The carrier wars are certainly heating up. On Wednesday, T-Mobile announced an iPhone upgrade plan that would allow customers to get a brand-new iPhone 6s for as little as $5 per month. Not to be outdone, Sprint responded on Thursday with an even better offer—get a 16GB iPhone 6s for $1 per month, if you trade in your old iPhone 6 or 6 Plus.
This deal is part of Sprint’s iPhone Forever program, which allows eligible Sprint customers to trade in their old iPhone as soon as the next model is available. It previously started at $15 per month, on top of your standard cell phone plan.
Under Sprint’s new pricing structure, the type of iPhone 6s you choose will determine your monthly cost. The 16GB iPhone 6s gets the $1-per-month treatment, where the 64GB version costs $5.77 monthly and the 128GB version costs $10.53 monthly. The iPhone 6s Plus runs $5 a month for 16GB, $9.77 for 64GB, and $14.53 for 128GB. To get these rates, customers must trade in an iPhone 6 or 6 Plus.
If you have an iPhone 5s, you can still trade it in for an upgrade—$10 per month will get you a 16GB iPhone 6s, or $14 per month will get you a 16GB iPhone 6s Plus.
Why this matters: Thanks to this deal, Sprint now holds the record for the most affordable iPhone plan. Sprint’s price slashing is the direct result of T-Mobile’s killer new deal—the info page even reads, “Not so fast, T-Mobile!”—which goes to show how Sprint is taking its competition seriously. T-Mobile’s CEO John Legere boasted that T-Mobile’s iPhone preorders were up 30 percent this year over last year; Sprint hasn’t released any pre-order numbers yet, but they’re likely to see sales growth due to this plan. Just make sure you read all the fine print when picking a new carrier, or trying a new plan with your existing carrier.
You can pick up a new iPhone 6s or 6s Plus from Sprint, Apple, and other carriers starting Friday, September 25—which is also the day that Sprint’s new pricing plan goes into effect.
Author: Leah Yamshon, Associate Managing Editor
Leah Yamshon is a former Macworld editor.