Sprint recently launched a new cell phone plan called the Framily plan. The concept is that you can get up to ten people together to form a "Framily" (made up of your friends, family, and anybody else you want). Each person can continue to receive an individual bill and the cost per line goes down as the number of people you have in your Framily goes up.
Sprint's attention-grabber for these new plans is "As low as $25 a month per line". Let's take a look at how these new plans work and see if they really are a good deal.
Sprint's ads showcase the variety of people (and animals?) that can come together to form a Framily and enjoy discounted cell phone service together. For some unknown reason the dad of the Framily is a talking hamster (and to top it off the hamster is voiced by Andrew Dice Clay...). So, if you like talking hamsters this just might be the plan for you.
If the talking hamster just isn't enough to sell you on the idea of a Framily then you're probably more interested in how the plan pricing works.
Framily Pricing
The pricing is very simple. Each line can be billed separately so you don't have to worry about one of your Framily members not paying you back for their share of the bill. You can also combine multiple lines on one bill so your actual family (without the "r") can still be billed together. As you add more people to your Framily the price per line goes down. Once you have at least seven people in your Framily you will be receiving the maximum discount and paying just $25 a month per line. The downside of course is that if people in your Framily stop using Sprint then everybody else's monthly price will go up until you find more people to join your Framily.
When you setup your brand new Framily you are given a Framily ID code. Anybody you give this code to can sign up and join your Framily. You can hand it out to random people you just met and they can sign up for service and join your Framily so everybody gets better discounts. Since everything is billed separately it really doesn't matter to you who joins your Framily as long as they keep the service (so you keep the discounts).
The basic Framily plan includes unlimited minutes, unlimited text messages, and 1GB of data per month. If you need more data (like I suspect most people do), you can up the plan to 3GB of data for $10 more per line, or to unlimited data for $20 more per line. This can be done on a line by line basis so each person can choose how much data they want.
Sprint is following the trend in cell phone plans and not providing a subsidized phone with these plans. This means that if you don't already have a Sprint compatible phone to use you will need to buy one from Sprint at the full price. Sprint offers an installment plan so you can pay for the phone over time and also provides a yearly upgrade option for people who select the unlimited data plan. As usual the yearly upgrade plan is not a good deal because it requires you to turn in your old phone when you upgrade.
The carrier that offers the most direct competition to the new Sprint Framily plans is T-Mobile. T-Mobile has switched completely to the no contracts and no subsidized phones model which is the same way that the new Sprint Framily plans work. T-Mobile's plans also provide a per line data allowance just like the Sprint plan. AT&T and Verizon focus on pooled data limits that are shared across all phones rather than giving each phone its own individual allowance.
As you can see in the chart below T-Mobile is a much better deal in almost all cases. The only place where Sprint has a better price is if you want all of your lines to have unlimited data, and even then that difference doesn't really come into play until you are at seven lines or more.
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Example
Let's say you have three people in your immediate family. You'd like them all to have phones with 3GB of data per month each.
With T-Mobile you can just buy a plan for the three of you for $120 per month. That's $40 per line.
To get the same $40 per line pricing with the Sprint Framily plan you would need to have six people in your Framily. So now you have to go find three more people that you can rely on to remain Sprint customers just to get you to the same price that you can get from T-Mobile straight away for the three of you.
A few important notes
Sprint states that you cannot combine multiple Framily plans. So if you have four people in your Framily, and somebody else you know already started their own Framily with four people you are not able to combine your two plans and get the eight person discount. Essentially you can only add non-Framily customers to your plan.
Sprint offers subsidized phones through its "Unlimited, My Way" plans. These plans are not much more expensive than the Framily plan and the monthly price difference is easily recouped from the significant savings you receive by purchasing a subsidized phone rather than paying for a phone at full price.
So who should start a Sprint Framily?
These plans really are not ideal for most people.
There are better overall offerings that include subsidized phones both from other carriers and from Sprint itself. If you're wanting a no contract, unsubsidized plan along the same lines as the Framily plan then you should consider T-Mobile. T-Mobile's plans provide better value and don't require you to enlist your friends and other random people in order to obtain the best pricing.
The Sprint Framily plan should be most appealing to people who already have Sprint phones and don't plan on upgrading their phone anytime soon. If you want a new phone then you might as well consider a plan from another carrier or one of Sprint's "Unlimited, My Way" plans. T-Mobile's plans are the most direct competitor to the Framily plan since both plans require purchasing phones at full price and include per line data allowances. If Sprint service is better than T-Mobile in your area then that of course may also be a consideration.
Summary
I'm sure Sprint is hoping to attract new customers with their clever advertising, but these plans are really only beneficial to people who already use Sprint and who have friends and family who are also already using Sprint. If you aren't already a Sprint customer these plans do not offer enough compelling value to warrant a switch from other carriers.
