Mint Mobile increases data buckets without raising prices

Mint Mobile, the MVNO part owned by actor Ryan Reynolds, is increasing the amount of data in all of its plans without increasing the prices. It’s the third time it’s done so since 2019.

The data increase will go into effect starting on April 14 for all new and existing customers. All of a customer’s data will be automatically upgraded. For example, a customer paying $15 a month will see their LTE and 5G data increase from 4 GB to 5 GB.

Mint focuses on bulk pricing, where consumers buy in either 3-, 6- or 12-month increments, with the best pricing coming with the 12-month plans.

Last month, T-Mobile US announced a definitive agreement to acquire Mint Mobile and its affiliate brands, Ultra Mobile and Plum, for up to $1.35 billion. Mint is a prepaid brand that already uses T-Mobile’s network under an MVNO arrangement.

Mint Mobile CMO Aron North declined to comment today on anything related to the acquisition, including what his role will be after the transaction closes. But he said this latest pricing scheme is a very “Minty” thing to do.  

Mint is always trying to make its service better, and offering more data at no extra cost is one of the ways it does that, he said. It did it in 2019 and again in 2021.

“It’s part of the Mint DNA, if you will,” he told Fierce. When the pandemic started, Mint didn’t offer an unlimited plan, but it gave customers free unlimited data for a period of time so they could stay connected during the lockdown.  

It’s also done things like “unliMINTed,” he said, acknowledging it’s a mouthful but a way of “right-sizing” the customer so they’re not paying too much for data. Basically Mint will let customers know via email how much data they’re using and invite them to trade down to a lower priced bucket if it can save them money.

“It’s something Mint pioneered,” he said, and follows the notion that not everybody needs unlimited data.

New ad from Reynolds 

North said there are multiple things that Mint does across the business that enables it to add more data without increasing the prices. The company doesn’t have stores or a lot of the traditional overhead that is typical in the wireless sector.

It’s something that has been in the planning stages for a long time, but it didn’t take long to develop a new advertising spot featuring Reynolds. In the ad, Reynolds starts off by saying that a few weeks ago, he said nothing about Mint was going to change. “I lied,” he says before launching into a spiel about the new and improved data buckets.

North said they’ve got a fairly unique speed-to-market capability and they leverage it for “pretty much everything.”

Mint uses a combination of its own in-house agency, aptly called Full Bars, and Reynolds’ Maximum Effort agency, led by George Dewey. They’re basically texting every day about what’s going on, he said.

Data buckets have been on everybody’s radar for some time. Typically, as they get closer to making an announcement, they like to read the market and get a sense for the prevailing sentiment at the moment before they release the ad. 

“Obviously, everybody thinks Mint is going to change and we took that as an opportunity to say, ‘nobody wants Mint to change,’" but "it’s a change for the better,” he said.