Straight Talk vs Net10: Prepaid Standoff

The first thing you need to know about Net10 and Straight Talk is that they are both owned by the same company, TracFone Wireless.

If you’re shopping around for a prepaid plan, then you’ve doubtless heard about TracFone, which is the largest prepaid wireless provider in the United States, with just about 11 million customers.

So, here’s how Net10 stacks up against Straight Talk.

Net10 Wireless charges a flat rate for its minutes–ten cents per minute. You can sort of see where the name comes from now. You will typically buy talk time in denominations of $30 (for 300 minutes) for use over a 60-day period.

Straight Talk Wireless has one standard plan and one unlimited plan. The standard plan, or the All You Need plan, costs $30 and gives you 1,000 minutes of talk time, 1,000 text messages, and 30 mb of data transfer for web browsing (which comes out to about 300 pages viewed).

The Unlimited plan gives you unlimited use of the phone for voice, text, and web, and costs $45 per month.

Clearly, you can see that Net10 Wireless is for people who don’t use their phone a lot. One average the person who will save the most with Net10 uses from 150 minutes to 250.

Straight Talk Wireless will satisfy people who use their phone a lot. 1,000 minutes of talk time is a lot of time–and it’s a lot of text messages. Unlimited use of a prepaid phone will give the super-connected, crazy cell phone user all that they need out of a phone.

Net10 Wireless Deals

Currently, if you buy any Net10 phone online, you get 300 minutes free to start, which is a $30 value. One of the hot phones out from Net10 Wireless is the Samsung r355c, which you should take a look at if you are interested in Net10′s prepaid service.

Straight Talk Phones and Offers

Straight Talk has some very good phones for you to choose from. One is the Samsung Finesse (read a full review of this phone here) and another is, perhaps unsurprisingly, the Samsung r355c.

Net10 vs Straight Talk Results

Both companies provide prepaid wireless service, so there are no contracts and no commitments of any kind. This is a good thing, since you avoid any potential termination fees and you don’t have to undergo a credit check when you are purchasing your phone.

They are similar in this way. Here’s how they are different and here’s how you should decide which company you want get a prepaid phone from.

Buy a Net10 phone if you are going to use around 200 to 250 minutes per month. If you use this amount of talk time you are right in the sweet spot for Net10. If you use more than this, you may still be able to save money, but that is the spot where you will get a lot of value from Net10.

See all phones and details at Net10.com

Best Net10 Phone: Samsung r355c (click the image to learn more about this phone)

Buy a Straight Talk phone if you need more talk time. If you are going to use anywhere near 1,000 minutes and the same amount of text messages, you should go with Straight Talk. And if you want unlimited web browsing (which goes nicely with the Samsung Finesse), then you might want to consider the unlimited plan or even the standard All You Need Plan.

See all phones and details at StraightTalk.com

Best Straight Talk Phone: Samsung Finesse R810c (click image to learn more)

I hope this has been helpful. Please leave questions or comments below. To keep up with prepaid phones, follow me on Twitter (@prepaidphoneguy) or join our Facebook fan page (see the fan box in the sidebar and click through).

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