The best prepaid cell phone plans allow you to talk and text freely at prices lower than contract plans and without the hassle of a contract cell service plan.

Most people buying a cell phone make a mistake believing that getting a cell phone with a 2 year contract is the best way to get solid service for talking and texting. What they do not know is that by picking a prepaid cell phone plan instead they could enjoy identical services for a lot less money and with no long-term obligations. The best prepaid cell phone plans allows you to talk and text as much as you like very cost-effectively and in a reliable way. Along with companies offering the best prepaid cell plans, they also offer inexpensive and trendy cell phones that are great for texting, talking and web browsing.

If you are not aware of the advantages of prepaid wirelss plans, it could be because they have evolved and improved rapidly in the last few years. The pricing and features available that you read up about pre-paid cell phone services as recent as a few months ago may already have changed, and probably for the better. In this article, four types of prepaid cell phone plans for talking and texting are introduced. Each single one of these plans can save you hundreds of dollars each year when compared with the similar contract plan. By the end of this information-packed article you will at least be able to see if any of these plans is compatible with your criteria for a cell phone plan.

The first type of prepaid cell phone plan is Pay As You Go. Pay As You Go is the most basic way is to buy prepaid service. You buy airtime - a term that means a fixed number of phone minutes and a period of active service. For example, you can buy an airtime card of 120 minutes, for 3 months of service, for $20. That means Pay As You Go service will stay active for 3 months and you have 120 minutes during that period for use. The minutes are depleted every time you use your phone.

The bare minimum necessary to keep the Pay As You Go service active is to have unexpired service time, even if all your minutes have been used up. For light occasional users of a cell phone, this is the ideal choice and would keep costs to as low as $7 a month. For this option, TracFone offer great value. Check out Tracfone prepaid's double-minute benefit that will really bring the cost per minute down tremendously.

If your phone usage is highly concentrated just on certain days of the week such as weekends, or weekdays, or other special days, you may save even more with the next option, Pay By The Day.

The second type of prepaid cell phone plan, Pay By The Day, has been gaining in popularity recently. With Pay By The Day you pay only for the days that you use the phone. The charge could be a combination of a fixed amount, for example, $1 a day, and then 10 cents for each additional minute of talk time. Or it could be a small fee like $3 a day for unlimited use for the whole day.

Similar to the Pay As You Go service, you prepay for a fixed length of service time, usually once every 3 months or once every year, and the usage amount will be deducted from your prepaid balance for the days that you use the phone. This is suitable for people who may not need to use the phone everyday but on the days they use it, they use it quite a bit. Note that if you use the phone almost every day but for just a few minutes each time, you probably will spend less with the Pay As You Go option. For the Pay By The Day option, T-Mobile's Prepaid and AT&T's GoPhone are recommended choices.

The third type of the prepaid cell phone plan is the Prepaid Monthly Plan. This is similar to regular contract-based cell phone services in that you pay once a month on a recurring basis. An example would be a plan for $15 a month with 150 minutes. Since there are no contracts, you can stop it anytime with no penalties. Another benefit is that your phone automatically gets topped up with new minutes every month, so you do not have to take time out of your schedule to purchase refill cards. For this option, Net 10 and T-Mobile's FlexPay plan are recommended choices.

The fourth and the last type of the prepaid cell phone plan is the Super Usage/Unlimited Monthly Plan. Super Usage or Unlimited Plan is a high-end variation of the monthly plan and has attracted new converts accustomed to high volume usage on a contract-based plan. For $50 or less a month, you can find prepaid plans that offer unlimited talk, text and data access. For $30 a month, you can find plans offering 1,000 minutes of talk time and 1,000 text messages. This is perfect for you if you use your cell phone all the time. For this option, Boost Mobile, Virgin Mobile, MetroPCS and TracFone's StraightTalk.com service are recommended choices.

Now that you know more on how four different types of prepaid cell phone plans work, it is time to get into action and check the phones available, and details of plans that most suit your criteria. By selecting the best prepaid cell phone plan for your needs, you could very well end up with a wonderful, stylish new prepaid cell phone for talking and texting. On top of that you may save hundreds of dollars each year on your cell phone charges.