FOLLOW US

A company that has lost more than 2.25 million customers over three years and whose CEO publicly vowed just months ago to stop hiking prices "without corresponding value" has quietly raised the price of its flagship wireless plan anyway. Verizon's Unlimited Ultimate plan — previously priced at $80 per month for a single line — now costs $85, a $5 increase that took effect May 7 and applies to all new subscribers regardless of how many lines they carry.

The move lands like a stone thrown into an already turbulent pond, rippling outward into a wireless market where competition has rarely been fiercer, consumer patience has rarely been thinner, and the consequences of pricing missteps have rarely been more immediate or punishing.

A Year of Nickels and Dimes

To understand the significance of the latest increase, one must first survey the landscape of pricing decisions Verizon has made over the past 18 months — a sequence that reads less like a coherent strategy and more like a slow-motion experiment in testing how much customers will absorb before they walk.

In February 2025, Verizon raised prices on myPlan and New Verizon Plan accounts. The following month, Verizon Mobile Protect Multi-Device and Verizon Mobile Secure Multi-Device plans climbed by $8. Later that year, the carrier raised its device activation fee from $35 to $40, eliminated loyalty discounts that had kept long-term customers anchored, hiked tablet plans by $5 to $10, and increased two key billing fees. As recently as March, Verizon announced it would raise the monthly price of its Netflix and HBO Max streaming bundle from $10 to $13 — a change that took effect May 6, one day before the Unlimited Ultimate price increase kicked in.

The cumulative weight of those decisions is visible in the company's own metrics. Verizon's wireless retail postpaid phone churn — the percentage of smartphone subscribers who terminated service — reached 0.97% in the first quarter of 2026, two basis points higher than the same period last year, according to the company's most recent earnings report.

The Price-Lock Paradox

What has particularly drawn attention to the latest increase is the fine print surrounding Verizon's own three-year price-lock guarantee — a promise the company has prominently marketed to attract customers to the Unlimited Ultimate plan. The guarantee, it turns out, applies to "the then-current base monthly rate" at the time a customer enrolls. In plain language: existing customers are shielded; anyone signing up after May 7 is paying $85 and locking in at that higher rate.

Verizon confirmed to Droid Life, which first reported the price change, that the increase affects only new subscribers. The carrier also offered a value framing for the higher price point, noting that the plan now includes two new additions: Identity Secure, a tool designed to reduce identity theft exposure, and Verizon Family Plus, which provides parental controls and family account management features.

"Customers who subscribe to our new Unlimited Ultimate plan will get access to two new features — Identity Secure and Verizon Family Plus — providing an additional $15 in added monthly value for just $5," Verizon said in a statement. "Existing customers currently on our Unlimited Ultimate plan will not see any change to their monthly plan price."

Whether consumers shopping for a premium unlimited plan view a $5 increase as a reasonable trade for identity monitoring and parental controls — or simply as one more reason to call T-Mobile — remains to be seen.