Review: Ultra Mobile’s ultrafast 5G plans avoid Mint’s biggest weaknesses

Ultra Mobile is yet another prepaid carrier based on the T-Mobile network, but it offers more choice than most other carriers. While Ultra only has seven plans, you can choose to pay for them monthly, as well as three months, six months, or a year. If you pay for a longer term, you get a larger discount. With straightforward plans and an app that makes managing add-ons and international balances a breeze, Ultra Mobile can make a lot of sense.

If you’ve been paying attention to carriers, Ultra’s multi-month plans may sound a lot like those offered by Mint Mobile, and that’s no coincidence. Mint Mobile and Ultra Mobile come from the same people, and T-Mobile now owns them both. When it comes to coverage and network performance, you’ll see a lot of similarities with my Mint Mobile review. While Mint is a bit more focused with only a handful of plans and simplified features, Ultra Mobile gives you way more choices without sacrificing value.

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Ultra Mobile

7.5/ 10

Ultra Mobile is a prepaid T-Mobile brand with multi-month savings, a solid family plan, and impressive international support. It has access to full, fast T-Mobile 5G speeds with unlimited data on its top plans.

Pros

• Very fast data where T-Mobile has mid-band 5G
• Wide plan selection with plans ranging from one month to 12
• Strong international features are available

Cons

• Taxes and fees are extra
• Rural coverage can struggle
• Some app functionality issues drag the experience down

From $15/month

Price and availability

Sign up for a single month, or save with a year of service

Ultra Mobile’s seven plans range from a simple talk and text option up to totally unlimited data. The Talk & Text plan actually includes 250MB of data, so you can do some messaging over data as well, and costs $10 per month if you buy a year, and $15 for a month. Following that, there are 3GB, 5GB, 10GB, and 15GB plans with the same multi-month discounts. Once the data is depleted, you aren’t cut off, but the data will be slowed to a crawl. There will be just enough for some emails and messaging.

All plans have unlimited talk and text in Mexico, global texting, and calling to 90+ destinations. International credits are also included monthly, with more expensive plans getting more credits. This is so you can call countries that aren’t already included. The plans also have a one-time international roaming credit.

Ultra Mobile also has two unlimited plans, but unlike Mint Mobile, there’s no high-speed data cap. Ultra Mobile’s unlimited data is actually unlimited. The base unlimited plan costs $49 per month if you only get a single month, which comes down to $40 with a year paid upfront. You still get hotspot data with 10GB on this plan. There’s also a larger Unlimited+ plan with an upgrade to 20GB of hotspot data and more international calling credit.

If you want to bring multiple lines, Ultra has one of the best family plans on T-Mobile’s network (if you need a lot of data, that is). Ultra’s family plan starts with the Unlimited plan at full cost, but each additional line is just $24 per month, except the third line which is just $12. If you have four lines, you can get unlimited data on each one for just $109 per month before taxes and fees.

Regarding taxes and fees, Ultra Mobile doesn’t include them in any of its plans, so you’ll be looking at a couple of extra dollars per line, per month. If you’re signing up for a year, the fees may look quite high, but remember it’s for 12 months. This includes a recovery fee, which isn’t a tax or mandatory fee, and can feel misleading as it’s not simply included in the plan price.

What’s good about Ultra Mobile?

Fast 5G data, and plenty of it

T-Mobile’s strong 5G coverage and speed make it one of the best carriers available, and this network is one of the most impressive parts of Ultra’s service. With a line of sight to a tower, I even saw download speeds over 1.2Gbps and upload speeds topping 100Mbps. Around town, I generally saw impressive speeds, usually around 300 to 400Mbps, which is still plenty fast for anything I want to do on my phone, and faster than many people’s home internet connections.

As I moved further from town, the first thing to go was the upload speed, but download speeds remained usable for the most part. If you have 5G on T-Mobile, you’ll probably have plenty of usable speed.

While I tested Ultra with a 10GB plan, if I were signing up permanently, I would choose an unlimited plan, as my usage typically varies between 10GB and 20GB of data. You can check your current phone bill, or keep track in your phone’s settings to determine how much data you’ll need. However, if you’re bringing the family with you, Ultra’s Family Plan only works with its Unlimited plan. Still, with the multiline discounts, this is one of the best value family plans for heavier users.

While Mint Mobile and Ultra Mobile have a lot in common, Ultra’s unlimited plans are a lot better as Ultra has ditched its high-speed data caps. Mint Mobile still has a 40GB high-speed data cap on its unlimited plan. While that’s plenty for my needs, if I’m paying for a plan called Unlimited, I don’t want any limits in sight — especially if I’m signing up for a whole year. If you’re deciding between Mint Mobile and Ultra and need a lot of data, you should choose Ultra.

Another way Ultra Mobile stands apart from Mint Mobile is that it has one-month payment options for all of its plans. While Mint Mobile makes three months its minimum, Ultra is happy to sell you data for only a month. If you’re visiting the U.S. from abroad, you may have also seen the Ultra Tourist SIM, which is a three-week plan with 3GB of data, as well as the impressively cheap PayGo plan for $3 per month, which can only be purchased on eBay.

I must mention that I live in a rural area, and T-Mobile is not the right pick for my house. Outside, there’s a scrap of usable LTE with flaky low-band 5G, but inside, the connection drops. This is one of the reasons you should determine if you’ll get a strong connection where you live. If you’re not covered by 5G mid-band on Ultra’s coverage map, I wouldn’t recommend the service as my house is shown on the edge of 5G low-band. At least Wi-Fi calling can be enabled with a few taps, and RCS was working fine on the Android phone I used for testing, a Galaxy S23 Ultra, so my home network picked up the slack.

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Setting up Ultra Mobile was pretty easy; there’s a quick activation process after a plan is purchased. I signed up in a web browser on my laptop, and if you are using eSIM, like me, you’ll be given a QR code to install it. You can also finish activation through the Ultra Mobile app once you have your phone number and account password. There were no SIM installation issues; Ultra’s service connected after a restart. If you’d prefer a physical SIM, as I do for my primary carrier, Ultra Mobile will mail you a SIM kit for free. You may also be able to find a store nearby with SIMs if you’re in a hurry.

If you want to add more data, international credits, roaming credits, or other international add-ons, it’s pretty easy from the app. You can also upgrade your plan if the one you’re using isn’t the right fit. If you signed up for a year of unlimited on promotion, you may still want to keep track of your usage as you might be able to save when it comes time to renew. You can upgrade mid-cycle, but you won’t be able to downgrade until the end of your term.

Like most carriers using the T-Mobile network, phone support is strong, so you should have no trouble bringing most of the best Android phones to the carrier. If you already have a phone you like, you can bring it with you as long as it’s unlocked. I tested Ultra Mobile using an eSIM on an unlocked Galaxy S23 Ultra running the latest software, Android 14 with One UI 6.1. You’ll want your phone to support band n41 for T-Mobiles mid-band 5G, but I also found my phone connecting to band n71 for rural areas, and sometimes band n38 in town.

What’s not good about Ultra Mobile?

An imperfect app spoils the experience

If you live in a rural area, there’s no getting around the fact that T-Mobile doesn’t offer as much coverage as AT&T and Verizon. A lot of factors affect coverage, so T-Mobile may actually be the best in your area, but in mine, it’s not the right choice. T-Mobile is constantly working to improve its coverage, but even if you can get a good deal, you should choose a carrier based on the coverage available today.

However, no matter what 5G bands your phone connects to, video streaming quality is still limited to SD. This is common with prepaid carriers, but still a bit of a drag. You can check your current carrier’s video streaming limits using the Fast Speed Test application, which uses Netflix’s servers.

While RCS worked great on my Android phone and activated in seconds, iPhone users will be stuck with SMS when texting Android phones. This does not affect iMessage, and if you’ve moved most of your messaging to another app like WhatsApp, you may not notice at all. Still, if your family has a mix of iPhones and Androids, RCS support could be a limiting factor. This will likely change in the future, but at the moment, iPhone users on Ultra don’t get RCS.

One thing I didn’t expect about Ultra Mobile is that the app simply isn’t good enough. It almost feels abandoned. If you downloaded the app thinking you could sign up and set up everything from the app, you’ll find the Shop Online button doesn’t work, at least not on Android. I checked on three Android phones. After signing up elsewhere and signing in, the app performance isn’t great, with choppy scrolling on my fairly high-end phone. Performance is a bit better on iPhones, but not much.

Both the Android and iOS apps also fail to connect to support chat. On the Account tab in the app, there’s a help button on the top right of the app. Tapping this leads to a page telling you that you’ve found an old version of chat, and you need to visit Ultra’s website for the current version, which does work.

Look, I’m a tech-savvy person and didn’t find navigating to Ultra’s website difficult, but my parents would have and may not have had the confidence to use it. Mint Mobile’s app, by comparison, feels more modern and functional with support chat succeeding to connect. This type of experience has me wondering if the people working on Ultra’s app actually use Ultra Mobile.

Should you sign up?

Ultra is still a great choice for many

While some disappointing app and support chat issues sour the experience, there’s no denying that Ultra’s pricing and features still make it a compelling option. Ultra’s pricing, especially with its frequent promotions, makes it one of the best values on the T-Mobile network, especially if you’re looking for unlimited data. Setup is quick and easy using eSIM, and the free physical SIM kit also makes it easy to give the carrier a shot if you’re not sure about it yet.

The most impressive thing about using Ultra Mobile is the performance of the network behind it. While Ultra’s international features will be a deciding factor for some, I feel most users will be drawn by its wider range of data options than Mint Mobile and truly unlimited data with both of its unlimited plans. While you might find other unlimited options that work better for you with some of the other best value data plans, Ultra is still one of the best carriers using the T-Mobile network.

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Ultra Mobile

7.5/ 10

Mint Mobile is a popular prepaid option, but Ultra Mobile corrects two of the carrier’s biggest issues: truly unlimited data and one-month plans. Ultra Mobile can be a bit more confusing to use with so many choices, and its app isn’t as sleek as some, but the carrier can still be a strong value for those who want full access to T-Mobile’s 5G network.

From $15/month

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