Which U.S. iPhone carrier and plan should you get: AT&T, Verizon, Sprint, or T-Mobile?

AT&T, Verizon, Sprint, or T-Mobile — how to pick the perfect iPhone carrier for you!

We've got a wide range of options when it comes to purchasing a new iPhone in the United States. You can pick one up from your local carrier store (as the majority of customers still do) or order from your carrier online. You can get one at carrier resellers like Best Buy. Or you can get an iPhone from the welcoming embrace of your local Apple Retail Store, or from the Apple Online Store.

Where you buy will dictate what choices are offered, including how much you'll pay and how you'll be able to pay. So let's run through the options.

A few caveats:

• These prices are always subject to change, though we'll do our best to keep them up-to-date
• Prices listed are only for the device itself and do not include service (though some device payment options do impact the service charges, so we'll note that where applicable)

If you want to cut through all the muss and muck, the best deals for each carrier are at the end of their respective sections, and you'll find the best iPhone deals regardless of carrier at the end of this guide.

Where to buy a new iPhone

• Buying a new iPhone from the Apple Store
• Buying a new iPhone from AT&T
• Buying a new iPhone from Sprint
• Buying a new iPhone from T-Mobile
• Buying a new iPhone from Verizon
• Getting the best iPhone deals

Apple Store

There are only a few places you can go to shop for a new iPhone on every carrier, and the Apple Store is one of those places. It just so happens to be one of the most pleasant places to buy a new iPhone as well. And if you're looking to participate in the Day 1 reverie of an iPhone launch, there's no better place to do that than an Apple Store.

• Find the nearest Apple Store

2-year contract (Sprint or Verizon)

If you're still attached to the traditional subsidized model, it's still available at Apple Stores for customers on Sprint and Verizon. Pay a few hundred up front and then you're done, right? Not quite — you'll pay more for your monthly service to cover the remaining cost of the device. In fact, you might end up paying more in the long haul. Sprint still offers 2-year contracts to new customers, Verizon only allows existing contract subscribers to renew their contracts.

• More details on Sprint's contract plans
• More details on Verizon's contract plans.

AT&T Next

While Sprint and Verizon offer contract pricing in the Apple Store and T-Mobile phones are sold at full price, AT&T will sell you a phone at full price or on one of their many Next payment plans. The Next plans divide up the full retail cost of your phone over a number of months (ranging from 20 to 30). There are a lot of options here, so we'll just shoot you over to the AT&T section of this guide for more info.

• More details on AT&T's Next payment plans

Unlocked off-contract (all carriers)

If you want to purchase your phone at full price unlocked, Apple will sell it to you just like that. No payment plans, no trade-in upgrades, just straight money for phone.

iPhone Upgrade Program (unlocked, all carriers)

The Apple iPhone Upgrade Program was a surprise addition this year. In signing up you agree to pay Apple monthly installments over a 24 month period, but in exchange you'll get to trade in your current iPhone for a new iPhone every year, plus ongoing AppleCare+ coverage. Apple only currently offers the Upgrade Program for the iPhone 6s and 6s Plus — clearly, if you're the type that wants a new phone every year, then you want the best new phone every year. Here's what the monthly payments look like:

This program does cost more per month than the monthly payment options, though it does have the $129 cost of 2 years of AppleCare+ built in as well. For the 16GB iPhone 6s you'll pay a total of $388.92 a year — roughly half the combined price of an iPhone 6s with AppleCare+. In essence, it's a payment and protection plan with a free upgrade every year.

Additionally, the iPhone Upgrade Program will only be available at Apple Retail Stores and not online (though you will be able to reserve online and pick up in store).

iPhone Trade-in program

The final option for Apple is an iPhone trade-in program. Bring in your old functioning iPhone, trade it in, and Apple will offer you a discount on a new iPhone — either in month pricing or upfront. The pricing structure is a little complicated, so here's what you can expect:

That said, if your phone is in pristine condition you might be better off selling your iPhone through a service like Gazelle or eBay. Apple's pricing here is very fair — in fact, if you go for the monthly payments on a trade-in you'll save even more than if you were to take the payment as a lump sum. And you'll get to know that Apple's Liam robot is disassembling your iPhone.

So what's the best way to get an iPhone from Apple?

If you plan on buying AppleCare+ and a new iPhone every year, the iPhone Upgrade Program is a no-brainer. You're paying half the cost of a new iPhone and half the cost of AppleCare+, and you get a brand new iPhone a year later.

Even if you're not planning on getting AppleCare+ but still want a new iPhone every year it's a good deal. Right now if you try and trade in your iPhone for cash from a site like Gazelle, you can expect to get about $350, for a loss of around $300 on the trade-in. You might be able to sell it for more on eBay, but that's a new set of hassles that trade-in services seek to eliminate. With Apple's upgrade program, you're looking at a $65 annual loss if you end up not using AppleCare+.

• If you plan on buying a new iPhone every year: get into the iPhone Upgrade Program. Even if you don't want AppleCare+, it'll still save you money over trying to resell or trade-in your old iPhone
• If you plan on buying a new iPhone with AppleCare+: still get into the iPhone Upgrade Program. It costs the same, but you don't have to pay for it all upfront, and you can get a new iPhone next year.
• If paying an extra $65/year for a protection plan with free upgrade privileges doesn't appeal to you, there's always buying the phone outright, renewing your existing contract, or getting onto one of the many payment plans offered by the individual carriers (see your carrier section for details).
• If you have an iPhone to trade in, go for the iPhone Trade-in program, and consider the monthly payments option there because you'll save even more.

See at Apple

AT&T

AT&T's Next payment plans can seem complicated, but in truth they're pretty straightforward. You take the full price of the phone and divide it up over a number of months, and then pay that much each month. The complication comes from AT&T naming the plans with numbers that don't match the months you're paying — they're the number of months after which you can trade in for an upgrade So while the Next 12 plan divides your payments over 20 months, you'll be eligible to trade in for an upgrade after 12 months. See? Not that confusing.

Regardless of the Next plan you select, you end up paying the same price at the end: the full retail price. Unless you upgrade first.

• Check the AT&T coverage map for your area

AT&T Next 12

Full price divided across 20 monthly payments, trade-in upgrade eligible after 12 months.

AT&T Next 18

Full price divided across 24 monthly payments, trade-in upgrade eligible after 18 months.

AT&T Next 24

Full price divided across 30 monthly payments, trade-in upgrade eligible after 24 months.

AT&T Next 30% down

Ah-ha! There's one more Next option, and this one brings back the initial downpayment. With this plan you pay 30% upfront and then pay off the rest over the next 28 months (don't ask us where AT&T got all these numbers they're using). Again, in the end you'll pay off the full retail price of the phone. The question is how you want to go about laying out between $650 and $950 — all upfront and the phone's yours, or over the course of up to 30 months where you're beholden to AT&T? Your call.

AT&T full price

And, of course, if you want to pay full price for the new iPhone, AT&T will gladly take all your money upfront.

So what's the best way to get an iPhone from AT&T?

The answer here depends on how much you want to pay a month and how frequently you want to upgrade. If you want a new 16GB top-end iPhone every year, Next 12 will end up costing you $390 a year. You might be able to get slightly better returns by selling your iPhone to Gazelle or a similar service or selling it on your own, but there's no guarantee of that.

If you want to upgrade every two years, it's again a tossup between paying the full price and selling when you upgrade versus upgrading through the Next 24 plan. You'll end up paying $520 over the course of two years for a $649 phone, but right now a perfect-condition 2-year-old AT&T iPhone 5s will get about $150 on the trade-in market.

Where things get interesting is whether or not you should go for the Next 24 versus a 2-year contract. With all Next upgrades it's a trade-in — it's rent-to-own. You're paying equity into the phone, and you can trade it in for a new phone partway through, or you can keep paying and in the end the phone is yours. With a 2-year contract, the phone is yours after those 2 years, and if you chose to upgrade to a new phone, you get to keep the old one or trade it in for an additional refund.

• If you plan to update your phone frequently, purchase on the Next 12 plan. It has the lowest cost to upgrade (either by waiting the requisite 12 months or waiting at least 2 moths and paying off the remaining balance to 12) of any of the Next plans (Next 12: 60%; Next 18: 75%; Next 24: 80%), and while you'll pay more per month, you'll pay less per phone.
• If you plan to upgrade every other year, you should go with the Next 24 plan.

See on AT&T

Sprint

Of all the carriers, Sprint is all about giving you the most options. Sprint offers no fewer than four separate methods of paying for your phone, with some options even offering multiple choices. You can lease a phone, you can pay off a phone, you can go for a standard contract, or you can buy full price. If that doesn't make your head spin, Sprint has their own iPhone upgrade program too.

• Check the Sprint coverage map for your area

Sprint iPhone Forever 18-month lease with downpayment

Sprint is really big on leasing for their phones — you never really own the phone, but you end up paying less in the long haul. They only offer leasing on their top tier iPhones in an 18-month term (which you can upgrade after 12 months). The 18-month lease payment is structured somewhat like the 2-year contracts of old: the downpayment varies based on phone's storage capacity, but the monthly cost is the same.

As this is a lease and not financing, at the end of those 24 months the phone goes back to Sprint and you'll have paid $480 to rent it from them. If you have poor credit, you may be asked to pay more upfront, but you'll also have lower payments throughout the lease term.

Sprint iPhone Forever 17-month lease

If that potential +$100 downpayment for a larger capacity iPhone 6s doesn't tickle your fancy, fret not. Sprint offers a 17-month iPhone Forever lease (with the same 12-month upgrade cycle) with zero downpayment for the 64GB and 128GB storage sizes, instead varying the monthly cost.

Sprint EasyPay

If leasing isn't your thing, that's fine by Sprint. They offer a monthly payments option as well, spreading the cost of the phone over 24 months, though larger capacities may demand more upfront.

Unlike AT&T, Sprint offers just the 24-month payments plan, and there's no upgrade program here either. You're paying the full cost for this phone regardless.

Sprint 2-year contract

And for those that are skeptical of all these payment plans or frightened by the total price tag, Sprint still offers traditional 2-year contracts.

But you should definitely do the math here, because the numbers are not in your favor with Sprint's contract plans. Sprint adds $25 to the monthly service charges for a phone purchased on contract, netting them $600 over the 2 years of the contract. They're making back that $450 subsidization and then some. A lot some, actually.

We can't think of any reason that you should buy an iPhone from Sprint on contract — the numbers just don't work. If leasing a phone isn't your thing (and we totally get if it isn't), Sprint's EasyPay 24-month payment plan is a fine option. You'll pay $150 less over the course of 2 years.

Sprint full price

And while Sprint is happy to offer a 24-month payment plan and leasing, they'd also be happy to take your money up front. So here's their off-contract pricing (it's exactly the same as everybody else):

So what's the best way to get an iPhone from Sprint?

Which Sprint plan is the best can be a complicated question. But it's easy to tell you which is the worst: don't do a 2-year contract. Just. Don't. Your wallet will thank you.

The best option from there depends on how frequently you want to upgrade and whether or not your comfortable with leasing a phone instead of owning it.

• If you want a new 16GB iPhone every year, you should opt for the 18-month iPhone Forever lease.
• But if you want a new 64GB or 128GB iPhone every year, forgo the down payments and pay a bit more each month with the 17-month lease option — in the end you'll save a few dollars every year, and you won't have to fork over $100 or $200 at the start of the lease.
• If you want to upgrade your phone exactly every other year, go for the 24-month Sprint EasyPay payment plan. You'll pay for the full cost of the iPhone and nothing more.
• Do not get an iPhone on a Sprint 2-year contract. We repeat: No 2-year Sprint contracts.

See on Sprint

T-Mobile

T-Mobile, the Uncarrier of brash and bravado fame, has a blessedly simple price structure. Either you can buy the phone at full price, or you can pay for it over 24 months.

• Check the T-Mobile coverage map for your area

T-Mobile 24 monthly payments

T-Mobile's pricing structure for monthly payments is simple: you'll pay the same per month regardless of the capacity of your iPhone. Each iPhone 6s capacity will be $27.08/month, while the iPhone 6 Plus will be $31.24. The storage price premium comes in with the initial downpayment: a 16GB iPhone 6s is free upfront, while a 128GB iPhone 6s will be $199.99 down.

See? It doesn't get much simpler than that. Well, apart from just paying full price up front.

T-Mobile does offer an optional upgrade plan on top of this called Jump. For an extra $12/month you can trade in your iPhone and start payments on a new one — yes, that's an extra $144/year to lose all the equity you've paid into the phone. Worth it? We think not.

T-Mobile full price

Naturally, T-Mobile will also sell you an iPhone at full price upfront too.

So what's the best way to get an iPhone from T-Mobile?

T-Mobile keeps it simple. Pay over 24 months or pay for it all now. That makes it easy for us to make our recommendations too.

• Regardless of how you intend to get a new iPhone from T-Mobile, you'll pay the full price for it. So it's up to you: pay it all upfront and maybe trade it in later, or pay for it all now and sell it later for a higher return. Your call.
• The $12/month Jump trade-in add-on is not worth the cost. You'll end up paying $144 extra every year on top of the year's worth of payments you just put into the phone. It's especially not worth it on a cheaper iPhone, where you'll end up paying off 70-85% of the phone every year, only to give it back to T-Mobile and start over.

See on T-Mobile

Verizon

Verizon, long the bastion of overly complicated plans that charged far too much for a phone, is no longer that monster of terrible pricing. At least on the device front — whether or not their data charges work for you is 100% your call. Verizon offers two options for new customers: monthly payments or full price. Like T-Mobile, they've completely ditched the 2-year contract. Well, not completely.

• Check the Verizon coverage map for your area

Verizon 24 monthly payments

Option one for Verizon: Full price of your phone divided over 24 months. No gimmicks, no interest, nothing crazy.

If you want to engage in upgrades, well, this is where things get complicated. If you were on Verizon's older Edge upgrade program prior to May 31, 2105, you can still take advantage of those upgrades. Namely, after 30 days and a minimum payment of 75% of the total cost of the device, you can trade it back in to Verizon for a new phone. Look, we didn't say it was a good deal, just that it was an option. If you got onto the aptly titled "The Verizon Plan" plan after May of 2015, sorry, there aren't any upgrades in the cards for you.

Verizon full price

In keeping with Verizon's super simplified payments structure, here's option two: all the money up front, you take your phone, and we never talk about it again.

Verizon 2-year contract

Turns out there's a third option. Kind of. 2-year contracts still exist at Verizon, but only for existing customers.

If you're a current contract customer with Verizon, you'll have the option to renew your contract and pay for your new iPhone in the traditional subsidized manner. You'll still pay for it over the long haul — Verizon contract customers pay an extra $20 a month in service charges over their non-contract comrades.

So what's the best way to get an iPhone from Verizon?

There is no best way to get an iPhone from Verizon. Either you pay the full price up front, or you pay the full price over 24 months. Either way, you're paying the full price. The only difference is in the flexibility granted by having the device paid off: Verizon's legally required to unlock paid-off phones.

We can't really recommend the 2-year contract option unless you have some killer data package that you'll lose by switching to the "The Verizon Plan" plan. If you're upgrading every two years it's not markedly worse than the other options from a cost perspective, but if you don't have to be locked into a contract, why bother?

See on Verizon

So what's the best iPhone deal?

We've always been advocates of picking your carrier first, and we'll continue to be. If your phone doesn't get a signal where you spend your time, it's of no use, so always always always pick a carrier before picking a phone. You can get an iPhone on every major network in the US, so there's no worry about missing out on that anymore like the old days.

So between Apple, AT&T, Verizon, Sprint, and T-Mobile, who offers the best deal on a new iPhone? Purely from a cost perspective (again, carrier coverage is important here, and we can't make that decision for you).

• If you plan on upgrading your iPhone every year, you should get onto the Apple iPhone Upgrade Program. It might seem like the more expensive option, but once you factor in the cost of (lesser quality) insurance on Sprint, it costs significantly less per month and overall.
• If you plan to get insurance, go with the Apple iPhone Upgrade Program. AppleCare+ is included and there's no future promotional pricing expiration bill shock.
• If you want AT&T, go for the AT&T Next 12 plan. It offers faster upgrades at the lowest per-upgrade cost, and in the end doesn't cost any more if you were to pay off and keep the phone.
• If you want T-Mobile or Verizon, well, it doesn't matter. You'll pay full price regardless. You should probably steer clear of T-Mobile's Jump upgrade program — the $12/month cost just isn't worth it.

And that's everything you need to know to get a new iPhone in the US!