More and more people are using disposable and prepaid cell phone plans these days. They offer convenience, without another monthly bill, and are a great choice for an emergency phone that you keep with you "just in case." However, are they really that great of a deal for everybody else? Here is an analysis of the pros and cons of disposable cell phones.
The biggest pro is the whole money thing. A prepaid and disposable cell phone has no contract and monthly bills. Also, it doesn't require a credit check, making it far more accessible to people in poor credit standing. There are no hidden fees, as in many cases you can simply pay for your phone with cash. You absolutely know what you are getting and what you are paying. Also, there is no age limit for owning and using one, and if you choose to give one to a teenager, they can always reload the minutes, paying with cash, anywhere where they can find an outlet for the carrier for your phone. Also, depending upon the carrier, you may or may not be able to roll over minutes to when you reload the phone, meaning that you will not have to pay for any airtime that you do not use.
However, there are also a lot of cons to using this sort of phone, the biggest one being the rate per minute. The cost per minute of a disposable cell phone is huge compared to that of a postpaid or monthly calling plan. However, this difference can decrease considering that many people do not use all of the minutes in their monthly plan, so that may come out in the wash. But if you wish to call long distance, you will find that your costs will be exorbitant. Carriers will debit you up to 5 minutes for every long distance minute that you use. You also get almost no included services, meaning that a disposable phone may not even be reachable at all in analog areas. You probably will not be able to surf the web and, in some cases, won't even have basic features like caller ID or the ability to store contacts in your phone. And finally, once your phone is used up, it’s used up. If you need more minutes, you can't go over your plan even at a huge cost per minute. It just becomes a useless piece of plastic, even in an emergency.
So, what it boils down to is that disposable cell phones are probably best for a specific crowd. If you just need to be reachable or use so few minutes a month that you can't find a monthly plan that works for you, then this is a great option. However, if you have a very predictable schedule of phone usage, then you won't want one. And if you need any sort of feature on your phone: internet, calendar, long distance, etcetera, then you definitely don't want a prepaid phone. The costs would be enormous if you happen to be able to find one that offers those services.