Several outlets, including Android Authority and 9to5Google, are reporting that Visible by Verizon is releasing annual phone plan options for its Visible and Visible+ plans. The base Visible plan will be discounted to $275 annually or an average cost of $22.92/month down from its base rate of $25/month. That saves customers $25/year vs paying for the plan monthly. The Visible+ annual plan option will be priced at $395 or $32.92/month when averaged out over 12 months. The plan's standard monthly rate is $45. That will save subscribers $145/year vs paying for the plan monthly.
New customers will be able to take advantage of these offerings starting on April 17. Current customers will have the option to migrate over to them in May.
Annual discount plan options aren't new for Verizon. Its Straight Talk brand has offered them for several years dating back to at least 2021, as can be seen in this Internet Archives capture. Of course, their extended plans existed before Verizon closed on its acquisition of Tracfone and its associated brands in November 2021.
In February of this year, Verizon announced that it was offering discounted multi-month Tracfone plans. The Tracfone multi-month options mirror that of Mint Mobile and several other providers with discounts available for prepaying 3, 6, and 12 months in advance. The longer a customer commits to a contract, subscribes for the bigger the discount they receive.
Annual Discount Plans Are The Hottest Trend In Prepaid Wireless
Multi-month and annual discount plan options are perhaps the hottest trend in prepaid. Currently, all major carriers have at least one prepaid brand offering annual plan discounts. AT&T has annual plan discounts in place for AT&T Prepaid and Cricket Wireless, DISH offers them through Boost Mobile. The only major carrier not to offer them is T-Mobile, although T-Mobile may have them soon if their pending $1.35 billion offer to acquire Mint Mobile gets approved by government regulators.
It isn't just major carrier prepaid brands that have jumped on the bandwagon to offer multi-month discounts and annual plan offerings. BestMVNO now tracks and compares over a dozen independent providers offering such plans from providers like US Mobile, Boom Mobile, AirVoice Wireless, Red Pocket Mobile, Jethro Mobile, Lycamobile, and more. US Mobile first launched annual plans late last year and has since tweaked them several times.
Providers like offering the plans because they can lock in customers and thus revenue for an extended time. And if a customer decides to leave before their plan term runs out, the carrier gets to keep that revenue without having to provide services anymore.
Customers who like the plans do because they only have to pay their phone bills 1-3 times a year and they get a nice discount for prepaying for service up to a year in advance. However, they may lose out when better deals come out elsewhere or they find they have a problem and have to switch to another provider before their term ends.