Verizon finally offers a prepaid plan with 5G Ultra Wideband

You won’t necessarily have to choose between the flexibility of a prepaid plan and the fastest possible 5G service. Verizon (disclaimer: this author also writes for Verizon-owned Engadget, but is editorially independent) has introduced its first prepaid plan with 5G Ultra Wideband support.

If you have a compatible smartphone, the new Prepaid Unlimited tier now offers 5G speeds up to 25 times higher than for LTE, according to Verizon. You’ll also get access to the carrier’s lower-band 5G Nationwide network and 10GB of full-speed mobile hotspot data. There’s ‘unlimited’ talk, text, and data when you’re traveling to Canada, Mexico, Puerto Rico or the US Virgin Islands (when travel is a regular occurrence again, at least), although you’ll be throttled to 2G speeds if you use more than 0.5GB per day.

Read more: Verizon prepaid buyer’s guide

Verizon’s faster prepaid 5G plan starts at a price of $75 per month. However, you can cut that down to $60 per month the more loyal you are. Auto Pay cuts $5 from your bill right away. You’ll shed another $5 per month if you stick around for three months, plus $5 more after nine months.

You won’t get perks like Disney Plus, Apple Music, or Discovery Plus like you do with regular postpaid plans. And of course, 5G Ultra Wideband only matters if you live in one of the 64 covered cities and expect to have frequent access — you’re better off with one of Verizon’s lower-cost prepaid offerings (or another provider) if you’ll rarely ever use the additional speed.

Nonetheless, this is a welcome move if you don’t care for frills and still want maximum performance. While the $60 price for loyal customers still isn’t trivial, it’s low enough that you could roll the savings into a 5G-capable phone and ultimately save a significant amount of money.