Best Phone Plans for Kids (October 2026 Edition)

Best Kids Phone Plans by Category

A first phone for a nine-year-old and a phone for a sixteen-year-old who lives on video are two different shopping trips, so we split the picks by need. If you’re sorting out the whole household at once, our guide to the best family phone plan picks up where this one stops.

Awards reflect our editorial evaluation against the criteria in the methodology section. The “Best Overall” pick is supported by US Mobile’s Consumer Reports Top Rated designation. See the full ratings. Consumer Reports does not endorse products or services.

What Kids Phone Plans Actually Need

“Phone plan for kids” covers a lot of ground. A third-grader with a hand-me-down phone and a high-school junior with a part-time job don’t need the same thing, and putting the junior’s plan on the third-grader’s phone is an easy way to overspend. Here’s what actually matters.

Parental controls: who actually lists them

This is where plan marketing gets slippery, so we stuck to what each carrier lists with the plan itself. US Mobile lists parental controls in its app on Light, Unlimited Starter and Unlimited Premium. T-Mobile lists FamilyMode with Essentials 2.0. Cricket lists ScamShield with Sensible 10GB and Select Unlimited. Boost Unlimited and Tello 2GB point you to device-level controls, and TextNow Free lists limited, device-level ones. For Mint, Metro, Google Fi, Verizon and AT&T, the plan listings we checked don’t mention one, so we mark them “Carrier does not say.”

Device-level means the controls live on the phone rather than the plan: Screen Time on an iPhone, Family Link on Android. Those don’t depend on which carrier you choose, which is worth remembering before you pay more for a plan because of its parental-control pitch.

A data allowance that fits

Data is the dial that moves the price most. A kid who mostly calls, texts and checks a map away from Wi-Fi can often get by on a small allowance like Light’s 2GB. A teen who streams video on the bus can chew through that fast and is better off on unlimited. Not sure which camp yours is in? Start small, look at the cellular data screen in the phone’s settings after a month, then size up or down. On US Mobile Light, extra data is $2 per GB if you run short, and Unlimited Starter is $25/mo when it’s time to stop counting.

Hotspot for homework

Kids’ phones end up as hotspots more often than you’d think: the library Wi-Fi crawls, the laptop needs one more upload, practice runs late. On unlimited plans, hotspot usually has its own allowance. US Mobile Unlimited Starter includes 20GB, Cricket Smart Unlimited 15GB and Metro Unlimited 5G Data 8GB. On smaller plans it can come out of the same pot: Tello 2GB’s hotspot data comes from the plan’s own 2GB, and Cricket Sensible 10GB has no hotspot at all.

Adding a line to a plan you already have

Most kids’ phones join a parent’s account rather than getting one of their own. On US Mobile Light and By the Gig, each extra line is $8 and shares the data. US Mobile’s Unlimited plans don’t discount extra lines, so a kid’s Starter line is $25/mo whether it’s the first line or the fifth. The Big 3 work the other way: the per-line price falls as you add lines, and on T-Mobile Essentials 2.0, “3rd line free” bill credits mean three lines cost the same as two, as long as you keep every line. The full bill math is in what a kid’s line costs.

The phone itself

Every price on this page is for service only. A hand-me-down phone from the junk drawer makes a perfectly good first phone, provided it’s unlocked and works on the network you pick. US Mobile gives every line access to all three major US wireless networks, and you can move a line to a different network later from your dashboard. Kids do break phones, though, so the cheapest plan is only half the budget.

Kids Phone Plan Comparison

One line, regular price without AutoPay, with the AutoPay price in brackets where there is one. In the parental-controls column, “Via app” means the carrier lists controls in its own app, “Device-level” means it points you to the controls on the phone, and “Carrier does not say” means the plan listing doesn’t mention any.

See US Mobile plans.

Other Kids Plans Worth Considering

Carriers that earn a spot for one specific reason. If price is your only filter, our cheap phone plans list ranks them that way, and the $10 mobile phone plans roundup sticks to the small stuff.

Tello

Build-your-own, and properly granular. 2GB with unlimited minutes is $10/mo; drop to 300 minutes and it’s $8/mo. Need more room? 10GB is $15/mo and 20GB is $20/mo. Hotspot comes out of the same data, taxes and a cost recovery fee of up to 30 cents are added at checkout, and parental controls on the 2GB plan are device-level. Tello plans.

TextNow

Free really is free: $0/mo, paid for by ads, with unlimited talk and text and 550MB of data, plus a $3.99 SIM and whatever taxes apply where you live. That’s thin on data but fine for a first phone that mostly makes calls, and TextNow lists limited, device-level parental controls. Plus Monthly is $18.99/mo with no ads; its unlimited data excludes streaming media and gaming (the label lists 20GB), which some parents will count as a feature rather than a bug. Monthly Unlimited is $35.99/mo. TextNow plans.

Verizon and AT&T

Both get cheaper per line the more lines you add, which is why they make more sense for a big family that’s already there than for one kid’s first phone. Verizon Unlimited Welcome is $65/mo for one line with AutoPay and $120/mo for four ($30 a line), with no hotspot. AT&T Value 2.0 is $50/mo for one line with AutoPay and also $120/mo for four ($30 a line), but only 5GB of its data is full speed. Neither says whether these plans include parental controls.

The extras are where it stings. Verizon charges a $40 activation fee per line and a $3.78-a-line administrative charge that rises to $4.69 on November 15, 2026, and it says surcharges can add 16% to 58% to your monthly charges. AT&T charges $35 to activate and a fee of up to $4.99 a line, and its AutoPay discount is $10 with a bank account but only $5 with a debit card. Verizon plans, AT&T plans.

What a Kid’s Line Costs, and What You Can Save

Here’s the question most parents are really asking: we already have two lines, so what does a third one for the kid do to the bill? The table shows each carrier’s stated totals on its entry plan, every line on the same plan. Big 3 and Cricket totals assume AutoPay.

Two things jump out. First, T-Mobile’s third line really is free while the “3rd line free” credits last, so if both parents are already on Essentials 2.0, adding a kid there is hard to beat on the monthly number, before T-Mobile’s $5.49-a-line fee, taxes and the $35 device connection charge. Second, splitting a family across carriers saves less than you’d think on the Big 3, because their per-line price climbs as lines leave. Verizon Unlimited Welcome is $120/mo for three lines and $110/mo for two, so moving the kid off Verizon trims that bill by $10 a month, before you’ve paid for the kid’s new plan.

On US Mobile the math is boring, which is the point: a kid’s Light line adds $8 and shares the 2GB, and a kid’s Starter line adds $25. More household setups are in our family phone plans table and the best cell phone plans for 2 lines guide.

A family of four, switching together

Same-tier comparisons: entry unlimited against entry unlimited, premium against premium. Big 3 prices are their stated 4-line totals with AutoPay. US Mobile is the regular monthly rate, no promo code, and because Unlimited lines aren’t discounted, four lines are simply four times the per-line price.

We’ll be straight about it: at the entry tier, four lines on the Big 3 are close to US Mobile on the sticker, and T-Mobile is within $5. The gap is in what the sticker leaves out. The Big 3 add taxes plus their own per-line fees, and T-Mobile’s multi-line prices lean on “3rd line free” bill credits that stop if you cancel a line; US Mobile’s price already includes taxes and fees. At the premium end the difference is big on any reading, and four monthly Unlimited Premium lines also earn one subscription perk worth up to $15/mo.

See US Mobile plans.

Which Kids Plan Is Right for You?

• Best for most families: US Mobile. Light at $10/mo for a first phone, Unlimited Starter at $25/mo for teens, taxes included, no contract.
• You want to spend nothing: TextNow Free, with ads and 550MB of data, plus the $3.99 SIM.
• You have several kids on small plans: US Mobile By the Gig: four lines sharing 10GB are $44/mo total, taxes included.
• You want a carrier that lists parental controls: US Mobile (in its app on Light, Starter and Premium) or T-Mobile (FamilyMode on Essentials 2.0).
• Both parents are already on T-Mobile: a third Essentials 2.0 line keeps the bill at $90/mo with AutoPay, before taxes and fees, as long as you keep every line.
• Your teen streams on cellular: US Mobile Unlimited Starter ($25/mo) or Premium ($44/mo, with unlimited priority data).
• Your kid is nearly always on Wi-Fi: Google Fi Flexible ($20/mo for one line plus $10/GB) or Tello’s $8/mo build-your-own plan, both before taxes.

Sorting out the grown-ups’ plans too? See the best prepaid phone plans and best unlimited data plan roundups, or start from our best cell phone plans overview.

How We Evaluated These Kids Phone Plans

US Mobile wrote this comparison, and it’s in it. To keep that honest, every price and allowance here was read on the carrier’s own plan page or its FCC Broadband Facts label on October 20, 2026, and we saved screenshots of those pages. Prices are for one line without AutoPay unless we say otherwise. Multi-line prices are the totals each carrier states, except US Mobile’s Unlimited plans, which cost the same for every line, so we multiplied. “/mo” on a yearly plan is the yearly price divided by 12. Where a carrier doesn’t publish something, we say “Carrier does not say” rather than guess.

For kids specifically, we weighted the cost of adding a line to an existing account, data sized to how kids use their phones, hotspot, whether taxes are in the price, and parental controls. On that last one we credit only what a carrier lists with the plan itself; we don’t test or rate the controls. Savings comparisons match tiers (entry with entry, premium with premium) and are labelled where they cross from prepaid to postpaid.

We don’t rate network speed or coverage ourselves. For customer ratings, see Consumer Reports; Consumer Reports does not endorse products or services. For speed and coverage, independent sources include Ookla’s Speedtest reports and Opensignal, and the FCC’s wireless consumer guides explain your rights as a customer.

US Mobile coverage details live on the plans page and the network coverage page. The previous edition is the August 2026 edition, and the main article is updated as prices change.