What you need to know
- New unlimited plan starts at $70 per month with 100GB of Google One storage included.
- Data is full speed up to 22GB per month, but video streaming quality may be reduced to 480p.
- Group plans reduce the per-person cost to as low as $45 per month.
Google Fi is taking on another evolution of its service with a new unlimited plan offering that gives Fi customers another choice for heavy data usage or simply peace of mind in knowing their bill will be the exact same every month.
The simply named "Unlimited" plan is exactly what you'd expect, effectively copying the rest of the U.S. carriers. For $70 per month (plus taxes), you get unlimited talk, text and data, with data speeds slowed after 22GB of usage in a month. The only real caveat to speak of is video streaming quality "may" be lowered to 480p. Interestingly, the Unlimited plan also includes a Google One subscription, which among other little perks gives you 100GB of Google cloud storage and is normally $20 per year.
The Unlimited plan easily scales up to add extra plan members, and as you'd expect the per-person cost drops off as you add on. The price drops to $60 each for 2 people, $50 each for 3, and $45 each for 4-6 — with each line receiving the same benefits as a single line. The math works out if you (or your family members) regularly use 10GB+ of data, but there's something to be said for knowing your bill will be the same amount every month as well.
Now you get to choose whether you want to think about your data usage and bill or not.
Fortunately for those of us who use less data and would like to try and be thrifty some months, the original pay-per-gigabyte "Flexible" plan is still here. As usual you pay $20 per month, and then $10 per gigabyte with Bill Protection kicking in at 6GB — and you can also still make a group plan if you'd like.
To celebrate the new plan, Google Fi is taking half off the price of the Pixel 3 and 3 XL when you buy through Fi. That means you can get a Pixel 3 for $400 or 3 XL for $450. Now obviously that may not be wise with the Pixel 4 on the horizon, but at the same price as the Pixel 3a and 3a XL, if you weren't inclined to spend a bunch on a new phone anyway now could be a great time to give Fi a try and pick one up.
