Ting offers decent prices with its unique approach to cell phone plans. If your usage fits into the company’s rate system, you could find good value. You can sign up for service via Ting’s website. If your phone is unlocked and compatible with Ting, all you need is a SIM card to get started.
At a glance
- Service starts at $6 per month, plus usage
- Notables: Flexible, tiered service packages; no unlimited talk and text option, so not ideal for heavy phone users
Ting cell phone ‘plans’
Ting doesn’t really have cell phone plans. Instead, it offers tiered rate packages that have a base price of $6 per line. On top of that, you pay separately for the minutes, text messages and data you use.
If you don’t use anything in one of those categories, you won’t be charged for it at the end of the month. But you aren’t charged less for using fractional amounts. So if you use 10 minutes during a month, that’s $3, the same as if you had used 90 minutes. If you go over 100 minutes, you’ll be charged $9 for the 500-minute tier.
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How Ting compares on prices
Ting’s pricing is hard to compare with other carriers since most others give you unlimited talk and text with different tiers of data.
Use the table below to see how Ting stacks up against prepaid providers that offer unlimited talk and text with their data plans.
2GB or less 3-5GB 6-9GB 10-25GB Unlimited
*Project Fi customers pay $20 for unlimited talk and text. Data is billed at a rate of $10 per gigabyte.
**Republic Wireless customers pay $15 for unlimited talk and text. Data is billed at a rate of $5 per gigabyte.
AT&T GoPhone
$35 (1GB) $50 (8GB) $65
Boost Mobile
$35 (3GB) $50
Cricket Wireless
$25 (talk and text only)
$30 (2GB)
$40 (5GB) $55
Metro by T-Mobile
$30 (2GB) $40 (10GB) $50
Net10
$20 (1GB) $35 (4GB) $40 (8GB) $50 (10GB)
$60 (12GB)
Project Fi*
$20 (talk, text and Wi-Fi)
$30 (1GB)
$40 (2GB)$50 (3GB)
$60 (4GB)
$70 (5GB)$80 (6GB+)
$80
Republic Wireless**
$15 (talk, text and Wi-Fi)
$20 (1GB)
$25 (2GB)$30 (3GB)
$35 (4GB)
$40 (5GB)
$45 (6GB)
$50 (7GB)
$55 (8GB)
$60 (9GB)$65 (10GB) N/A
Sprint prepaid $45 (4GB) $65
Straight Talk Wireless $30 (1,500 minutes, unlimited texts and 100MB data) $35 (3GB) $45 (25GB) $55
T-Mobile prepaid
$40 (10GB) $50
Total Wireless $25 (talk and text only) $35 (5GB) $50
Tracfone $20 (1GB)
$25 (2GB)
$30 (3GB)
U.S. Cellular prepaid $30 (talk and text only) $40 (5GB) $55
Verizon prepaid
$30 (1GB) $40 (6GB) $50 (16GB) $70
Virgin Mobile
$35 (5GB) $45 (10GB) $60
