Dear son actually uses his phone mostly for playing games and listening to FM radio (it has an FM tuner, so it doesn't even use data for that!), so I have him on a pre-paid plan that gives him 200 talk/200 text over 3 months for $10. That is right, 3 months for $10. He has NEVER used up his talk/texts, so at this point I consider it money spent to maintain his phone number for the future. Dear daughter texts, but isn't TOO crazy with it, so she gets 250 talk/250 texts and 10MB data for $12 per month. She never uses all the talk, but does sometimes use up texts and data (for sending images, 10MB isn't very much!). I also use the $12 per month plan, never use all the talk or text, but do sometimes use up the data. So that is basically $30 per month for 3 phones. Company is called PagePlus https://www.pagepluscellular.com. These are all 3G devices, otherwise it would be $90 per month for the 3 of us and I might be looking back at family plan stuff with Verizon itself.Okay, now to the original question. I bought a Jetpack through Verizon, and pay about $50 per month for 4 GB (the usual lies, it's $30 plus fees plus taxes plus plus plus). We NEVER use the whole thing, and I really need to lower it, or even give it up. We're about to go on a camping trip and I will see how much we use it over the long weekend (if we even have coverage).
Comparing the Verizon hotspot data plan and the Straight Talk hotspot data plan (using the Verizon towers, so same coverage), the Straight Talk plan is less expensive. The one I am looking at now is $40 for 4GB, but you have 2 months to use the data up (https://www.straighttalk.com/wps/portal ... rviceplans). And my experience with PagePlus is that, aside from simple sales tax, there are no plus plus plus fees and add-ons like Verizon has.
Catherine
