Top Verizon and AT&T Plans Compared

We'll dive into the details to help you compare and pick the AT&T or Verizon unlimited plan for you. Before we get into specifics, let's talk about the balance between price and value.

A great monthly price is a big part of the value equation, no question about it. But so are features and capabilities. It's the combination of the two. Understanding your own needs is the most important aspect of finding the plan that offers you the best fit and overall value.

We've got details on Entry Level Plans, aimed at lighter-data users who still want unlimited data for a great price. We have details on Top of the Line Plans for those heavy users (i.e. families with gamers and streamers and those who use their phone for business) who want the very best network all of the time, along with a wide variety of features and perks. And we have information for those interested in Middle-of-the-Road Plans that give you a little of both.

Understanding what plan is right for you is not simple.  Some people would rather spend an hour in the dentist chair rather than sort through all the intricacies of wireless pricing.  And surfing the internet to try and discover all the options, understand the terminology - it takes a lot of your precious time, time you’d rather spend doing other stuff. No worries, that’s why we founded Navi - to make it easier to make informed decisions that are right for you.

The good news is you've simplified part of the journey. You've decided to look at the differences between just two carriers: AT&T and Verizon.

But you are still confronted with figuring out premium data, deprioritized data - what are the differences and how much you might need?  If that wasn’t enough, there is also the matter of hotspot data. Do you need it? How much? What perks does AT&T or Verizon have that could save you money? And whether being on a certain plan makes you eligible (or not) for smartphone promotions, potentially saving some real money on that device you’ve been hoping for. Sorting through all that can be understandably overwhelming and just plain tiresome.

Navi is here to help!

When shopping for the best phone plans, the trick is to have an idea of what matters most to you before you start comparing. The clearer your idea of what you need, the faster you can sort through all of the options and figure out what to do.

AT&T and Verizon are two of the premier wireless carriers in the United States, and for good reason. They each have great networks and service plans that include options for lighter data users seeking good value, for heavy data users looking for the very best data experience all the time, great hotspot bandwidth, and tons of add-ons and included streaming services. And middle of the road plans that have a little bit of both.

First, let's take a look at the most important things to consider when you're looking for a new phone plan:

Of course. No matter what type of plan might be right for you, how much it costs is super important. But there's more to it than that.

Here are some things to consider:

Does a plan get more affordable than others as you add more lines? In the cases of AT&T and Verizon, their plan pricing (across all their plans) drops by $5-$10 per month for each additional line up to 5 lines. So, if you are just one person subscribing to AT&T's Unlimited Starter plan, you will pay $65 monthly. But, if you are a family of five, that same AT&T plan will cost you $30 per line, or $150 monthly.

Does your plan price include taxes and fees? No AT&T or Verizon plans include taxes and fees, so plan on those being extra. For some other providers, plan prices do include taxes and fees. The lesson here is to always read the fine print.

Does subscribing to a certain plan allow you to take advantage of lucrative smartphone promotions? Some plans, like AT&T’s Value Plus and Verizon’s Unlimited Welcome plans, do not allow subscribers to take advantage of lucrative smartphone discounts and promotions. Higher end plans generally do.

Do a plan's perks and add-ons save you money in other areas of your family budget?  In the case of  Verizon, its Middle of the Road and Top of the Line plans offer a variety of streaming services, like Hulu, Disney+ and others, that saves you as much as $10-20 per month (by canceling your stand-alone subscriptions if you have them).  But again, read the fine print.  The offers are generally for ad-supported plans, which may be fine, but maybe not.

When comparing AT&T and Verizon across the board,  AT&T generally has lower per-month pricing. But the point here is that you need to understand plan pricing in context to get the right plan for you at the best price!

Cellular Data is not as simple as you might think.  All unlimited data plans are not created equal. Let us try to explain - briefly.

AT&T’s and Verizon’s Top of the Line unlimited plans offer “premium data” 100% of the time. That means your data connection will get the very best treatment the carrier can offer … and will never be “deprioritized”, even in times of heavy network congestion. But that’s not true for Entry Level plans. For Entry Level plans your data is technically unlimited, but you might be “deprioritized” in times when networks get really busy. But, fear not, being “deprioritized” is very different from being “capped” (as was the case ten years ago). 95% of users will not recognize that they are being “deprioritized”. And, as you might expect, Middle of the Road unlimited plans offer a combination of premium and deprioritized data.

Your most important decision in selecting a plan is figuring out whether you can live with being “deprioritized” from time to time.

For Verizon’s Unlimited Welcome plan, for example, the data is unlimited, but it can be deprioritized. Same for AT&T’s Unlimited Starter plan: they may temporarily slow your data when their network is busy. But, for AT&T’s Unlimited Premium Plan, they will never slow your data, no matter how much you use.  This is also the case for Verizon’s Top of the Line Unlimited Plus plan - they will never slow you down.

One of the most important considerations when comparing Verizon to AT&T is one you’ve no doubt thought of already… which carrier offers better coverage in your area. Unfortunately, when comparing coverage, there isn’t a quick and easy method to getting an accurate assessment.  Network quality is very very localized.  So localized, in fact, that one side of your home could have terrific network performance and the other side of your home miserable network performance.  Coverage maps don’t help with that!

Your experience of a carrier's network quality and coverage is the sum total of a lot of related factors. These factors include such things as (1) your proximity to the nearest cell tower; (2) whether your carrier offers 5G technology on high band frequencies in your area; (3) the number of other customers your carrier serves in your immediate neighborhood; and (4) the materials your home is made of.  And there are other factors too.  As such, measuring network quality and coverage quality is no simple task. From a technical perspective, measuring network quality (meaning your download speed, the number of dropped calls, presence of dead zones, etc.) is a function of the following jargon:

• Signal Strength (i.e. “bars” on your screen): Is your smart phone receiving a strong signal from the nearest cell tower? As you know, poor signal reception means poor service.
  
• Signal Congestion: How much cell phone traffic is there in your neighborhood? The more people near you on your carrier's network, the worse it is for you. You can have super signal strength but poor service, which is usually the result of excess network congestion.
  
• Frequency Band: Your carrier generally has 4-6 frequency bands that your phone can attach to at any time. So a nice question to know is what frequency band is your carrier putting you on most often? Certain frequency bands are like a super highway - with very high data throughput. Other frequency bands are more like a country road – with slower data speed but better at penetrating walls and other heavy structures.
• Reselection: With many frequency bands available, carriers often switch you back and forth depending on a variety of factors (like network congestion).  Sometimes this is good, but a lot of the time this is not good.
• 5G: All carriers are rolling out 5G which is the latest wireless technology. Carriers have generally integrated 5G technology onto their higher frequency bands. But, if your phone isn’t within range of one of these higher frequency bands, you will not have access to 5G service.

With all the above factors in mind, measuring coverage is tricky and varies from person to person and location to location.  It’s for this reason that Navi is hard at work developing a first-of-its-kind tool to let you compare coverage from different carriers where it matters most to you at the same time.  Check back at www.yournavi.com in the weeks ahead.  But until we launch this service later in 2023, here are a few tips:

• Compare services with friends and family that have different carriers. Invite them into your house and run speed tests in different locations.
  
• Check out blogs nd forums in your area to find out what other people are experiencing on different carriers.
  
• Check out carrier coverage maps (but this is only useful for trying to anticipate generally areas with poor coverage).
  

Carriers like AT&T and Verizon offer very different packages of international calling features.  If you are a frequent foreign traveler or frequent foreign caller look carefully at the fine print because it could save you or cost you a lot per month.

Last but not least there is video quality … Top of the Line plans have better video quality / streaming speed  - generally 2160 Mbps..  Entry Level plans generally have video quality / streaming speed of 480 Mbps.

While our picks for best phone plans focused on overall value–taking into account all the features we mentioned above to give you the ones that check the most boxes, you may have something specific in mind. Whether you’re looking for a specific price range, list of features or something in between, we’ve got you covered below.

If you’re interested in an unlimited plan and price is the top driver of your decision, you should have AT&T’s Unlimited Starter or Verizon’s Unlimited Welcome with Feature Bundle at the top of your list. We’ll break down the features in more detail so you can make the right decision for you, but keep in mind that Verizon’s Unlimited Plus is slightly more expensive if you want to add any of its available add-on bundles with it, but has a ton of extra features that you can pile on if you’re interested in them. AT&T’s Unlimited Starter is slightly cheaper but also doesn’t provide users the option to mix and match any add-on features.

AT&T Unlimited Starter beats out Verizon’s Unlimited Welcome with Feature Bundle on price, costing a single-line account holder $65/month compared to Verizon’s $75/month. Both plans provide subscribers with unlimited deprioritized data, but AT&T Unlimited Starter slightly edges out Verizon on hotspot connectivity, providing 3GB of hotspot data to all of its subscribers. Verizon’s Unlimited Welcome doesn’t provide any hotspot capability off the shelf, but one of the add-ons you can purchase is 100GB of mobile hotspot data - a huge amount for a plan at this price point. Many customers don’t use very much hotspot data if they do use it at all, so keep in mind that if your hotspot consumption is negligible, you may not miss it if you go with Verizon.

If you’re interested in extra features like perks, streaming services, or other subscriptions, Unlimited Welcome with Feature Bundle has you covered - sort of. It affords customers the ability to buy any of 9 add-on features at $10/month each, including Apple Music Family, Walmart+, 100GB of mobile hotspot data, Disney+/Hulu/ESPN+, and several others. So, while Unlimited Welcome does provide the option to add features, keep in mind that they cost $10/month each to add to your plan. AT&T Unlimited Starter does not currently offer any perks or added streaming services.

If you want to pay even less because you really don’t need any extras in your wireless plan besides basic talk, text, and data, consider stepping down one level further to either AT&T’s Value Plus or Verizon’s Unlimited Welcome (off the shelf, with no feature bundles included) plan. Both come with unlimited deprioritized data and Value Plus is $50/month for single lines while Unlimited Welcome is $65/month for single lines. A key difference is that Value Plus is only available for single-line customers; accounts with more than one line must purchase a different AT&T plan. In any case, if price is the number one driver of your decision, you’re interested in a plan that doesn’t contain any frills or services that you won’t end up using, and you’re comfortable with the restrictions associated with these plans, either Unlimited Welcome or Value Plus may be good choices for you.

If you want the best out of your wireless service plan and are willing to pay for it, then you should go with the Top of the Line options: Verizon’s Unlimited Plus with Feature Bundle and AT&T’s Unlimited Premium plans are for you. Data-wise, these give the best experience each carrier can offer. These plans offer great connectivity and a ton of extra features, so they're what you need if you use a lot of data regularly as a streamer, gamer, or heavy business user.

Verizon and AT&T's Top of the Line offerings match up on cellular data: both offer unlimited premium data that the carriers will never slow down based on how much you use. Hotspot is slightly more complicated: AT&T’s Unlimited Premium offers 50GB of hotspot data while Verizon’s Unlimited Plus with Feature Bundle offers 30GB. Keep in mind that the difference between 30 and 50GB is minimal if you aren’t a heavy hotspot user, as the average wireless customer won’t use up to 30GB of hotspot data. If you’re a heavy hotspot user, Verizon offers an extra 100GB of hotspot data as one of the feature bundles for Unlimited Plus, bringing the total hotspot data to 130GB. That's more than enough hotspot data for even the top echelon of hotspot users, and certainly plenty for the average user who doesn't connect to hotspot very often. A key difference here is that Verizon charges $5 more per line for single lines - $90/month for Unlimited Premium with Feature Bundle compared to $85/month for AT&T's Unlimited Premium.

If it's add-ons and perks that you're after, Verizon Unlimited Plus with Feature Bundle plan offers optional access to Hulu, Disney+, ESPN+, Apple Music Family, Apple One, and 2TB of Verizon Cloud Storage. In contrast, AT&T Unlimited Premium doesn't include much in the way of added subscriptions - subscribers get access to AT&T ActiveArmor advanced mobile security, but that's about it. So if you’d like to bundle additional perks and features with your wireless plan, Verizon offers a variety of perks you can mix and match, but there will be an additional cost for each new feature.

Both plans offer highly competitive international connectivity: Verizon Unlimited Plus with Feature Bundle provides subscribers with unlimited talk, text, and 2GB of high-speed data while you travel in Canada and Mexico (followed by unlimited 3G data afterwards, which is too slow to do much useful with), as well as the aforementioned single TravelPass day per month that you can use to stay connected while traveling in most countries in the world. AT&T Unlimited Premium sports unlimited talk, text, and high-speed data in 19 Latin American countries, making it the obvious choice for travelers who are doing business in or otherwise frequently traveling anywhere in Central or South America.

If you’re more interested in striking a balance between paying a great price for your plan and getting some extra features, consider the Middle-of-the-Road options: AT&T Unlimited Extra, or Verizon Unlimited Plus (off the shelf, with no feature bundle included). At 1 line, AT&T’s Unlimited Extra is $75 per month, while Verizon Unlimited Plus starts at $80 per month.

Verizon’s Unlimited Plus provides unlimited premium data and 30GB of hotspot, making it a great option in the Middle-of-the-Road category for those users who expect to consume a ton of data and can’t sacrifice at all on connectivity.  AT&T’s Unlimited Extra provides 50GB of premium data and 15GB of hotspot connectivity and is slightly cheaper, so may be a better fit for customers who are comfortable sacrificing on connectivity in exchange for saving a few dollars a month.

The real differentiator between AT&T and Verizon Middle-of-the-Road plans is perks! Unlimited Plus includes a host of add-on features like bundled streaming services or additional data features that are all available for purchase at $10/month. So, if you need extra features tacked onto your service plan like Apple One, Apple Music Family, Walmart+, 100GB of mobile hotspot connectivity, Unlimited Plus is a great option.

Both Verizon and AT&T afford international connectivity while you're outside of the United States, with each carrier guaranteeing unlimited texting from home and unlimited talk and text within and between Canada and Mexico. Verizon's Middle-of-the-Road option also guarantees users 2GB per day of high-speed data while you're traveling in Canada and Mexico, while AT&T Unlimited Extra guarantees unlimited data while you're traveling in those countries too but stops short of guaranteeing that any amount of it will be "high-speed." All of the plans offer unlimited international texting while you're stateside and unlimited talk and text in and between Canada and Mexico.