About This Calculator

The Phone Plan Cost Calculator is a small independent tool built to help people cut through carrier marketing and see the real, all-in cost of a phone plan over several years. It started from a simple frustration: "free" phone offers from major carriers are almost never actually free, and it's genuinely hard to compare them against a bring-your-own-phone budget carrier without doing a lot of manual math.

This site is written and maintained by KB, an independent developer not affiliated with any carrier, MVNO, or phone manufacturer mentioned on it. Carrier names (Verizon, AT&T, T-Mobile, Mint Mobile, Visible, Tello, US Mobile, and others) are used only as illustrative examples of typical plan structures and are trademarks of their respective owners.

How the numbers work

Every figure in the calculator — monthly plan cost, taxes and fees, activation fees, trade-in credits, phone purchase prices, and resale value — is a number you enter based on your own research or current bill. The tool simply totals those inputs consistently across both a "big carrier" and a "budget carrier" scenario over the number of years you choose, so the comparison is apples-to-apples. It does not pull live pricing from any carrier and isn't a substitute for checking current offers directly with a provider.

Get in touch

Found an error, have a suggestion, or want to report a bug? Reach out by email at kwblank77@gmail.com. Feedback on the calculator's math, missing cost categories, or usability issues is always welcome.