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Carrier Guides 3 min read

Cricket Wireless Review: AT&T's Generic Brand Worth It?

Cricket is AT&T's generic brand — same towers, same 5G, 4,500 stores, taxes-in pricing. Unbeatable for families at $25/line; overpriced for a single line. Here's the full breakdown.

Jean Gilles
Founder & Lead Analyst, ShopCellPlans
Published January 26, 2026
Updated May 18, 2026
AT&T's prepaid arm — the landlord's house, not a tenant.

If you're paying $90+/month for AT&T postpaid, you're paying retail when a wholesale option exists. Cricket Wireless is AT&T's generic brand — the same product from the same factory, stripped of the bloat that inflates your bill. Wholly owned by AT&T, it runs the same towers and 5G infrastructure with 4,500+ retail stores. The question is whether it beats the smaller competitors for your situation.

Key takeaways
Cricket is wholly AT&T-owned — same towers, same 5G, premium priority on Supreme.
4 lines for $100 ($25/line) is the best AT&T-network family deal around.
Activate online to skip the $25 fee; the $25 upgrade fee is harder to dodge.
Single users should look at Visible ($25–35, Verizon) or Mint ($15–30, T-Mobile) first.

Quick answer

Cricket is worth it for families and AT&T-area users who want reliable coverage with retail support. It's pricier than Visible or Mint for single users, but unbeatable for 3–4 line families on AT&T's network at $25/line. Best plan overall: Supreme Unlimited, $55/mo with AutoPay. Best family value: Select Unlimited, 4 lines for $100 total.

The three plans

  • Supreme Unlimited — $55/mo AutoPay: premium priority data (QCI 8, same as AT&T postpaid — no slowdown in crowds), 50GB hotspot, Max (with ads) and 150GB cloud storage included.
  • Smart Unlimited — $45/mo AutoPay: the budget unlimited; deprioritized (QCI 9) when towers are busy, 15GB hotspot, no Max.
  • Select Unlimited — $40 single line, $100 for 4 lines: the switcher special. No hotspot, no perks — pure talk, text, and data at $25/line.
Taxes included
The price you see is the price you pay — $55 means $55.00. That alone beats most prepaid carriers' quoted-plus-fees pricing.

Coverage and speeds

Full AT&T network access on every plan, including low-band 5G and 5G+ (C-Band) in major cities. AT&T is strongest in the South, parts of the Midwest, rural FirstNet areas, and major metros; weaker in some Northeast pockets, the Pacific Northwest, and mountain regions where Verizon dominates. Check the coverage map at your address first — a $55 plan that drops calls at home saves nothing. Video streams at 480p by default; only Supreme can unlock HD.

The fees to know about

Activate online and the $25 activation fee disappears — that's the workaround, and online-only phone deals come with it. The more frustrating charge is the $25 upgrade fee, which hits existing customers even when buying a phone online. Switcher deals are strong: free Moto G/Galaxy A phones on Supreme or Smart, iPhones from $49.99, and an online "3 months at $15/mo" trial promo.

How Cricket compares

  • vs Visible (Verizon's Cricket): Visible+ at $35 undercuts Supreme with 50GB priority + unlimited hotspot — the pick in Verizon-strong areas.
  • vs Mint Mobile: ~$30/mo unlimited (annual prepay) or $15 for 5GB on T-Mobile — the single-user budget winner.
  • vs Twigby: ~$30 unlimited on Verizon — the rural-Verizon value play.
  • vs Red Pocket: ~$30 on your choice of network — AT&T coverage without retail support.

Cricket bridges the gap between the wild west of cheap prepaid and the expensive stability of a major carrier.

— ShopCellPlans verdict

Verdict

Get Cricket if you have 3+ lines, want physical stores, live where AT&T dominates, or want premium-priority data without postpaid. Skip it if you're a single user (Visible or Mint deliver more for less), don't need stores, want HD/4K streaming, or travel internationally beyond Mexico and Canada — Cricket's international perks stop there.

Which AT&T carrier fits you?

We rank every carrier on AT&T's towers — Cricket, Boost, AT&T Prepaid, AirVoice, and Red Pocket — by price and priority.

Best AT&T MVNOs →
#Cricket Wireless #AT&T #Family plans #Prepaid
Jean Gilles
About the author

Jean Gilles has researched personal finance, consumer technology, and wireless pricing for over a decade. He founded ShopCellPlans in 2019 and writes every review on the site.

Frequently asked questions

Is Cricket Wireless the same as AT&T? +
Mostly. Coverage and call quality are identical. The difference is congestion priority: Supreme matches AT&T postpaid (QCI 8); Smart and Select are deprioritized (QCI 9) when towers are busy.
Why is video capped at 480p? +
Network capacity management. Supreme users can disable the cap for HD; Smart and Select users are stuck with SD.
Can I avoid the $25 activation fee? +
Yes — activate online instead of in-store. The $25 upgrade fee for existing customers applies even online, which is the more annoying one.
Can I keep my number? +
Yes — standard porting with your old account number and transfer PIN, typically completing in 1–24 hours.
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