No partner roaming outside of the native Verizon network or LTEiRA partners on PrePaid. Otherwise there isn't much difference. You can see the coverage difference on this map

It’s the same. Except for the perks. You might, might get a bit slower internet but, that’s about it. Oh. Insurance, maybe different type of customer service but, it’s the same great service.

Check out visible. I had verizon before and it was like 160 for two phones. Now with pretty much same service on the verizon network I and my wife pay 30 for each of our phones

That would depend on how you define better.

Prepaid pros:

• cheap
• apart from E911 all surcharges included
• becomes even cheaper with time via autopay and loyalty discounts
• if on Prepaid Unlimited Plus, same level of prioritized service as Postpaid Unlimited Plus.
• sparse free phone promos still exist, but you have to pay for the phone up front first and get credited later
• no being “locked in” for 3 years—you have to own your phone outright so you can leave whenever, except with those free phone promos which aren’t paid out until the 6th or 12th month of service

Prepaid cons:

• no service retainment up to 30 days past due—if you’re late on payment your line simply shuts off until you pay
• no payment flexibility—no payment arrangements
• no financing your phone
• no insurance options or perks
• all plans besides Prepaid Unlimited Plus are deprioritized service meaning you’re first in line to get throttled
• makes no sense if you have 3-4 people on one account
• practically zero support from stores, and customer service experience isn’t great either

Postpaid pros:

• device financing
• robust promos on phones, watches, tablets
• prioritized service on Unlimited Plus/Ultimate
• Verizon 5G/LTE/Fios Internet $15/mo discount
• Perks for discounted subscription services like Disney, Netflix, Apple Music, Apple One, YouTube Premium, and others
• Insurance options as low as $4.95/mo for tablets and $7.95/mo for phones
• enhanced customer service experience
• flexibility on past due payments, no service suspension until 30 days past due, 60 days past due with a payment arrangement
• when you have 3+ people on the same account, monthly rates are very reasonable

Postpaid cons:

• expensive (for one or two line plans)
• if getting a phone on promo, locked in for 3 years if you truly want that promo paid out in full
• Unlimited Welcome is practically identical to Prepaid Unlimited
• surcharges and taxes are not included in the advertised prices
• AutoPay through checking account or Verizon Credit Card is REQUIRED to get the $10/mo/line discount, no debit cards or “outside” credit cards
• Lots of fees, especially reconnect fees. If you go without paying your bill long enough it’ll incur a reconnect fee per line, including watch lines, tablet lines, and internet lines. If you have a family plan with four phones, two tablets, a watch, and internet, and let your service get suspended, be prepared to pay $160 in reconnect fees alone, on top of late fees.

Yes, minus you dont get “free 15s”

And, somehow, customer service is worse.

If you're going with prepaid I would take a look at Visible+ for $45/month. The main downside is that CS is 100% web chat, no phone number.

In my eyes I’m saving money just being with Verizon. Before I added my bf to my plan I was paying around $109 (inc military disc) 15 plus, unlimited plus, apple one Hulu Netflix ad on. Visible would’ve been around $125-130 a month (inc subscriptions I would’ve alr been paying for). Ntm the promos for trade ins are now included for existing customers so we’re saving even more now whenever I plan on upgrading both phones later this year. Also plan on switching to fios whenever frontier merger is done so I’d be saving even more

I can tell you that taxes and fees really add up on postpaid. My Unlimited Ultimate line has $12 in taxes and fees. They didn’t charge me anything up front so a good chunk of that is sales tax installments for my 512GB 16 Pro Max but there are $6 in surcharges alone.

You have to add taxes and fees on Verizon and $35 activation / upgrade fee.

In my case it would cost more as I also use the credit add on with Verizon for Disney+ bundle, Netflix, Apple one family, and paramount. Not to mention I’m currently getting loyalty discounts too so yeah

Fuck na

I really don't get the draw for post paid. Prepaid seems so much better if you don't need unlimited and if your okay with not always having the fastest (read prioritized) speeds. And honestly, my wife and I get 15GB each, with hotspot and HD voice, two features I've enjoyed. Going on road trips with the family, we never run out of data. And I'm paying $75.50....after taxes/fees/all in. For 2 lines. Why would I pay $130-$140 for postpaid? So my mobile website and load .2 seconds faster? Again, to each their own, but is it worth $700/year better?

I just made the switch and no regrets. I haven’t had any noticeable issues with service. Also you can buy discounted refill cards on EBay to lower your out of pocket cost further. Just bought some $50 refills for $32 each.

The full time depriority could be an issue if congestion is a serious issue in your market. I have been using my phone exactly how I used it on postpaid, and have not observed any noticeable change. YMMV.

1. You're deprioritized at all times on prepaid (like Start Unlimited is on the postpaid side).
2. Some roaming won't be available (but LTEiRA areas should be fine).
3. Video is at the 1.8Mbps throttle, not the 3.8Mbps throttle some postpaid plans are on.
4. No hotspot using the unlimited plan on prepaid.

Those are the ones I can think of, in addition to the others mentioned.

No, I am on prepaid now and on postpaid for years. I can tell you Zero difference. But half the price and double data. How crazy it is. I don't care about customer service. Did you need to call them all the time?

I live in Atlanta, and I have had prepaid for 3+ years, and never had the first problem (that I know of). I have been downtown on the busiest of work days, and never had the first problem.

And yes, most LTE roaming IS included. Good luck!

You can use hotspot on other prepaid plans, just not the unlimited plan.

Hotspot is allowed on the tiered plans. They are doing a double data promo right now. 16gb for $45 if that’s enough data for you.

Just search Verizon Refill on eBay. $40 and $50 cards on there. You can find them for about 10-15 below face value.

Depends on the plan and your needs. Prepaid is probably fine for half the population, service wise. Usually the price point is better, but consider: you can't finance phones with Verizon on prepaid (including promotions), no insurance through them either, and many other features are unavailable (such as certain international options).

I've heard that there is a difference in regard to the prioritization. postpaid has higher prioritization that pre-paid.

At a store level i have extra discounts i can apply to up to 2 lines. I see hot spot is a non negotiable - is that needed for all 3?

If so right now it's 65/line with auto pay x 3 lines then you get a $15 BYOD credit per line making the total before tax 130 and that doesnt include any store level discounts we can offer. This is on postpaid for your situation I wouldn't bother with the prepaid

If you have more questions feel free to dm me

Only with discounts

I suppose a lot of people finance devices. So, postpaid it great in that aspect.

Hey!

I’m on prepaid - there is no difference plan wise vs postpaid.

Roaming works great! (Recently used international on both of my lines).

There’s all the same features (wifi calling, etc).

Totally agree that prepaid is a nice way to avoid a potential surprise roaming bill, etc. If there’s no funds in the account, it will just stop working.

Another bonus is a lower “activation fee”. When I signed up, I paid $10 for the SIM card then the months service.

As someone who always buys my phones outright, postpaid didn’t make sense for me.

Needs for data is going to be a huge part of this, but if the data available with the prepaid annuals is adequate for your personal needs I would highly recommend them over the postpaid.

Freedom is the only Canadian carrier that has identical features and plans on prepaid and postpaid. I would recommend prepaid as you avoid all unexpected fees, as you need to add credit to your account for pay per use services to work. For example, if you accidentally make an international call, it will simply not go through instead of charging you.

There's perks on Postpaid to consider as well. The streaming can help offset costs if they're services you use.

Postpaid really becomes a better deal if you have multiple lines or connected devices like tablets/watches.

It really depends. Yes, it is possible to have better speeds and coverage. If you're at a place that requires domestic roaming, postpaid has it, prepaid's roaming is very limited if available at all. If you are at a very congested area, postpaid gives you more priority data, which means the speed is better (or rather, decreases the least). In my experience, postpaid also gets better customer service but it's YMMV.

So, it hugely depends on your use case and location. I used to have prepaid and never had an issue. I now have a bigger family plan and since postpaid is about the same price, I switched to postpaid. There are horror stories about how bad Verizon's deprioritization could be and I don't doubt them.

So, if you are experiencing deprioritization or are going to places where you need roaming but you don't get it, then you should consider postpaid. But otherwise, if you're happy with prepaid's speed and coverage and it's cheaper, no reason really to switch.

That depends on where you are. Some places you probably won't see the difference. Other places where there are more people it may be a lot slower on prepaid at times.

priority, depriority, it's all a meme when the network is congested.

Don't expect any support at all on prepaid, though.

Based on my experience, having a postpaid and a prepaid at the same time for a couple of week. I can say that all depends.

Example: I did a speed test first on prepaid and after that on the postpaid, the speed are very similar. Download speed around 150mbps.

If you do the same test but both phones doing the speed test at the same time, you can notice a big difference between the postpaid (not starter plan) and the prepaid. In my case with postpaid I was able to get 110mbps and in the prepaid it was around 20mbps. This is how works DE prioritization.

In a normal day, do you even notice the difference in less congested areas. In a high congested area on my postpaid I was able to get 1.5-2.0mbps and in my prepaid the speed test wasn't able to run and in the best case scenario was around 0.5mbps.

Phone calls: The calls quality was very similar, but on most of the cases the postpaid was faster to connect the call.

Text messages: who use that? sorry I didn't use them only for codes from banks, so no experience on that.

Coverage: It is exactly the same in both in verizon network, but in postpaid you have domestic and international roaming.

Conclusion: Unless your life/work depends in your cellphone coverage and good internet all the time, you will be good with any of the 2. So this might not be good for real state agents, sellers, etc.

Stetson Doggett has a YouTube channel where he reviews phone plan. A Google search of Verizon post-paid vs Pre-Paid service help you understand the differences.

Your eyes do not deceive you. It's been better on prepaid for a long time.

The difference here is that those 5GB you get now on postpaid have network priority. No plan except the highest one on prepaid has priority. So expect your data to be slower during times of congestion.

Prepaid, you get some discounts with either Auto Pay or "Loyalty". Loyalty is where you have the plan for more than 9 months.

This was when I first started with Pre Paid... first 3 months, you get $5 off. The 2nd 3 months is your 6 month point. Another $5 off. Then at 9 you get another $5. Total of $15 off your plan. But... it doesn't get combined with Auto Pay.

But now it's after 3mon, $5 off. Then after 9mon, another $5. Total of $10 off.

Auto Pay discount is $10 off for plans over $45. It does say "Additional loyalty discounts do not apply".

So for the $45 plan with 15GB, I'm paying $35 because the Auto Pay superseded the Loyalty (not including tax). With tax, it's closer to $38.

If I turn off Auto Pay, maybe the Loyalty will kick in after the cycle starts again? I haven't done it to confirm. But with the revised Loyalty, it's the same amount of discount.

I wanted to share my experience with the 15GB Plan you saw, since I've had it for a bit now. I used to be on their old 5GB Plan for $35, paying $27 with the Auto Pay discount and tax. But they've discontinued that.

2 complaints: 1) No text message for your data usage. It's app only. 2) Customer service sucks for Pre Paid. Both online and calls. So... shop around.

short answer, switch to that prepaid plan.

there is NO reason you should stay on the plan you're currently on. it's much too old, and verizon doesn't offer any promos for those older plans.

the main reasons to stay on a postpaid plan is if you plan to finance a phone with a high trade in promo (which you're not), or if you're on a family plan (+5 members can bring an unlimited line down to $27 per line per month)

Yeah, that's a waste. I pay $180 for a year of service that includes the same 5GB with Mint. This works out to $15 per month. If you want unlimited, it's the equivalent to $30 per month.

All major carriers rip you off for a single line.

Moving to postpaid does qualify you for new customer promotions:

Thank you so much. Good to know it does count as a new customer switching over and price is comparable. I’m in no rush to switch, so I think waiting until Black Friday would get the best bang for my buck. Thank you everyone who took the time!

Yes you would count as a new customer. 4 lines after tax on welcome is roughly $140. I would wait for Black Friday or cyber Monday at this point 

I would avoid the Welcome plans at all costs. You have zero priority data. So if a tower is full, guess who is the last one to gain acces?

If you were to switch to postpaid; ● 4 lines on unlimited welcome would be $120+tax w/Autopay disc. You'll get unlimited data, calls, text + service in Mexico and Canada. There's also perks of other service such as Netflix & Max or Disney Bundle for $10 each if you're into that. ● You'd qualify for any entry level promo as if you were a new customer so you're good + if you get a good dude from sales they can help you out with slapping a local/national discount which is like $10 tho I can't remember how long it lasts for. ● Your discounts from prepaid would not carry over to postpaid. It'll treat as if you're cancelling service with prepaid.