The best family cell phone plans in 2025

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The best family cell phone plans help groups manage data usage and payments for several lines under a single account. If your family (or group of friends) wants to stick to a major carrier, a family plan is also a convenient way to reduce monthly bills.

Overall, Verizon's myPlan is the top option among the best family cell phone plans in our testing. It lets you add varying plans that fit individual needs under one account, and Verizon has the most extensive nationwide coverage. On the opposite end of the budget spectrum, Tello Mobile's Build Your Own Plan is a worthwhile option with customizable limited-data plans that start at an astonishing $5/month.

Our top picks for the best family cell phone plans

Best overall: Verizon myPlan - See at Verizon

Best value from a major carrier: T-Mobile Essentials Plan - See at T-Mobile

Best budget: Mint Mobile 15GB Plans - See at Mint Mobile

Best true budget: Tello Mobile Build Your Own Plan - See at Tello Mobile

Best overall

Verizon's myPlan offers the flexibility of picking different plans for individual lines within an account. This feature means the account won't be hamstrung by any user's needs, which gives families the potential to pay less if any user has demanding needs.

For example, one user who needs a lot of mobile hot spot data can opt for Verizon's Unlimited Ultimate plan, while another user with basic needs can run on the less expensive Unlimited Welcome plan.

Here's a price breakdown using a four-line account with varying plans as an example (including auto-pay discounts):

• Line 1: Unlimited Ultimate for $55/month
• Line 2: Unlimited Plus for $45/month
• Lines 3: Unlimited Welcome for $30/month
• Line 4: Unlimited Welcome for $30/month
• Total: $160/month before taxes and fees.

Note that you'll save more by adding additional friends or family to your plan, as the cost per line is higher with fewer lines.

Even if all the lines in an account run on the same plan, we favor Verizon as a premium carrier option due to its extensive coverage and excellent perks, like streaming service discounts. Indeed, our top overall pick for the best cell phone plan is Verizon's Unlimited Plus plan for its generous unlimited amount of premium data unaffected by network congestion.

While multi-line discounts can considerably reduce a monthly bill, Verizon is still among the more expensive options. If Verizon is pricier than your budget allows, we recommend more value-forward options below.

Best value from a major carrier

The family plan with the best value among major carriers is undoubtedly T-Mobile's Essentials plan. It offers a generous 50GB of premium data per line for a price other major carriers can't match. It's especially tempting for accounts with three lines or more, as T-Mobile periodically runs promotions, like a third line for free or a four-line offer for outstanding value.

Below is a pricing breakdown of T-Mobile's Essentials plan on a per-line basis, starting with at least two lines, including T-Mobile's auto-pay and Essentials Saver or other current discounts for the lowest prices:

• 2 lines: $80/month ($40/line)
• 3 lines: $90/month ($30/line)
• 4 lines: $100/month ($25/line)
• 5 lines: $120/month ($24/line)

While T-Mobile's coverage is competitive with or even superior to Verizon in cities, towns, and highways, its coverage drops quickly further away from populated areas, as T-Mobile's rural coverage is lacking compared to other major carriers. You should check that T-Mobile adequately covers your family through the network's coverage map and anecdotal experience from local friends, neighbors, or online forums.

Even if T-Mobile's value is tempting, the savings are not worth it if the network doesn't cover the areas you frequent well enough. If T-Mobile does cover you, but your family can get by with relatively limited or deprioritized data, there are also a few worthwhile budget carriers backed by T-Mobile that we recommend below.

Best budget

It's hard to beat T-Mobile's Essentials plan for value in a family plan with multiple lines, at least if several lines require unlimited data. However, Mint Mobile allows you to spend less under certain circumstances.

Mint Mobile is a mobile virtual network operator (MVNO) owned by T-Mobile that piggybacks on T-Mobile's infrastructure and network. It offers the same coverage area as T-Mobile, with data subject to deprioritization behind the higher-paying customers of its parent company.

Mint Mobile's Modern Family Plan allows you to select and manage varying plans within an account but doesn't offer multi-line discounts like major carriers. Still, you can spend significantly less than T-Mobile at certain data tiers. For a comprehensive comparison, see our guide to Mint Mobile vs. T-Mobile.

For smaller families of two, Mint Mobile offers unlimited data for $30/month on each line (or $25/month with a limited-time discount) compared to T-Mobile's Essentials Saver price of $40/month each. Families of two can save even more with Mint Mobile's 20GB, 15GB, or 5GB plans.

For families of three to five, you'll need to pick limited data plans to see any real savings over T-Mobile's Essentials. Namely, Mint Mobile's 15GB tier offers the best value and makes the most sense on average, but you can get decent savings with an even mix of its limited data plans.

Notably, Mint Mobile's lowest prices come with its 12-month plans. A prepaid annual plan is inflexible compared to T-Mobile's offerings, which are paid monthly and let you change carriers with no early termination fees if the service doesn't work out for you.

However, Mint Mobile has an exceptional introductory promotion for new customers, which constitutes our top pick among the best cheap cell phone plans; it offers the carrier's three-month plans at discounted rates, starting at $15/month.

Beyond its savings, Mint Mobile has an excellent app and website for easily managing your account and lines or seeking customer support. It stands out among the supporting platforms of other carriers for its user-friendliness.

Read our full Mint Mobile review.

Best true budget

Tello Mobile, another MVNO on T-Mobile's network, lets you manage up to four exceptionally inexpensive lines under a single account.

As we note in our Mint Mobile vs. Tello guide, Tello's low minimum costs make it an even better "true budget" option than Mint Mobile for the least expensive access to T-Mobile's network.

Tello's Build Your Own Plan lets each line in a family plan pay for what it needs and ditch what it doesn't, which can lead to outrageously low monthly bills as low as $5/month for a line.

For example, if you don't talk on the phone much but use a decent amount of data, you can opt for a plan with 100 voice minutes and unlimited data for $25/month. That's the lowest price for unlimited data in this guide. Each family member can also fine-tune their own line for data based on their anticipated usage.

Tello's Build Your Own Plan can also be a good option for families with younger kids, as data limits could be used in addition to on-device parental controls to limit online activity.

Read our full Tello Mobile review.

How we test family cell phone plans

In addition to the standardized testing we implement to select the best cell phone plans overall, our testing procedure for family plans involves examining each carrier's best features for multi-line groups and then breaking down options by their suitability for family use and value.

We also assess family-centric carrier options based on long-term and varied personal experiences from our staff, including the author and others, for plan management, customer service, and overall value.

What to look for in a family cell phone plan

Coverage is the one constant feature you need to look for in a family cell phone plan. An otherwise perfect plan for you and your family won't make sense if its backing carrier doesn't adequately service your area and the places you visit often. It won't matter that you're saving money if you can't use data or make reliable phone calls due to limited coverage.

Beyond that, the best family cell phone plan offers the data you need while fitting your budget. Major carriers tend to lower monthly costs when adding more lines to a single account. Sometimes, those multi-line savings can be so good that you'd consider a major carrier when you hadn't before.

Budget-oriented MVNOs typically do not lower the monthly cost for multiple lines in an account. However, their single-line prices are often already the equivalent of or a better value than major carriers' multi-line deals.

Another important aspect is the ability to individually manage each line on the account, whether through a website or mobile app. Luckily, nearly every carrier offers account management per line, but the ease of use of carriers' supporting platforms varies widely.