Google Fi: A Well-Rounded Pre-Paid Option w/ Great Hotspot & International Features

FYI: There are affiliate links present as we get a cut from your purchase.

Continuing our ongoing coverage for other affordable options for a smartphone plan, we’re going from Visible to Google Fi. Formerly known as Project Fi is an MVNO that uses not one but 2 carriers to power it. They offer 2 pre-paid options: an unlimited one & a flexible pay-per-GB-data one. We’re closing up on 3 months deep in using and we’re ready to tell you about our time w/ it.

What Does Google Fi Offer?

Google Fi brings you the power of Sprint (now a part of T-Mobile), T-Mobile & US Cellular in one network. You got 2 options of either $20 per month + $10 per GB of data or an unlimited plan for $70 per month. Both plans give you unlimited calls & texts, full-speed mobile hotspot, 24/7 customer support, family plan features, and VPN + Spam protection. They just added a 3rd option when finishing up this review called Simply Unlimited for $60 per month. This gives you unlimited data, calls, text, & calls to Canada + Mexico. And that’s it.

The flexible plan has a Bill Protection feature that applies to all data used & caps your bill so you won’t pay too much. This gives you every bit of data you use after 6GB @$10 per GB, they won’t charge you extra for it since you’re paying more than their unlimited plan. However, if you go over 15GB for that month, you will get throttled. And speaking of the unlimited plan caps out at 22GB per month before throttling kicks in. Also, Google Fi’s Family Plans allows you to max out at 6 lines w/ shared data.

What About International Plans?

Google Fi might be one of the best pre-paid options for international access. I say that because it offers free SMS texting, free calls to over 50 countries, and you can call any number abroad on overseas cellular networks for a flat rate of $0.20 per minute. But if you want to know how much it would cost in a particular country, you can check out all of the rates here. The data used overseas is charged the same here in the US. However, you’re gonna have to deal w/ the speeds of the country you’re in as they may vary.

Now you don't have a wide variety of phone selections but you do have all of the Pixels (4a/4a 5G/5), Galaxy S21 line, & Moto G line. But it does support a few select devices w/ some limited access - including iPhones.

Google Fi is pretty easy to get started as you just pop in the SIM, grab the app, a quick setup, pick a number, and you’re done. Speaking of the app, it’s pretty cool & effective as it allows you to monitor your data, pause service, switch between flexible & unlimited data, set data alerts, split the bill w/ family plan members, and add/remove members.

We got pretty good speeds on their network as well. Ranging from around 47Mbps to 179Mbps via download & 9Mbps to 20Mbps via upload speeds on average. I also got these same speeds using the hotspot which is slowed down to only 5Mbps on Visible. I didn’t come across any throttling or deprioritization either. All of this makes for a great overall experience for me.

Google Fi is a superb pre-paid plan w/ top-notch features like high-speed hotspot, great international features, Google VPN access, & more to make it a hard-to-beat option.

Google Fi is a great pre-paid MVNO option that lives up to their different kind of phone plan. We weren’t able to get true 5G speeds despite showing off 5G logo on my phone. But I was still satisfied w/ my overall speed/service. Google’s flexible & unlimited plan cost about what it would cost for a contract plan w/ mobile hotspot & built-in international options. For those of you wondering about the comparison between Fi & Visible services, we’re working on that real soon BTW. So stay tuned.