plans than this if you look, basically, anywhere
Prepaid plans are usually designed to offer a mix of affordability and flexibility — most of them let you pay or cancel month to month. They usually include fewer perks than post-paid phone plans, but you can generally get a better price.
The major carriers all do better if you go straight to their own prepaid brands. For $40 per month, you can get unlimited 5G service from Verizon's prepaid carrier, Visible, from AT&T's prepaid carrier, Cricket, and from T-Mobile's prepaid carrier, Metro. Visible also includes smartwatch coverage at that price.
Go beyond the big carriers, and you'll get even better pricing. Google Fi will give you 30GB of 5G data for $35/month. Walmart Family Mobile offers 20GB of 5G for $33.88 per month. Boost Mobile offers 30GB of 5G for $25/month. And Tello offers unlimited data for $25 per month.
Even if you're limiting yourself to patriotically branded cell companies, you can do better. US Mobile offers unlimited 5G for $35 per month. And while US Cellular's $40/month plan only has 15GB of high-speed data, it also has an additional 15GB of hot spot data.
Of course, every phone plan comes with caveats and loopholes. There's a reason the pricing here is so variable. Some networks may be more aggressive about throttling your data. Others come with restrictions on hot spots. Some have better coverage maps.
Trump Mobile's inflated price is bolstered by some unique perks. It includes roadside assistance through Drive America Motor Club with a $100 credit toward towing. It also includes device protection through Omega Mobile Care. This could be a good value, but with service plans like these, what matters is how well they actually work in practice. And it's hard to ascertain how reliable Omega Mobile Care is when it only seems to exist on the Trump Mobile website. (Omega seems to primarily provide auto service; it is also listed as a 'partner' of Drive America.)
The market for cellphone service is confusing. The biggest carriers all offer multiple tiers of plans, multiple ways to pay, and different services through subsidiary brands. Meanwhile, smaller providers — known as MVNOs — that operate off the major networks have become so common and easy to create that the SmartLess podcast just launched their own mobile plan. (They charge $30/month.)
That's what allows a carrier like Trump Mobile to exist. They don't have to deploy a network or worry about offering great service — they just have to brand it well.
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