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No Contract Daily Plans

On the Prepaid Wireless Plans page I list Daily plans after Monthly plans, which may not seem intuitive. In other words, you would think that the progression would be from Pay As You Go to Daily to Monthly to Unlimited. Yes, that would certainly seem to make sense! However, I listed Daily third because these types of plans were introduced into the market AFTER the Monthly bucketed plans. So think of the list as an evolution of prepaid wireless products that were launched over time.

At this point you might be asking yourself why Daily plans were launched after Monthly plans? The reality was that Monthly plans provided a lot of value over the classic pay per minute (PAYG) type of plan, however, payingon time each and every month for a Monthly plan proved to be difficult for a lot of customers. Enough so, that prepaid wireless carriers wanted to offer customers a plan that would provide greater value than PAYG, but more flexibility than paying a larger amount on a monthly basis. So the spirit of Daily prepaid plans is to provide you with greater flexibility. So while you don't get the same value as a Monthly plan, you'll get better value than a pay as you go plan. Here are some common features of these plans to look out for:

Is the plan subscription or pay-per-use? This is a critical point. A subscription plan means that you put money into your account (ex. $10), and each day, whether you use your phone or not, your daily charge is deducted from your account (ex. $1 per day). If it's pay-per-use, if you use your phone on that day (for anything), you'll be charged the daily fee (ex. $1 per day). Iif you do NOT use your phone at all that day, you won't be charged anything. If the rate for these two types of plans are the same, you'll definitely want the pay-per-use plan over the subscription plan. In fact, generally speaking, I would recommend staying far away from the subscription model as it rarely tends to provide a better value than a Monthly plan. Yes, it does allow you the flexibility to pay on a daily basis, however, I would say that if you're struggling with a monthly payment of $25-$30, don't let the low cost of a daily plan trick you into thinking that you're saving money over the month.

What are the rates? Sometimes these plans simply give you discounted rates. For example, pay $1 per day and get 5 or 10 cents per minute instead of 15 or 20 cents per minute. However, more often Daily plans will now give you a bucket of minutes or even unlimited minutes.

Pay attention to the clock! What I mean by this is that while your daily fee usually applies to a 24 hour period of time, sometimes it's a 24 hour day, such that if you use your phone for the first time at 10pm, you'll only have the included services for two hours until the end of the day at midnight. That will virtually never provide good value, so make sure you understand what the carrier defines as the clock.

What other services are included? Look for other charges for voicemail, wireless Web, text messaging, etc.

Overall, I'm not a huge fan of Daily prepaid wireless plans. I would say that you're either an occassional user that fits nicely into a PAYG plan, or you're a heavier user that can find a Monthly plan that fits into your needs. This didn't used to be the case, however, with the tremendous number of options now available for Monthly plans, it has become more and more true. To me, Daily plans seem to be somewhat lost in the middle. That said, for some people a Daily plan can offer tremendous value, so just be sure to really understand what's included in the plan, how it works, and most importantly, how it fits into your daily needs!

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No Contract Daily Plans

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