How Good Is Mint Mobile’s Offer to “Unf*!” Your Internet Bill?

How the Unf*! Your Bills bundle compares

The ads take aim at fiber and cable internet companies, but the price isn’t much different—at least for the first year.

• With Xfinity , you can get into a 300Mbps internet plan for $45 per month, with a five-year price lock. You can add a line of unlimited mobile service from Xfinity Mobile for free for a year.
• With Optimum , you can get gigabit speeds at that same $45 monthly price point, also with a five-year price lock and the option to try an unlimited mobile line for a year. Whether you get cable or fiber depends on your address.

Both providers include equipment at no extra charge, unlimited data, and freedom from contracts. However, each will start charging more for mobile service after 12 months.

Mint Mobile offers a five-year price lock, but makes you pay $540 up front for an entire year of service. That follows Mint’s typical model, offering low monthly prices but requiring up-front payments for multiple months at a time. Mint Mobile doesn’t advertise typical speeds or make its average speed range readily available.

The new MINTernet offer also competes with 5G home internet from the big three mobile providers. Here’s how prices compare:

• With Mint Mobile , you can get high-speed internet and a line of unlimited mobile service for $45 per month.
• With T-Mobile , you can get the Rely Home Internet plan for $50 per month and the Essentials Saver mobile plan for $50 per month. After a $15 bundling discount, your total cost for both is $85 per month.
• With Verizon , you can get 5G Home with Mobile Plan Premium for $35 per month and an Unlimited Welcome plan for $65 per month, bringing your total monthly cost to $100 per month.
• With AT&T , you can get AT&T Internet Air for $60 and the AT&T Value 2.0 mobile plan for $50 per month. When you apply the 20% bundling discount to the internet service fee, your total for both comes to $98 per month.

All these 5G home internet providers include internet equipment with your service plan price, but they add taxes and fees on top of service prices and reserve the right to change them at any time.

It’s clear, though, that you pay a premium for getting mobile phone service from one of the big three providers.

Just remember that Mint Mobile is an MVNO of T-Mobile, meaning it piggybacks off the same 5G network that T-Mobile’s regular customers use. Mint customers might get lower priority if the network is congested, but the company will only allow you to order service if there’s sufficient excess capacity on local cell towers.

How to get the new MINTernet bundle

The only way you can qualify for the Unf*! Your Bills bundle from Mint is to see if you can get MINTernet where you live.

Visit Mint Mobile and search for the section that reads “THE UNF*! YOUR BILLS BUNDLE.” From there, select the “12 Months of MINTernet + 12 Months of Unlimited Wireless” option. As you’ll see, the deal requires an up-front payment of $540 to cover the entire year.

If your address qualifies, you’ll be sent to a page with a price breakdown and a sunny message:

If your address doesn’t qualify, you’ll get a pop-up box with this message that encourages you to shop for standalone phone plans instead:

Availability changes based on the strength of the network in your area and how many of your neighbors are signed up for mobile and 5G home internet service, so you may qualify today but not tomorrow, and vice versa.

Either way, Mint Mobile isn’t your only option to save on home internet. Enter your info below to shop local providers now.

But is the bundle offer from Mint a good deal?

You should take Mint Mobile up on its offer to “Unf!* your bills” if you are a light internet user, you already have a phone you love, and you have enough cash on hand to pay for an entire year of service up front.

The payment part is pretty explanatory, but let’s break down the rest. First, let’s address smartphones. If you already have one you love, you can use it on Mint Mobile without paying extra. I bought my iPhone 15 outright for this exact reason.

Next, let’s get into signal quality. Mint Mobile signal is deprioritized relative to T-Mobile traffic, so your speeds might slow down if there’s a lot of congestion in the area or if you are far from the nearest tower. 5G home internet traffic uses signals from the same towers, so you can expect the home internet traffic to be deprioritized as well. Since T-Mobile 5G Home Internet already gets deprioritized relative to mobile phone traffic, MINTernet is likely to get particularly low priority.

All that said, T-Mobile has done an excellent job with network management lately, winning awards left and right for its speed and reliability. If it predicts you’ll have bad service, you probably won’t be able to order home internet at all.

You might still be wondering how it all compares to cable or fiber internet, and for that, I have to go back to the old drum I’ve been banging on for years. Fiber is always going to be the fastest and most reliable service you can get, and cable internet is nearly as fast. You should always watch for extra fees and check your broadband labels when you order, though, and you should probably shop for internet service about twice a year.

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