Reading between the lines of T-Mobile's new rate card (2025)

A "rate card" outlines the pricing structure for a company's products or services. It's essentially a list of the standard, published rates for various offerings, and it serves as a reference for potential customers, existing customers and a company's rivals.

As every marketer knows, changes to a rate card are not taken lightly. A major pricing increase could scare away customers. But a major decrease could significantly cut into profits.

In the US wireless industry, rate card changes happen every few years, and often coincide with new corporate strategies or new economic realities. The introduction of 5G is one example. The COVID-19 pandemic is another.

So what to make of T-Mobile's new pricing changes, announced today?

"We're a company that's motivated to help bring solutions and to make the lives of our customers better. And the pain is this: All around us, prices are going up. And what we want to do with T-Mobile is bring relief," Jon Freier, president of T-Mobile's Consumer Group, told Light Reading. "And that's really what this is about."

The details

At least, that's T-Mobile's broad messaging on the topic. That messaging is not a surprise; executives at other wireless network operators have also argued that their main goal is to make customers happy.

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But the devil is in the details. In T-Mobile's case, there are plenty of details to its new rate card.

First, T-Mobile is shrinking its rate card from five postpaid plans down to four: Essentials Saver, Essentials, Experience More and Experience Beyond. The operator's most expensive postpaid service plan – the new Experience Beyond plan – is just slightly cheaper than its current top-tier option, Go5G Next.

On the prepaid side of things, T-Mobile is mostly lowering prices. Metro by T-Mobile (the operator's prepaid brand) will offer four new plans: Metro Starter, Metro Starter Plus, Metro Flex Unlimited and Metro Flex Unlimited Plus. In general, they're significantly cheaper than the plans Metro by T-Mobile previously offered.

Freier, the T-Mobile executive, acknowledged the change, arguing that Metro by T-Mobile's expensive plans weren't selling well, and that the company needed more options in the "sweet spot" of the prepaid market (around $40-60 per month).

T-Mobile is also introducing a five-year pricing guarantee. That's likely a reaction to recent pricing increases by Verizon and AT&T, as well as by T-Mobile itself. It also comes just a few days after both Comcast and Verizon introduced their own price lock promises.

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So is T-Mobile reacting to its competitors? "No, not at all," Freier said, arguing T-Mobile's new five-year price guarantee is simply an extension of similar offerings the company has made in the past.

"Customers ... want some certainty," he said, adding that T-Mobile's pricing guarantee will extend to the operator's fiber and fixed wireless prices.

Not a price war

So how should the market view T-Mobile's new rate card? Is it mostly about cutting prices? Is it an attempt to juice revenues? Is it a reaction to recent market upheavals and fears of a recession?

And are we in the early stages of a price war in the US wireless market?

"No, I see it very, very differently," Freier said.

"When you look at the overall health of the industry, it's probably never been healthier," he continued. "And then, when you look at what customers are getting for every dollar that they're spending on wireless services, that's never been better."

But things aren't standing still, Freier said.

"Competition is changing," he said. "It's very dynamic. And the way we're competing, that's changing just a little bit. Sometimes it's just a little bit more on rate plans, you see some competitiveness around rate plans. You see competitiveness around device [offerings]."

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He concluded: "It's very competitive. No question about that. Dynamic. Ever-changing, in terms of what people are doing. But a price war? I don't see any evidence of that at all."

Such comments are likely to soothe investors who might worry about a pricing war that could ultimately cut into mobile operators' revenues.

More for a dollar

Freier's comments come on the heels of a new report reiterating that T-Mobile's acquisition of Sprint in 2020 had a "devastating" impact on US mobile market prices overall. According to new figures from Rewheel, that merger "led to higher prices and caused substantial harm and financial losses to US consumers."

"The T-Mobile / Sprint 4-to-3 merger led to higher monthly prices (compare to the projected counterfactual prices i.e., absent of the merger) causing substantial harm and financial losses to US consumers," the firm reported.

Rewheel also highlighted figures from the US Bureau of Labour Statistics for "Wireless Telephone Services," which show that wireless prices in the US have remained relatively flat since 2017.

However, wireless trade association CTIA has argued that US consumers are getting more services – including larger and larger data allotments – for their wireless spending.

Interestingly, Verizon's consumer chief, Sowmyanarayan Sampath, addressed the situation in recent comments to The Verge. "ARPU has moved very little on a per-phone-line basis in the last 20 years that I've been in the space," he said. "I think people have this notion that the phone bill is going up, but the phone bill is going up because they're signing up for new services. For example, in my case, we are going to have a $2 billion business selling streaming services and entertainment services. Now, we give great savings. We give you a 40% discount when you buy Disney or Netflix, Max, and all the cool services from us. But the core phone service, as you know it, has really not gone up in price."

Article updated April 22 to clarify that T-Mobile will continue to offer its Essentials Saver plan.