Best Family Phone Plans for 2025

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Our Picks

Best for value with multiple lines

T-Mobile Essentials

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$120 (3 lines) at Verizon

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Runner-up plan for perks

T-Mobile Experience More

Best family phone plans for 2025

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A wireless carrier saying it offers 5G is like me saying I have a car. Good for me — but what make and model is it? Does it run reliably? Can it actually get up to the top speed on the speedometer or will it sputter when I try to merge onto the freeway? And could I have gotten the same performance if I’d paid less for a model without extras like heated seats and a TruCoat sealant?

As you’re evaluating carriers, keep the following things in mind.

Picking a wireless plan and carrier is a very individualized process. What works for you and your family’s needs may be vastly different from what your friends or neighbors are looking for. Even geographically, some areas have better AT&T coverage while others work best on Verizon or T-Mobile. The picks we make are based on more than a decade of covering and evaluating wireless carriers, their offerings and overall performance.

Specifically, we take into account coverage, price/value and perks.

Coverage

Since all three major providers cover most of the country with good 4G LTE or 5G, this is largely a toss-up on a macro level. It’s why we recommend a variety of eSIM options for figuring out what works best for you in your particular location, so you can best decide what’s right for you. Looking at coverage maps on each provider’s website will likely show that you get good coverage even if your experience isn’t full bars or the fastest speeds.

Price/value

Value is factoring in the total experience you might get, such as how much high-speed data you get and what’s included in the sticker price. We also take into account whether a plan includes typical taxes and fees, or whether those are charged separately, inching your monthly bill higher.

Perks

Perks are add-ons beyond the core components of wireless service (talk, text and data). This could range from bundling in or discounting on streaming services to extra hotspot data or the ability to use your phone internationally.

The three major companies in the US — AT&T, T-Mobile and Verizon — offer services directly and have robust nationwide networks that offer 4G LTE (fast) and 5G (even faster) data. They all promise coverage that blankets most of the US, and they’re actively trying to build up 5G coverage everywhere they can.

But maps are one thing; experience is another. That’s why it’s impossible to say that one carrier is objectively better than another. For example, T-Mobile’s service in New York may be excellent, but Verizon is more reliable in rural Iowa. Or you may have basic 5G coverage but not faster millimeter wave 5G.

If possible, ask neighbors, friends or family near you about which carriers they use and how fast or reliable the wireless service is. And don’t forget to take into consideration not just where you live, but the places you frequent: Your house might get a clear connection, but your workplace could be in a cellular black hole.

You may also be able to test-drive a network — go to a carrier’s store and ask if there are free ways to try out the company’s service. T-Mobile offers a free three-month Network Pass, Verizon has a 30-day “trial” program, and AT&T has its own 30-day eSIM free trial program.

“5G” is an umbrella term that encompasses the current fifth-generation cellular wireless network technologies. All the major carriers and phones support 5G connections, which can offer faster data speeds than older technologies such as 4G LTE or 3G.

Essentially there are three types of 5G: Millimeter-wave (mmWave), which can be fast but has limited range; low-band 5G, which has slower speeds but works on a broader range; and midband, which is a balance between the two that’s faster than low-band but also covers a larger range than millimeter-wave. Midband also incorporates C-band, a batch of spectrum auctioned off by the Federal Communications Commission in 2021.

Your phone’s 5G connection depends on which type blankets the area you’re in, as well as other factors, such as population density and infrastructure. For instance, mmWave is super fast, but its signals can be thwarted by buildings — or glass, or leaves — or whether you’re inside a structure.

When your device is connected to a 5G network, it can show up as several variations such as 5G, 5G Plus, 5G UW or others, depending on the carrier. Here’s a list of icons you see at the top of your phone for the major services:

AT&T: 5GE (which isn’t actually 5G, but rather a sly marketing name for 4G LTE), 5G (low band), 5G Plus (mmWave, midband)

Verizon: 5G (low band, also called “Nationwide 5G”), 5G UW/5G UWB (midband and mmWave, also called “5G Ultra Wideband”)

T-Mobile: 5G (low band), 5G UC (midband and mmWave, also called “Ultra Capacity 5G”)

It can be. The more lines you have on an account, the more money a carrier will make, so there are usually incentives to add more. For example, the per-line charge typically goes down as you add more; you’re still paying more for four lines than for two lines, but you’re not paying twice as much. As another example, T-Mobile considers a third line “free,” so a family of three will pay the same rate as a family of two.

Verizon lets you mix and match plans within an account, so a parent’s line could be on a more expensive plan that can access the fastest data network speeds, while a child could be on an inexpensive plan that doesn’t offer the highest speeds.

It is, but the speeds you get may vary depending on your plan and how much data you use in a given month.

To experience data slowdowns on most of the plans mentioned above, you will need to have:

1. Used over 50GB of data in a month.

2. Be in an area that’s experiencing “congestion,” “heavy traffic” or a “busy” network. Examples of this could be at a sporting event or concert where there are tens of thousands of people in the same area uploading and sharing photos and videos.

All carriers say that in these cases your data should be slowed only “temporarily.” If you have an older unlimited plan, your threshold for when your data slows and how long it lasts may be different.

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