Let me start by saying that a $10/month cell phone plan is music to my ears. It still blows that people are out there paying close to $100/month to major carriers like AT&T, T-Mobile and Verizon just to keep a single line connected. That’s why I ditched traditional carriers for value-centric services like Visible and Mint Mobile.
Those are fantastic alternatives if you want to cut your costs, but after testing RedPocket Mobile for a month, I’m thinking about what the best cheap phone plans really are. I’ve spent the last 30 days using it as my daily connection to see if this ultra affordable tier is a legitimate hidden gem or a frugal compromise. Here is what I found.
What you get
For just $10 per month, the Essential plan gives you 3GB of premium 5G data, unlimited nationwide talk and text, free international calls to over 20 countries, and roaming in over 60 destinations.
Latest Videos FromTom the guide
That represents a massive savings over the $35/month plan I use with Visible, though Visible does include unlimited data. Even with that deal, Red Pocket Mobile’s offering is easily one of the cheapest ways to get reliable 5G access.
You can lower this cost even lower by paying annually: committing to around $100 upfront saves you an extra $20, effectively dropping your service to just $8 per month. Single-plan rates are practically unheard of these days.
If 3GB of data feels a bit too restrictive, RedPocket has two additional plans to choose from: the Mid-Tier Plus plan at $20/month and the Premium plan at $30/month. The former includes a generous 20GB of data, while the latter adds up to 50GB of premium 5G data, plus a dedicated 10GB mobile hotspot.
Speeds could be better, but enough for the basics
I tested Red Pocket Mobile’s $10/month Essential plan on my Motorola Razr Fold mostly in the greater New York area—commuting from my home down the Jersey Shore to Manhattan. While I still hit dead zones with rival services, overall network performance doesn’t differ much.
When it comes to raw performance, the speeds I looked at are nothing to write home about. They’re firmly within 4G LTE territory, but definitely not fast enough to convince me I’m on 5G. The best download speed I recorded topped out at 48.5 Mbps, while my peak upload reached 4.44 Mbps in a separate test.
Speed is important if you are the type to download massive files. Doing so via Red Pocket Mobile will take considerably longer than the insane 893 Mbps download speed I saw on Verizon Ultra Wideband – but that’s exactly my point. For the average person just looking to surf the web, catch up on email, and watch the occasional video reel during their commute, Red Pocket Mobile is more than enough.
In fact, during my 1.5-hour commute on New Jersey Transit, I simply scrolled through my TikTok feed without buffering — though I quickly burned through my data allowance.
One of the most affordable options around
At just $10 a month, Red Pocket Mobile’s Essential plan is without question the most affordable wireless option I’ve tested in the last decade. For the price, it provides all the essentials you need to stay connected, but I can’t stress enough that you need to be extra careful with your data usage. That means staying on Wi-Fi networks as much as possible and holding off on data-heavy tasks while on cellular.
As an additional precaution, I strongly recommend setting up built-in data alerts and limiting your cell phone and cell phone usage thresholds. When I inevitably burned through my 3GB allotment during the test, the hard drop to 2G speeds was brutal. Voice calls and basic texting went through without issue, but trying to load something on Chrome was an exercise in futility.
If you can treat cellular connectivity as an occasional setback, Red Pocket easily pays for itself – just make sure you keep an eye on the meter.
follow Tom’s Guide to Google News in the add us as a preferred source to get our latest news, analysis and reviews in your feeds.