Mint Mobile has updated how it handles its family plans. The provider's homepage now has a banner that reads "Introducing the modern family plan. Families start at 15/mo per line." Customers with multiple lines on an account can now pay for their plans in quarterly installments but only if they subscribe to an annual plan. Subscribers are allowed to mix and match plans. Stettson Doggett of bestphoneplans.net shared the plan update with BestMVNO.
How Mint Mobile's Updated Family Plan Works
Mint Mobile's family plan option allows customers to have up to five lines in one account. Like before, customers who purchase 3 or 6-month plans will have to pay the regular rate for those plans all at once. However, customers who pay for a 12-month plan will be allowed to pay for the plan in quarterly installments with payments made once every three months.
The family plan requires auto-renewal payments to be enabled. In order to disable auto-renewal the primary account holder must dissolve the family plan. If an existing Mint Mobile customer joins a Mint Family plan, their existing plan, charges, and plan renewal date do not change. The primary account holder responsible for the Mint Family plan will automatically be charged for the renewal of the existing customer's plan that has joined their account. The primary account holder is actually responsible for the payment of all lines in the account. Changes to a member's plan length or data amount must be made 24 hour prior to the plan's renewal date.
Only a primary account holder has the ability to add members to their family plan. They can also transfer their primary account holder status to another member. Any member that removes themselves from a 12-month family plan will automatically be billed the full upfront cost for the remaining quarterly payments that they owe. So if you join a 12-month Mint Mobile family and decide to leave the family after 3-months, the leaving member will automatically be billed for the remaining 9-months on the plan that they owe. Members who leave a family early will not be able to change their plan length until the 12-month plan term is over.
Primary account holders will also have the ability to accept or reject a family member's request to pay for an add-on, change plans, or restore a suspended account.
Mint Mobile 12-Month Family Plan Options
The biggest benefit to Mint Mobile's updated family plans revolve around its annual plans. So let's take a look at how pricing would work for each plan with quarterly installments.
Mint Mobile offers four annual plan options. The pricing of each plan and what it would cost in quarterly installments with a family plan is shown below.
- 4GB - $45 due every 3-months
- 10GB - $60 due every 3-months
- 15GB - $75 due every 3-months
- 35GB (unlimited) - $90 due every 3-months
All plans include unlimited talk, text, and data with the specified amount of data available at up to 5G data speeds before throttling. All plans include mobile hotspot usage to each plan's full high-speed data allotment except on the 35GB plan. On the 35GB plan, hotspot is limited to 5GB each month.
Mint Mobile does allow its customers to mix and match plans. As an example of how this works, a new Mint family of four where each person is on one of the plans shown above would be billed $45 + $60 + $75 + $90 for each line in the account for a total of $270 due upfront and then once again every 3 months. Taxes and fees are extra. If each line had to pay for their annual plan all at once, the total upfront cost for new lines on a new family plan would be $1080 plus taxes and fees. So Mint Mobile's updated family plan pricing policy helps make affording multiple lines a little bit easier.
Starting a Mint Family plan can be done from within "Account Management" in a customer's online Mint Mobile account dashboard. It can also be done through the Mint Mobile app.
Mint Mobile is also advertising that its activation support specialists will help get your family set up on a new plan at no additional cost. They'll even call your current carrier to help you transfer your number. Mint says this help is exclusive to Mint Family plan subscribers, however, Mint does also offer this with their plan designed for customers aged 55 and up.