Last night we reported that BillShrink, a scrappy startup that helps users lower common household bills, scored a major marketing deal: T-Mobile is promoting them in shops and via a national television commercial in a huge way.
T-Mobile urges people to have a “mobile makeover” to “find a wireless plan that has the best coverage and price for you – even if it’s not with us.” The advertising goes on: “We’ll send you to BillShrink.com, an independent, third-party website that evaluates all of your unique needs against every national wireless plan.”
Sounds awesome. Kudos to T-Mobile for promoting an independent site. And +1 to BillShrink for convincing them to put serious marketing dollars towards promoting BillShrink.com.
…just one problem. The BillShrink tool that analyzes a user’s mobile usage to find the right plan for them says that a T-Mobile plan is almost always the right choice.
In every query we ran, where minutes, text messaging, data and other variables can be changed, T-Mobile came out as the top result that saved users the most money. In some queries T-Mobile took every result on the first page.
Now it turns out the T-Mobile, which is the smallest major network in the U.S., happens to offer more minutes and other features than the others for a lower price. Other sites like MyRatePlan agree.
In other words, BillShrink didn’t tweak the results because of their marketing partner. It just so happens that T-Mobile has real incentive to push them as an independent third party. Because they always come up with T-Mobile on top. Something tells me the other networks won’t be doing similar deals.
BillShrink has not yet responded to our request for comment. Update: Peter Pham has responded in the comments.
Update: Wait, we found one search where T-Mobile came up second! 1800 minutes, unlimited texts and unlimited data shows Sprint first, T-Mobile second.
“1800 minutes, unlimited texts and unlimited minutes shows Sprint first, T-Mobile second.”
You have two entries for minutes.
thx. its data, fixed.
here is the problem isnt it. . that any dumb ass knows T-Mobile is the cheapest cellular service provider . . . . no need to go to billshrink to tell you
the question is what do you sacrifice by going with the cheapest. . . handset selection? drop calls? etc etc . . . and none of that is easily quantifiable
funded for 9 million is scrappy?
Mike,
BillShrink does not make blanket recommendations suggesting one plane over another. We only make highly personalized recommendations based on a users very unique and very specific usage patterns – like how many minutes they use, how many lines they neeed the amount of data/texting, their location (for signal strength) and even the numbers they most frequently call to see which network their friends and family are using.
You should also put in which network you are currently on, how long your contract is left since we also factor in contract termination fees and new line activation fees in our recommendation.
Based on the screenshot and input fields you filled out for your profile, it looks like it really wasn’t a real world use case.
Tmobile is defnitely not always the #1 result.
You can also try importing your actual cell phone bill from any of the 4 carriers by providing the username/pw for your online account. We’ll pull it in and look at what time your calls are made, what days of the week and what network those calls are to provide an even more indepth look to figure out which network, plan, and add-ons you want.
Thanks..
Peter Pham
CEO
BillShrink
Do you gauge how many people are/would be in-network calls?
What about other carriers than the 4 major carriers? I’m with Consumer Cellular and I pay $20 a month for 200 minutes. The phone operates on ATT towers so the coverage is better than T-Mobile and I have no contracts. Why aren’t carriers like Consumer Cellular listed in your comparisons? They’re national and less expensive than the 4 major carriers.
Excuse me, but T-mobile is NOT the cheapest by far.
They’ve cooked the search queries so they exclude the benefits of these plans from competitors:
* anything from MetroPCS
* anything from Leap/Cricket
* anything from Boost Mobile Unlimited
Metro and Boost and Cricket offer 45$ UNLIMITED talk plans. If your input query is limited to a number of minutes… well yah, you’re cooking the input queries to benefit the non outsiders.
Kim,
We include the 4 major carriers because they provide national coverage, (rather than just local coverage) and more importantly provide detailed coverage data (down to street level) which is critical in our recommendation. One of things we do is give you a “commute coverage” score which is a factor in the result and none of the services you listed have that detail we need.
Thanks
Peter
But, Peter, with the extensive datamining youve mentioned above, wouldnt geolocating the user and matching thema to a local carriere be the easiest thing in the world?
Youre missing out on the long tail over here.
them*
Peter -
You know as well as I do (or at least you should) that Leap/Cricket, and Boost Unlimited are offering national unlimited dialing. They’re not ‘local’ plans like you suggest.
in short – T-mobile does *NOT* have the cheapest plans in the country…
Hi, this is Rachel from Boost Mobile. As many of you know, we are the pre-paid division of Sprint and we operate on the Nextel National Network – with no roaming charges. See for yourself at http://coverage...jsp?language=EN. Once there, enter your address and you’ll see (down to street level) how Boost Mobile’s coverage is in your neighborhood. Be sure to look at coverage for Nextel devices.
What’s the big deal? Tmobile is the cheapest of the big 4, so it wins.
the big deal is the branding and positioning is that tmobile is the cheapest in the country. there are cheaper. that’s all i’m trying to say.
As far as I can tell, the numbers are skewed in only one respect: it doesn’t take into account Verizon’s free inCalling, but it does take into account T-Mobile’s myFaves, which makes T-Mobile “cheaper” for my family than Verizon.
Atharv,
We do take into account Verizon’s free in network calling in fact, all 4 carriers mobile to mobile plans. Which is why it’s important to input who you call the most, so we can do a network lookup.
If you are referring to Verizon’s “friends & family” where you can add 5 friends or 10 friends as part of your free network, we also include that in our algorithm as well, but remember your 5 friends or 10 friends is across all lines vs. Tmobile’s myFaves which you get seperate friends for each line.
We’re very transparent on results, you can drill down on every plan on how it was calculated. There are now “skewed” results, just accurate ones.
Cool!
There should be a customer service / Better Business Beareau multiplier. Unscrupulous telecoms have cost me quite a bit, probably more than it would have cost to use the second cheapest company.
They all suck. Don’t worry
I got T-Mobile first but also a healthy mix of ATT and Verizon plans. T-mobile simply offers more options and better pricing on the basic cell phone package, not a big surprise there!
The signal strength data here is really nice, accurate for my area too. Can I pay MORE to get a cell phone that always worked at my house? They never seem to.
This Peter Pham guy seems really busy. In all this posts he has a minor typo.
For what it’s worth, I just input my data, and BillShrink told me that my current AT&T Wireless plan was the best value
No amount of extra minutes is going to make up for spotty coverage of the areas I call from most. Its cool that this tool will tell you which plan is cheaper, but there’s no indicators whatsoever of qualitative aspects that I’d consider more valuable… like voice clarity, signal strength/coverage area, reliable accurate bills that don’t cost me time and energy to wait on hold to complain about, helpful friendly customer service, flexible with making changes to my plan should I realize I want to upgrade/downgrade/go on vacation/etc.
When I went to BillShrink and used their option to import my AT&T mobile bill. It provided a much more in depth analysis (Top Called Numbers, Networks Called To, Calls by Time of Day, Calls by week, etc). In my case, the top three suggested plans were all from AT&T. It recognized that most of the people I call were on AT&T and therefore I benefit from staying, they just found me a better package that matched my usage. Changing at the start of next billing cycle.
Well, T-Mobile offers a great plan. I just hope they’ll service Canada soon. Any company that could come in here would get a nice piece of the market here now.
There’s an nationwide 3G carrier launching this fall in Canada… Expect unlimited data plans and unlimited minute plans.
I don’t really see how this is a problem.
When will BillShrink tackle mortgages? There is a huge need for individually customized recommendations there.
The thing I would really love to see in BillShrink to enhance the mobile phone finder include taking into account which handset you want. I have an iphone and it says I can save $1500 in 2 years if I change to a T-mobile plan. That’s great but I have yet to find a prepaid or pay as you go plan that would let me have an iPhone or Blackberry or Palm Pre, or other useful phone. I have high requirements of my handset. It’s not a phone to me, it’s a portable GPS/browser/calendar/useful tool. Also, even though I specified a need for unlimited data it recommended a T-Mobile plan with no data access.
T-Mobile IS cheap, but their coverage sucks. I used them for a year because they were cheap, and they let me sign a contract for only a year, and I couldn’t wait to switch back to Sprint when it was over. The other carriers should PAY their customers to try T-Mobile for a month.
I saw them on one of the national morning shows today and was going to check them out and make my husband check it out as well (it was the today show or GMA). Even a few hundred dollars in this economy is worth saving. Good name as well – I remembered it and not the other competitor they were showing as well. Thanks.
but does this explain why i’m getting “loyalty plan upgrade option” texts and e-mails every few days?
dudes, look at my account–i talk 20 minutes per month (and pay you $29.95 for it), so why the fcuk would i want an “all you can eat” plan? i’m not hungry for that.
I use tmobile specifically because they are the cheapest, but what takes the cake is their superb customer service. I have used all the other carriers and cingular was the worst with sprint my previous favorite years ago. T-Mobile does have the best csr’s of all the others put together. Still the 300min/$30+ plan, their cheapest, seems excessive for my actual use. They are offering an unlimited plan (data is $10 on top) for an even $50/month for ‘preferred’ customers, but I see no reason to practically double the bill for no real reason. I’m one step away from a magicjack coupled to an att tl92378 cordless for a YEARLY bill of $19.95 (us only).
Tip: NEVER buy the cell phone you use from a local phone store. Expansys has a better selection online and you can get exactly the phone you want and not the crap they pawn.
Bill shrink. eh. I need a money magnifier
I had a very bad experience with TMobile’s customer service. After transferring my number from TMobile to Verizon, they continued charging me for ~2 months. 5 conversations (at least 1/2 hour each) with customer service all resulted in them admitting to owing me $57 and promising to mail me the check, but the check never came. This was ~4 years ago, so things might have changed. They still owe me $$$ though…
I had T-mobile in the past and I’m going back to them . My biggest mistake ever was going to ATT. This Iphone cost me so much money every month and the service is so bad in my area that I hate my nice and costly Iphone now.
I just got the 500 minute plan for 19.95 a month and I love the service and 500 minutes fits me perfect. But the free phone is bulky and heavy, but on the Motorola site it is stated it is the workhorse of the phones. I found it great as I have no contract and they did no credit check.
For Phone and texting for me it is great. TY 500Talk.com
BillShrink does list my voice / data plan from Sprint as my cheapest option. 1500 minutes voice, 4 lines, unlimited data and msgs.
However, it got the comparison with the iPhone flat wrong. It added multiple individual message options to the ATT /iPhone family plan instead of using the unlimited message plan for families. Result was overstatement of the price for ATT by $360/year.
billshrink is defineatly WAY deep in t-mobiles pocket!!! the bias is so blatant it is not even funny
i had to i normally use about 3000 to 3800 minutes to random numbers so circle or favorite plans offer very little benifit. i had to crank up billshrink to 4900 minutes before they would offer a a plan other than t-mobiles 1500 minute plan do they not account for the 3300 other minutes or can it be true that t-mobile over plan minutes are billed at .00000001 cents/ minute? yeah t-mobile , YEAH RIGHT!!!! I know some advertizers are bias but try not to be soo obvious
oh and i did try the bill inport three times all failed, what a crock of crapp if billshrink whored themselves to t- mobile who is next,, or are they allreadt there, if a company is biased to one how can it be fair to any??? i wouldn’t trust them for antthing now after seeing the way they handle cell bills