So you’re thinking of buying Apple's latest smartphone, the iPhone 14. Like thousands of people, you’ll probably gravitate toward buying the phone from your carrier, which has long been the best way to save. But is that still the case?
WalletHub's cell phone savings calculator lets you compare the upfront cost of a new phone plus monthly fees, to see how much the next two years of your life will cost. In the infographic below, it provides a full breakdown of pricing for a 128GB iPhone 14 on each carrier, plus all the MVNOs that use carrier networks.
These kinds of comparisons are not simple, as everyone has different needs—individual versus family plans, for instance. And some buy the handset with a payment plan, while others buy their phones upfront. Some people even buy their phones direct from Apple via an installment plan. WalletHub breaks down those costs, too.
If you feel you must stick with the top three US carriers, and you have only one phone, the cheapest way to go is with T-Mobile. The carrier installment plan with a new iPhone 14 purchase will cost $2,173 over two years, and that's cheaper than buying the phone up front sans contract. You save a dollar more if you buy the phone from Apple with its own installment plan (Apple’s iPhone Carrier Device Payment Program) instead, which lets users upgrade to a new iPhone every year and includes full AppleCare+ coverage.
But you can save over $659 more by buying your iPhone 14 outright and going with a mobile virtual network operator (MVNO), the kind of carrier that doesn’t own its own network. In this case, the cheapest option is to go with Visible: For a no-contract option, the total cost including phone over two years is $1,513. It's by far the least expensive MVNO using these criteria—the next cheapest is Straight Talk at $1,817.
Visible is owned by Verizon and uses Verizon Wireless’s network of towers. Straight Talk uses towers from all of the big three carriers and is now also owned by Verizon. But you don't always get 5G coverage with an MVNO. That’s reserved more for the direct carrier customers.
Family plans are much the same when it comes to the top carriers, with T-Mobile providing the best prices when you get an iPhone 14 under installment. The price savings when you jump to a discount family plan with the MVNOs that have four-plus lines is only a little better, less than $300 savings per line over two years—but to get that, you have to go with Cricket Wireless (an AT&T-owned MVNO). Again, that is only going to save money for you if you buy the phone up front, which isn’t always an option for people.
Here is the full infographic from WalletHub, which also shows that real savings come from using your old phones with the MVNOs listed above, depending on your individual (Visible) or family (Cricket) plan.
For more, read The Best Cheap Phone Plans for 2022 and Virtual Carriers Beat AT&T, T-Mobile, and Verizon on Customer Satisfaction.