Best Prepaid Phone of 2024: Value Picks for Cheaper Plans

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Mike Sorrentino Senior Editor

Mike Sorrentino is a Senior Editor for Mobile, covering phones, texting apps and smartwatches — obsessing about how we can make the most of them. Mike also keeps an eye out on the movie and toy industry, and outside of work enjoys biking and pizza making.

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While prepaid phone carriers sell a wide variety of phones — including many flagship phones from yesteryear — for our best prepaid phones list, I’ve focused the picks on phones that are currently available unlocked from a phone maker in addition to phones you can buy directly from a carrier. This is partly because of software and security updates — each of these picks will receive at least one major software update and at least three years of security updates, which extend the lifespan of these phones. 

It’s an important distinction, because even though you can buy a device like the Samsung Galaxy A03S from Mint Mobile for $126, that device is no longer receiving security updates. This means the phone is no longer as safe to use as a lower-cost device that is still receiving active vulnerability protection from its phone maker.

As a result most picks on this list are phones that have been released within 2023-24, with the exception of Apple’s iPhone 13. This is because Apple’s phones historically receive many years of software and security support — for instance while Apple recently sunset major iOS software updates to 2017’s iPhone X and iPhone 8, both devices are still receiving security updates. This allows us to be quite confident that Apple will be providing many more years of software and security updates to the iPhone 13, even as the device enters its third year on the market. 

Finding the right price is key: A benefit to getting a prepaid phone plan over postpaid is that by buying your service upfront, you won’t otherwise be stuck on a contract nor do you need to get a credit check in order to sign up for a cellphone plan. However, it does mean that you are unlikely to receive a deep discount off of your next device when you aren’t bringing over an existing one, since many phone carriers offer hefty device subsidy incentives when signing up with a new postpaid plan or renewing an existing one. This means that device cost is going to be a very important issue when buying a phone to use on a prepaid plan, because you could be footing the entire bill. 

Target your most important needs: You’ll want to decide whether you need a cheaper device that covers all of your essential functions or if you are OK with springing for a more expensive device with more capabilities. 

Remember to shop around: While many US phone purchases are made through a phone carrier, most prepaid phone plans include a bring-your-own-device option. This means you don’t have to buy your handset from a prepaid phone carrier to sign up with them, which is helpful if you have one already or especially if you find a deal at another store for the same device. After purchase, you will instead sign up for a plan with your prepaid carrier and follow their directions for setting up your device with their service. 

Make sure you buy a compatible device: Even though you don’t have to buy your phone from a prepaid carrier, you do need to make sure the phone you purchase is compatible with it. For instance, if you are buying a phone to use on Mint Mobile, you’ll want to make sure that it’s a device that’s compatible with T-Mobile’s network. Same with Cricket, running on AT&T. Same with Visible, running on Verizon. Most prepaid carriers will tell you what networks their service runs on, and that will help you match up what device you need from there.

Every phone on this list has been thoroughly tested by CNET’s expert reviews team. We use the phone, test the features, play games and take photos. We assess any marketing promises that a company makes about its phones. And if we find something we don’t like, be it battery life or build quality, we tell you about it. 

We examine every aspect of a phone during testing:

• Display
• Design and feel
• Processor performance
• Battery life
• Camera quality
• Features

We test all the phone’s cameras (both front and back) in a variety of conditions: from outdoors under sunlight to dimmer indoor locales and nighttime scenes (for any available night modes). We also compare our findings against similarly priced models. We have a series of real world battery tests to see how long a phone lasts under everyday use.

We take into account additional phone features like 5G, fingerprint and face readers, styluses, fast charging, foldable displays and other useful extras. We weigh all our experiences and testing against the price so you know whether a phone represents good value.

Read more: How we test phones