Best Cell Phone Plans for Businesses

How can you save money on your cell phone bill if you have a small business?  Most providers offer plans that are specifically designed for small businesses.  However, these plans can be pricy and can require a 2-year commitment.  That is a big risk, especially for a business that needs to keep its cash flow flexible as it tries to grow and deal with unforeseen expenses. 

There are different approaches for cutting cell phone costs and limiting financial commitment. 

1. Prepaid services are a viable option for businesses.  The pre-paid cell phone industry has come a long way in the past few years.  Only a short time ago, it was limited to cheap phones and high per-minute charges.  Now, pre-paid carriers provide cutting edge phones, data plans and unlimited calling for a set monthly fee.  The good news is that there is no contract, so there is no need to worry about financial commitments.  The bad news: these providers don’t have multiple-line deals (a.k.a. family plans, see below) and may lack the customer support of the industry leaders like AT&T and Verizon.  However, for basic communications and even internet access, it can be difficult to beat the prices.  1000 + minute service with limited data transfer and 1,000 + text messages start at about $30 per month (from Page Plus Cellular).  Virgin Mobile offers plans for heavy internet users starting at $25 per month.  Unlimited services for voice, text and data start at about $40-$45 per month, with many in the $50-$60 range (from Boost Mobile, Simple Mobile and Platinumtel).  Some carriers specialize only in unlimited service.  MetroPCS is a rapidly expanding service that specializes in unlimited pre-paid service. 
2. Family plans.  You don’t have to be a family to take advantage of family plans offered by major cell phone providers.  If you have to supply cell phones to multiple people, a family plan could be the way to avoid opening a business account with a major provider while still getting multiple lines and other services.  Most providers charge around $10 for each extra line.  The problem: data can be an expensive extra that providers do not allow you to share with the other members of your “family.”  However, if all you require is basic voice and text services, family plans will probably be your cheapest option. 
3. You can utilize free services to make your current cell phone service more muscular.  Google Voice and Skype are both excellent tools for businesses.  With Google Voice, users can control their phone numbers and even send calls to multiple numbers and allow multiple users to receive the same voicemails.  This service is free.  Although some features, like the automatic transcription of voice mail, are lacking quality overall, the services offered by Google are akin to some of the services businesses would receive if they signed up for some sort of business cell phone plan from a major cell phone provider (at a high cost). 
4. For many business people, internet access via cell phone is not important.  They simply need to receive and send email.  With a little bit of tech savvy, it is possible to get email sent to your email enabled phone, blackberry, etc, through a service provider for several dollars per month.  This is an added cost, but will definitely be much cheaper than an unlimited data plan.  Pre-paid providers are generally more generous with data plans.  They either charge per megabyte or offer a small amount data transfer each month with their unlimited talk and text plans.  For most emailers who aren’t spending time on Facebook or Youtube, only a small limit is needed to send and receive emails. 

Mark has been blogging about mobile phones for 3 years.  He currently contributes to blogs dealing with cloud computing and ways for companies to use qr code.

 Image by: JonJon2K8