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This post summarizes Simple Mobile’s low-cost phone deals.

Simple Mobile deal (be sure to click through from a Shopping Portal)

The best cashback site right now is TopCashback

Simple Mobile has a refer bonus. After activating the phone, you can join the Rewards program and get a $50 service credit.

For later service, you can choose the $10 Plan, keep it for your own use until unlock, trade in the phone directly, or use SIM cards from TracFone, Total Wireless, etc.

  • To make long-term use and unlocking easier for everyone, refer comments are allowed! Strong comments or active readers may be added to the post.

[2021.1 update] This deal may be dead. The updated terms for the 25% off code now state that it no longer works on iPhone purchases. HT: 青葉

Before you start

Recently, Simple Mobile’s phone deals on locked phones have been pretty good. In particular, you could get an iPhone SE2 for as low as $130 before tax, which is an excellent value. In addition, Simple Mobile, TracFone, and Total Wireless are all under the same parent company and share the same ecosystem (T-Mobile channel), so their locked phones can be used across these brands. Earlier, many people picked up TracFone SIM cards with huge service-credit gains, and those can be put to use here as well.

How to buy

The final cost can be as low as $130 before tax. Here is the process:

Get a first-order 25% off code

First go to the official website and wait 1–2 minutes. A pop-up should appear automatically. If it does not, try incognito mode or another browser.

The pop-up looks like this; enter your email address.

Wait up to 5 minutes and you should receive an email with your unique 25% off code.

Buy from the official site

Go through a Shopping Portal (currently TCB 12%) to the official site to buy:

Find the iPhone SE2. It must be purchased with a bundled Plan, so choose the lowest $25 Plan.

Apply the code

  • First code: the unique 25% off code you got by email above
  • Second code: SM10OFF
  • Third code: NYE21
  • You only need one of SM10OFF or NYE21 (using both has the same effect)

After applying the codes, the checkout price becomes $157.94 before tax.

Trade-in supported

As you can see above, Simple Mobile allows phone trade-ins. You can try trading in a few junk phones to reduce the purchase price. Data points are welcome.

Checkout

Checkout only accepts credit cards. You may want to use a credit card that earns bonus rewards on Wireless purchases, such as:

That can save you at least another 6.25% (valuing points at 1.25c/p). Orders usually go through without much difficulty. You can choose Fedex 2-day shipping (free) or 1-day shipping ($4.95).

Simple Mobile phone orders do have some risk of cancellation. The author was not able to place one successfully. Please share any ordering tips.

Cost summary

Total before tax: $157.94* (1-12%) *（1-6.25%）=$130.

After tax, your cost is roughly $140-$150.

After activating the phone, using a refer can get you at least $50 in service credit.

Phone activation

Simple Mobile has a refer bonus. You can try redeeming on both the website and the app, with a $50 service-credit reward each time.

What to do with the phone afterward

Simple Mobile requires 12 consecutive months of use before the phone can be unlocked (you can switch to a different plan starting in the second month). In addition, you can consider the following:

Trade-in

If you do not want to use it, just trade in the phone. There are no especially attractive buyers at the moment.

Keep using it

There are mainly two ways:

1️ Earn service-credit rewards by being referred and by referring others (rewards need to pend for two months), and use the lowest Plan. Keep it for 12 months until it unlocks.

2️ Do not unlock it, and instead use a SIM card from another brand in the same family. For example, the TracFone SIM cards mentioned earlier on the blog: quite a few readers also earned service credit through refer, with the highest reaching $1,600. Choosing the $10 Plan would be enough for 160 months.

Use with an unlocking SIM adapter

For long-term use, this is not recommended as your primary phone.

Force unlock

This method works for most locked iPhones.

  • First use an unlocking SIM adapter to turn on the phone
  • Go to Settings - SIM applications - ICCID and enter 89014104279605344555
  • Send/accept activation, then remove the SIM adapter!

Note: after unlocking, do not reset the phone. You can update the IOS system.

What to do with the phone number afterward

If you do not want to use it, do not forget to port it out to another carrier within one month and take advantage of port-in deals, such as those previously covered on the blog:

Port Away details:

  • Acct: the last 15 digits of the SIM card ID number
  • Pin: the PIN you created for the account

Final thoughts

This is still a solid deal. The cost is a bit higher than Cricket at its lowest point, but the refer rewards are very generous. It is a good fit for a secondary main-use line.