Sprint is now the fourth largest wireless phone carrier in the US, with 53 million customers, as of 2019. 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.
Read Next: Best US carrier plans | Best unlimited data plans in the US
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.
Keep in mind that T-Mobile has announced a plan to merge its operations with Sprint, and if that happened the Sprint brand name would officially disappear. While the T-Mobile-Sprint merger is supposed to close sometime in 2019, it looks like it might have some hurdles to overcome from U.S. regulators and agencies.
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 for one line. Adding a second line will cost an additional $40 a month, and adding a third, fourth and fifth line will cost $20 more a month for each line. 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.
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 200 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 $5.99 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 $10 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 50GB of LTE data 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 200 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 also has the Unlimited Premium plan, which costs $80 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 100GB of LTE data for your mobile hotspot. The plan also offers unlimited talk, text, and even unlimited 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 200 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.
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 six 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.
Unlimited plans for tablets and smartwatches
If you sign up one smartphone to one of Sprint’s unlimited plans, you can add a tablet to the account for the same monthly price as an additional phone. It also offers 10GB of LTE mobile hotspot data for tablets as well. If you own a smartwatch, you can add it to your unlimited plan account for just $10 a month, with unlimited talk, text and data.
Bring your own device plan
If you already have a smartphone that you want to bring to Sprint, you can save $10 a month off the normal prices of Sprint’s unlimited plans when you sign that phone up to either Unlimited Plus or Unlimited Premium plan.
Sprint Unlimited Kickstart Plan
This is a special limited time plan offer from Sprint. It lets new customers sign up for an unlimited talk, text and data plan for just $25 a month, with Auto Pay (the price goes up without Auto Pay, along with other fees and taxes). You can purchase a phone from Sprint or use your own. This is a very bare bones plan. You cannot purchase a phone from Sprint under its lease option with this plan; it has to be with the full retail price. It also does not have any mobile hotspot data, and it doesn’t include the free Hulu subscription.
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.
If you purchase a stand-alone mobile hotspot device from Sprint, you have your choice of data plans. You can get 10GB of LTE data a month for $30, 50GB of data a month for $50 or 100GB of data for just $60 a month.
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 200 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. Most of the other countries on this list price their travel passes at $5 a day or $25 a week, but some are priced higher at $10 a day or $50 a week. One exception is if you are traveling to Japan. You can get a plan with unlimited calls, texts and data roaming with high-speed data for just $5 a month.
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 beaten 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.
Read more: Best Sprint deals (May 2019)
