Which Carriers Save You the Most Money When Buying an iPhone 14? Not the Big 3

pcmag.com:

So you’re thinking of buying Apple's latest smartphone, the iPhone 14. Like thousands of people, you’ll probably gravitate toward buying the phone from your carrier, which has long been the best way to save. But is that still the case?

WalletHub's cell phone savings calculator(Opens in a new window) lets you compare the upfront cost of a new phone plus monthly fees, to see how much the next two years of your life will cost. In the infographic below, it provides a full breakdown of pricing for a 128GB iPhone 14 on each carrier, plus all the MVNOs that use carrier networks.

These kinds of comparisons are not simple, as everyone has different needs—individual versus family plans, for instance. And some buy the handset with a payment plan, while others buy their phones upfront. Some people even buy their phones direct from Apple via an installment plan. WalletHub breaks down those costs, too.

If you feel you must stick with the top three US carriers, and you have only one phone, the cheapest way to go is with T-Mobile. The carrier installment plan with a new iPhone 14 purchase will cost $2,173 over two years, and that's cheaper than buying the phone up front sans contract. You save a dollar more if you buy the phone from Apple with its own installment plan (Apple’s iPhone Carrier Device Payment Program) instead, which lets users upgrade to a new iPhone every year and includes full AppleCare+ coverage.

But you can save over $659 more by buying your iPhone 14 outright and going with a mobile virtual network operator (MVNO), the kind of carrier that doesn’t own its own network. In this case, the cheapest option is to go with Visible: For a no-contract option, the total cost including phone over two years is $1,513. It's by far