Sprint is now the fourth largest wireless phone carrier in the US, with 58 million customers, as of May 2018. That’s a drop down from its previous position as the third biggest carrier, which was taken from Sprint by T-Mobile. Needless to say, Sprint has been trying very hard to keep up recently with its three main rivals, Verizon Wireless, AT&T and T-Mobile.
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While Sprint has long offered unlimited with tons of extra features at a great price, the unlimited space has heated up a lot recently with every major network now offering an option. So in a highly competitive marketplace, where does Sprint stand?
In this article we will show you the best Sprint plans that the carrier currently has available for its new customers, and show which ones are best for individual accounts, along with ones that are the best for friends and family. The truth is that the price of Sprint’s unlimited plan is actually great for everyone, and it’s clear that the company wants to sign up as many people as it can to that plan.
Sprint Unlimited Basic Plan
The carrier’s Unlimited Basic is the cheapest unlimited Sprint plan that’s currently being offered. At the moment, one line on the plan costs $60 a month, and two lines costs a total of $100. If a customer wants to add a third, fourth or a fifth line to the account, Sprint will throw them in for $20 a month each. All of these prices assume the customer will choose AutoPay as a payment option. Activation fees will be waived for lines three to five from now until July 31. While the plan does offer “unlimited” 4G LTE data, your speeds might get throttled if you exceed 50GB of data before your monthly billing period ends.
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In addition to unlimited data, talk and texting in the US, the Sprint Unlimited Basic offers support for streaming video at up to 480p resolution, along with streaming music at up to 500kbps and streaming data for games at up to 2 Mbps. Each line on the plan can also offer 500MB GB of 4G LTE mobile hotspot downloads. After that limit is reached before the billing month closes, mobile hotspot streaming goes back down to 3G speeds. The plan also offers unlimited talk, text, and 5GB of LTE data a month for people in the US who travel to Mexico and Canada, along with text and data (likely not LTE data) for over 185 other countries.
Sprint is also offering free access to the Hulu video streaming service for Unlimited Basic Plan customers. New and current Hulu subscribers who sign up for Unlimited Basic can get the standard Hulu Limited Commercials tier package for free, which normally costs $7.99 a month.
Sprint Unlimited Plus Plan
Sprint also offers an upgraded version of its Unlimited Basic Plan. The Unlimited Plus plan costs $70 a month for the first line, and a total of $120 a month for two lines. Lines three to five will each cost $30 a month. However, if you bring your own phone, or pay the full price for your new phone from Sprint, you will be able to cut the price of the Unlimited Plus plan down by $20 for each line. Again, while the plan does offer “unlimited” 4G LTE data, your speeds might get throttled if you exceed 50GB of data before your monthly billing period ends.
This Sprint plan increases your video streaming to 1080p resolution, and you also get 15GB of LTE data a mobile for mobile hotspots. Music streaming goes up as well to 1.5 Mbps. The plan also offers unlimited talk, text, and 10GB of LTE data a month for people in the US who travel to Mexico and Canada, along with text and data (likely not LTE data) for over 185 other countries. Finally, in addition to the free access to Hulu, Sprint Unlimited Plus plan uses can also access the Tidal Premium music streaming service, which normally costs $9.99 a month.
Sprint Unlimited Premium Plan
Sprint recently launched the Unlimited Premium plan, which costs $90 a month for the first line. Again, while the plan does offer “unlimited” 4G LTE data, your speeds might get throttled if you exceed 50GB of data before your monthly billing period ends.
This Sprint plan supports video streaming to 1080p resolution, and you also get 50GB of LTE data a mobile for mobile hotspots. The plan also offers unlimited talk, text, and 10GB of LTE data a month for people in the US who travel to Mexico and Canada, along with text and data (likely not LTE data) for over 185 other countries. Finally, in addition to the free access to Hulu and Tidal, it has added support for a free subscription to Amazon Prime, along with a subscription to Lookout Premium Plus, which is a mobile security and identity theft service. Finally, for a limited time, Sprint Unlimited Premium plan users can get $20 of credit a month for Uber rides.
Sprint Military Unlimited Plan
Sprint also offers what it calls its Unlimited Military Plan for veterans, active duty and reserves of the U.S. armed forces. It offers the same features as the Sprint Unlimited Basic Plan, but prices for lines two to five are 50 percent less.
Sprint Unlimited 55+ Plan
For couples who are 55 years of age or older, the Sprint Unlimited 55+ Plan offers a plan that costs just $70 a month for two lines.
Sprint plans with limited data
If, for some reason, you don’t want to sign up for Sprint plans with unlimited data, the carrier doesn’t have much in the way of alternatives. It does offer a single-line plan that costs just $40 a month, but it only offers 2 GB of high-speed LTE data, along with unlimited talk and text. The company also offers its Sprint Forward pre-paid plan, which also costs $40 a month. It gives those subscribers 4 GB of high-speed data, unlimited talk and texting, along with mobile hotspot support and unlimited texting around the world from the US.
Finally, if you want to take your Sprint phone out of the US, the carrier also has some international roaming plans. If the country you are traveling to is on Sprint’s approved list, you can get unlimited data at 2G speeds, and unlimited texting, along with calls that start at $0.20 a minute. You can also purchase 4G LTE data passes which work in over 50 countries. Prices for those passes vary depending on where you are going. If you are just crossing the border to Canada or Mexico, the high-speed data passes costs $2 a day or $10 a week. If you are going to China, the prices are $10 a day or $50 a week. In any of the other 50 or so countries that support these passes, the prices are $5 a day or $25 a week.
Conclusion
As you can see, Sprint really, really wants new customers to sign up for its unlimited plan, and for the price it certainly can’t be beat by its main competitors. For folks who just don’t want to deal with an unlimited plan, there’s really not much for them when it comes to Sprint plans if we are frank. It will be interesting to see how long Sprint keeps this current business plan, or if it will alter it to include more post-paid non-unlimited plans.
