If you’re shopping for phone service, it can feel like every carrier quietly pushes customers toward its pricier plans whether that’s through promotions on new phones or by tempting customers with features they can’t fully utilize. MobileX feels different from any other carrier I’ve used; there’s a trial period designed to help you understand how much data you actually need, and an app that’s both clean and useful. Once you’re up and running, MobileX works like any other Verizon-based MVNO, but the app makes the service feel unique with fine controls over how you use your data, and how much of it you’re actually using.

If you’re shopping for phone service, it can feel like every carrier quietly pushes customers toward its pricier plans, whether that’s through promotions on new phones or by tempting customers with features they can’t fully utilize. MobileX feels different from any other carrier I’ve used; there’s a trial period designed to help you understand how much data you actually need, and an app that’s both clean and useful. Once you’re up and running, MobileX works like any other Verizon-based MVNO, but the app makes the service feel unique with fine controls over how you use your data, and how much of it you’re actually using.

Price and connectivity

MobileX is an MVNO where you only pay for what you use, so it doesn’t really have traditional plans. The MobileX app guides you through picking the number of minutes and the amount of data that you’ll need based on your usage during the learning period. The idea is that you probably need a lot less data than you think, and that unlimited plans prey on your anxiety about running out of data when you need it most.

MobileX is operated by Mobile X Global, which calls itself one of the world’s first connectivity-as-a-service-AI companies. MobileX was founded by Peter Adderton, the original Boost Mobile founder before it was sold to Sprint. MobileX launched in 2022 and has licensed Verizon spectrum throughout the U.S.

For those skeptical about ditching an unlimited plan, MobileX offers two large plans it calls unlimited featuring 15GB or 30GB of data at full network speeds. If you use it all up before the end of the month, your speeds are reduced to 512Kbps. If you need more data, you can add it for just over $2 per gigabyte. MobileX even lets you pick the quality of your streaming video which isn’t common on prepaid unlimited plans.

MobileX is available with either eSIM activation through the MobileX app on Android or iOS, or with a free physical SIM with fast shipping for use in any smartphone. For this review, I used a physical SIM and a Samsung Galaxy S20 provided by MobileX and activation went off without a hitch. Keep in mind that you’ll need Wi-Fi or another data connection to complete your activation.

Features

MobileX is for those who don’t want to waste money on data they don’t need, with its app designed to give you exactly the right amount. Even with this, the prices are competitive with some of the best value plans on the market and you don’t get herded toward a pre-existing plan. Unless you’re a heavier user.

On MobileX, you become a heavy user at 10GB, and the app will recommend one of its unlimited plans. MobileX freely admits that its unlimited plans aren’t unlimited — they come in either 15GB or 30GB allotments. At $20 per month for 15GB and $25 per month for 30GB, they’re still a great value, though, and also come with unlimited talk and text.

One thing I love about the MobileX app is the ability to choose your video streaming quality. The app defaults you to 480p — approximately 2Mbps bitrate — but you can take that up to 720p, 1080p, or 4K. Reducing bandwidth for videos can be a great way to save data, but MobileX makes it easy to unlock your speed. It’s nice that this option is so easily accessed on the home page of the app. I know some people won’t notice a difference in quality, but I do.

Mobile coverage and reception

MobileX uses Verizon’s network for coverage, which means that most Americans will have excellent LTE coverage and those in urban areas may have access to fast 5G. Verizon typically delivers speeds fast enough for general use, as shown in Ookla’s Market Analysis, but Verizon still falls well behind in terms of overall 5G coverage. This is down to Verizon’s nationwide 5G network sharing spectrum with LTE and the much more limited coverage of C-band and mmWave 5G.

I live in a rural area and Verizon isn’t a good choice for me. There’s certainly no 5G here, so I mostly used MobileX on LTE at home. Even so, my download speeds averaged around 15Mbps indoors with a bit more standing outdoors — plenty fast enough for web browsing and video streaming up to 1080p. Upload speeds were quite low compared to AT&T and T-Mobile, so posting a video online or backing your phone up on mobile data will require some patience.

I took a couple of trips to a bigger city with C-band and mmWave coverage and found my phone connected immediately with Verizon’s 5G network. This raises an important point that the speed you get on a carrier is down to the location you’re in and the density of the coverage. Phone carriers use multiple bands at once for LTE and 5G and to improve speeds through a process called Carrier Aggregation. As you move around a city, or head inside where higher-band signals have trouble penetrating, you may lose your connection to some of these bands leading to dramatically reduced speeds when it looks like coverage is still strong.

All this is to say that the speeds you get won’t be the same as the speeds I get, and you should pick the network that works best for you in your area. You can get an idea of coverage in your area by checking Verizon’s official coverage map, or get another perspective with a coverage map based on data submitted by users such as the one at coveragemap.com.

While no coverage map will predict your experience with a carrier, luckily you don’t have to pay for data used in your learning period with MobileX. So if it doesn’t work out, you’re only out a few minutes of setup time.

In my use, I got as little as under 10Mbps on LTE but up to 200Mbps on 5G. Calls and texts came through without issue as you would expect. While I don’t think I would choose MobileX over an AT&T-based carrier at my house, I would be happy to use it if I lived closer to town.

Phone compatibility

If your phone is unlocked and made for the U.S. market, it will more than likely work on MobileX. Your phone should have support for Verizon’s LTE and 5G bands. For LTE, you should have at least bands 4, 13, and 66 for most of Verizon’s coverage. On 5G, you’ll need bands n5 and n66 for nationwide 5G, band n77 for C-band, and n260 and n261 for mmWave. For 5G, the most important band are n5, n66, and n77 since it makes up the majority of Verizon’s 5G coverage now and moving forward.

Many of the best Android phones will work if purchased unlocked, though, for the best support you should stick with a phone made for Verizon’s network. Once you download the MobileX app, you’ll be able to check your phone’s compatibility to be sure. You may even be able to directly download a SIM if you have an open eSIM slot.

Your phone will need to be unlocked so if you bought it from a carrier, you may need to contact customer support. Remember, if you bought a phone from a carrier on a payment plan, you still need to pay off the phone. If you’re ready for a new phone, something like the Google Pixel 7a can be purchased unlocked with support for Verizon’s network. Getting an unlocked phone also allows you to change carriers easily if a better plan spring up.

Plans

MobileX’s headline feature is its AI-guided plan prediction. When you activate your service, you use your phone as you normally would and, after a few days, the phone will prepare a plan for you. This will include a choice of how many minutes you need and how many gigs of data you’re expected to use over your billing period. One nice thing about MobileX is that you don’t lose the data you don’t use. With rollover data, the remaining data will simply be added to your next month's data.

If the prediction doesn’t seem right to you, you can adjust it by the gigabyte or by your budget. If you adjust it to 10GB or more, the app will suggest that you try one of the carrier’s basic unlimited plans instead. It also suggests that I could use my phone less. Fat chance.

This custom YOU plan starts with a $1.99 platform fee and then costs $2.10 per gigabyte of data. Taxes are extra and will vary based on your plan and location. You can stick with unlimited talk and text for $4.50 or drop down to a smaller amount to save a bit more. If you’ve moved a lot of your messaging to apps like Facebook Messenger or Telegram, you may not need as many texts as you think.

Apart from carriers like Mint Mobile that require multi-month subscriptions, this is about the cheapest data gets in the U.S. If you’re a light user and can get away with a small amount of data, MobileX could save you a lot of money.

I started out with MobileX’s smaller 15GB unlimited plan since I was using quite a bit of data at first, but it’s becoming clear that I don’t actually need that much for the rest of the month. It also helps that I’ve been spending quite a bit of time on Wi-Fi recently and haven’t been traveling too much.

MobileX shows you your remaining data next to the remaining time in your billing period, so you can get an idea of whether you’re coming out ahead of your predicted usage. As long as the data remaining ring stays ahead of the time remaining ring, you should make it without running out. If you don’t get the right plan on your first run, you can get a new use forecast to see where you can save some money.

Competition

Mint Mobile is one of the first carriers that springs to mind with its smallest plan coming with 5GB of data for $15 per month. That’s a bit more than MobileX and requires a 12-month payment, but it also comes with unlimited talk and text on the T-Mobile network. T-Mobile’s 5G coverage dwarfs that of the Verizon network that MobileX uses so if you want the best data speeds, Mint Mobile is a solid pick. Mint’s unlimited plan also comes with more data than MobileX’s biggest unlimited plan at 40GB plus 10GB of hotspot data.

Visible is great for those that don’t want to spend a lot of time thinking about how many gigs they use and how to reduce it. Visible’s flat $30 per month unlimited plan actually is an unlimited plan, so you can use as much data as you want with unlimited hotspot data at 5Mbps. Visible is owned by Verizon, and it uses the Verizon LTE and 5G networks, but its data is treated as a lower priority. While Visible’s data can fall short in terms of speed, it’s still plenty fast for most people. If you’re looking to save on wireless compared to one of the Big Three carriers, you don’t have to spend any time thinking about usage with Visible.

Should you get a MobileX subscription?

MobileX is certainly one of the most unique carriers I’ve used. While other carriers like US Mobile allow for custom plans, they don’t offer the same level of precision as MobileX. Even so, pound for pound, you get more data for less with MobileX. If you use less than 10GB per month, it’s definitely downloading the MobileX app to see how much you can save.

I know MobileX de-emphasizes its 15GB and 30GB unlimited plans as old-school plans with limitations, but they’re still a great value at $20 and $25 per month. Still, it’s nice to see a carrier admitting that describing a plan with a very real limit as “unlimited” is bogus. Still, these two plans are a solid value for heavier users and could also be a nice way to help them see how much data they really need.