AT&T Prepaid Launches Walmart-Exclusive Buy 3, Get 3 Free Unlimited Saver Offer

AT&T Prepaid has a new Walmart-exclusive offer on its $35/month Unlimited Saver plan. The offer, first spotted by Wave7 Research at Walmart stores, is being advertised as a “Buy 3 months, get 3 months free” deal for bring-your-own-phone customers.

The promotion requires customers to prepay $105 for the Unlimited Saver plan. In exchange, eligible customers receive 180 days of service, which works out to $17.50/month for six months before taxes and fees. Walmart’s AT&T Prepaid page is also advertising the offer as “Unlimited for less” and “only at Walmart.”

How The AT&T Prepaid Walmart Offer Works

According to Walmart's FAQs about the deal, to activate the offer, customers must first check that their phone is compatible with AT&T Prepaid. If it is, they must purchase $105 in AT&T Prepaid refill cards and an AT&T Prepaid SIM kit from Walmart. The SIM kit can be purchased online or in stores. Customers can then activate the plan through AT&T Prepaid’s activation website.

The promotion is for new single-line activations on AT&T Prepaid’s Unlimited Saver plan. Walmart’s fine print says phones sold by AT&T within three months prior to activation are excluded from the offer.

If a customer does not meet all eligibility requirements, they will be moved to the monthly Unlimited Saver plan at $35/month after the first three months.

Unlimited Saver Plan Details

The Unlimited Saver plan includes unlimited talk and text in the U.S. It also includes unlimited texting from the U.S. to more than 230 countries and territories.

The data, however, is speed-capped. The plan includes 30GB of data per 30-day period at a maximum speed of 3Mbps. After 30GB, data speeds are reduced to a maximum of 1.5Mbps for the rest of that 30-day billing cycle.

Mobile hotspot is not included. Video typically streams at standard definition, and Walmart’s posted terms warn that content bundled with video may be slow to load. The plan also does not include AT&T’s Level Up feature which allows customers who have made 6 months of on time payments to move to postpaid with 0% financing and $0 down on new phones.

The plan is limited to one device per account and is not eligible for AutoPay discounts or multi-line accounts.

Includes A 5-Year Price Lock

One of the bigger selling points of the offer is AT&T Prepaid’s 5-Year Price Lock, which is a something first started by Total Wireless and its plans, and later copied by Metro by T-Mobile. Walmart’s offer details say customers can renew the plan every six months at the same low price for up to five years from the date of initial activation.

That means an eligible customer should be able to continue paying $105 every six months for the Unlimited Saver plan, keeping the effective rate at $17.50/month before taxes and fees.

The 5-Year Price Lock applies only to a new customer’s regular base rate for a new line on an eligible plan. It does not include taxes, fees, surcharges, add-ons, or discounted rates such as AutoPay. The Price Lock ends if the customer cancels service, changes to an ineligible plan, or adds a line to the account. Walmart’s fine print also says there is one Price Lock initiation per customer.

Editor’s Take

AT&T Prepaid’s new Walmart-exclusive offer is aggressive on price, but it comes with some important tradeoffs.

At $105 for six months of service, the offer undercuts the headline pricing of many unlimited prepaid plans. The effective rate of $17.50/month is eye-catching, especially because it is attached to an AT&T-owned prepaid brand with "unlimited data" and comes with the possibility of renewing at the same rate for up to five years.

But this is not the same as a full-speed premium unlimited plan. Unlimited Saver is speed-capped at 3Mbps for the first 30GB of each 30-day period, then slowed to a maximum of 1.5Mbps for the remainder of the period. There is also no hotspot, no AutoPay discount, no multi-line support, and no Level Up feature.

The taxes and fees difference is also worth noting. Some competing prepaid offers, like this new $20 deal from Cricket Wireless, include taxes and fees in the advertised price. This AT&T Prepaid offer is $105 plus taxes and fees, so the actual out-the-door cost will be higher than $17.50/month depending on the customer’s location.

Still, this is a very competitive offer for the right customer. Someone who already has a compatible phone, does not need hotspot, and is comfortable with capped data speeds could get six months of unlimited talk, text, and data at a very low monthly rate for up to 5 years.

With Metro, Cricket, Visible, and now AT&T Prepaid all pushing aggressive multi-month or promotional unlimited pricing, carrier-owned prepaid brands are clearly trying to make the entry-level unlimited market more competitive. AT&T Prepaid’s Walmart-exclusive Buy 3, Get 3 Free offer is just another sign of many that carrier-owned prepaid brand pricing pressure is moving lower, even if customers need to read the fine print carefully before jumping in.

“We are seeing this new AT&T Prepaid offer at Walmarts as a part of the May merchandising reset that took place there. There is a trend of prepaid carriers promoting multi-month offer and the attraction from the carrier perspective of 0% churn for multiple months is clear. Multiple prepaid carriers are pushing multi-month offers now, including Metro by T-Mobile, AT&T Prepaid, and Cricket Wireless.” – Jeff Moore, Principal of Wave7 Research