My Completely Honest Review of Ting Cell Service (and how I saved $111/month!)

“Switch to Ting Cell Service (available everywhere Sprint is!) and save up to 70% on your cell bill without affecting service! No contracts, no hidden fees, and if you cancel with your current provider, we'll pay a portion of your early termination fees!”

My Review of Ting Cell Service and How We Save $111/Month.

Sounds too good to be true. I'm a sucker for a good deal. So when I heard from a blogger that she uses Ting cell service and pays 60% of what she did on Sprint, I was intrigued. I figured, I'm willing to be the guinea pig for you guys. Especially since we paid between $170-$200/month for cell phone service on Sprint, and neither of us were happy with it. Here's my “hold nothing back” honest assessment of TING service with what I paid, what I used and whether it was worth it.

I'll admit it. I may be cheap, but not with cell phones. I have a love affair with my iPhone.  The downside to the iPhone is the monthly bills! Two years ago, we were paying $202 for two iPhones through ATT with unlimited everything. Last year, we switched to Sprint and paid $170 for the same. The service is not as great with Sprint as ATT, for instance you can't surf the internet or use data while you're talking on the phone but the few minor hiccups were well worth $30/month to me.

I switched to Ting to try out their seemingly too good to be true claims at the end of my Sprint Contract. Here's what I thought:

Benefits of Ting:

1. There's no contract! Try it for a month. If you hate it, just cancel!

2. You can bring any phone with you from Sprint at no cost.

3. You'll use the Sprint Network and won't notice a difference in service if you already use Sprint.

4. It's so cheap! My bill is always under $41, my husbands averages $57.00, both with heavy use.

5. You can check what your bill will be before you sign up! I entered 12 months of text, data and voice usage from past bills for both my husband and I before I made the switch. It generates the average bill amount for me. I already knew what I would be paying before I signed on (click here for their website to use this feature).

6. Everything on wifi is free, which includes iMessage to other iPhone users (including photo texts!)

7. Ting roams to the Verizon Network at no additional cost to you for voice and text. This ensures that you can get a signal wherever you are!

8. They run bad ass promotions that show they know you won't leave if you sign up (see the last paragraph).

9. It's free to tether! They even encourage it! You can run your laptop or your iPad off of your iPhone's data.

10. Very transparent charges. You don't have to worry about hidden anything. (See the chart at the bottom of this post).

11. You can save $25 on your first bill by signing up using this link!

12. Setting it up was really easy. You do it from home through their website in about 15 minutes. Your phone is only out of service for about 15 minutes. I suggest doing this in the evening right before you go to bed. They'll update everything as you sleep and you'll be good to go in the morning. You don't have to bring your phone anywhere.

13. If you don't have a Sprint phone to bring with you, you can purchase a phone from them for a pretty hefty discount.

14. Customer Service is great! I didn't have any major issues to trouble shoot, so I didn't technically need customer service, but this is a big part of a company to me. I called and bugged them several times both before switching over and after switching asking for clarification of services to write this post. It was easy to get a real person on the phone and they were helpful.

15. If you really needed to save a lot of money, you could easily get your bill down to $15 for the month. Especially if you have an iPhone. Anything on Wi-Fi is free (including imessage and voice only facetime). If you really concentrated on it, you could just use imessage (or alternative texting and call services if someone doesn't have an iPhone) and get your bill down to the $6 monthly connection fee plus the $3 smallest amounts of usage (because its unlikely you can go the whole month with just using those services.

16. You can get refurbished phones though an affiliate of Ting, that are low priced. An Apple iPhone 4s in excellent used condition is $160 (plus a $20 credit to your bill during a promotion right now), a refurbished iPhone 4s is $238. They're already set up for Sprint or Ting service and if you have a phone from another carrier you can trade it in for a similar price. They have guarantees and returns if you aren't satisfied with your purchase.

16. If you already use Sprint, then you don't need anything. You just use the phone you use with Sprint Service.

17. They have an easy to use app that gives you detailed reports of what you used, what your bill is and your estimated bill in real time.

Drawbacks of Ting:

1. If you use AT&T right now, and are used to being able to surf the internet while on long holds, you're really going to miss that feature.

2. You have to go on to the Ting website after you activate your phone to hit the “This device can accept and send picture messages” toggle button. It's easy, but I wish it was automatically in the “on” position.

3. You won't get “free” phones any more. However, if I paid $99 for my Sprint discounted iPhone that costs $400 and then overpaid on my Sprint bill by $100/month (compared to Ting), then I've actually paid $1,299.00 for a $400 iPhone. Ouch.

4. If you have a phone from any other carrier than Sprint, then you have to get a new phone. But they make it really easy. They have an affiliate company to buy cheap refurbished phones from. See “Benefits of Ting” above, #16.

5. You may not be able to get the newest phone. The biggest example of this is the iPhone 6 which just came out. They don't have that phone available on their network yet. They just brought the iPhone 5 over this month (October 2014).

The savings from switching to Ting is $111/month for us!

What's my recommendation? I love them. I seriously, seriously love them. I badger everyone I know to switch. I save such a significant amount of money and I have no difference in service. Everything they do is transparent. They lived up to every claim they made to me.

Promotions:

Use this link for a $ 25.00 credit when you sign up! (Plus, I'll get $25.00 credit too and you all know how much I love to save money!)
Early Termination Fee: They'll pay 25% of your early termination fee up to $75.00. (Click here)

iPhone and Samsung: They'll pay any difference in price for buying and selling the same model phone if you don't have a sprint compatible device.(Click here)

Small businesses: if you have 6 or more devices for your business, send them your last few bills. If you won't save money switching to Ting, they'll send you a foosball table! (Click here)

Monthly Rates at Ting Cell Service for data, voice and text.

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