Adding voice and SMS monthly plans

We’re very proud to have reached so many people in the short couple of months since launching our data-only mobile internet plan. We’ve sold more than 750 gigabytes so far, and created many happy customers in the process. If you’re already a customer, thanks very much for your support!

If you’re not yet a customer, we’re betting it might have something to do with that nagging feeling that you’re not ready to give up phone calls and text messages just yet. We heard from a lot of you that data-only is great if you already have a way to make phone calls and send text messages using a “virtual” or “cloud” phone number. But most people either don’t want to go down that route yet, or haven’t gotten around to it.

We listened, and got to work figuring out how we could offer voice and texting plans while staying true to our goals of providing simple, flexible and unbundled data-first mobile service.

Today we’re excited to introduce, in beta, the fruit of those efforts: a set of simple unlimited texting and calling plans that you can optionally add on to any active device on your Charge account. These plans let you pay for the services you need and not the ones you don’t.

For $3 per month, your device will have access to your account’s prepaid data balance. As always your data costs $13 per GB and never expires, so you only end up paying for exactly the data you use. This monthly plan is new, and applies to all devices activated on new accounts going forward.

For $10 per month, your device has access to your account’s prepaid data balance, as well as the ability to send unlimited text (SMS) messages.

For $20 per month, your device has access to prepaid data, unlimited texts and unlimited calls.

All plans start the moment you pay for your first month, and are active until the end of the month in which you cancel. You can upgrade instantly to a different plan at any time, and in the future downgrades will be automatic as well. During the beta period you’ll need to contact us at help@charge.co and we’ll apply a downgrade for you.

Of course now that calling and texting are possible with Charge, there will naturally be questions about phone number porting. We’re happy to offer porting to all customers at no charge on a first-come first-served basis during the beta period, so that you can bring your beloved phone number with you to Charge.

We’re very excited to see how you use these new plans to simplify your mobile lives. If you already have a secondary device on a Charge account, like a tablet, it’s now easier than ever to bring your primary device over to Charge as well.

As always, reach out to help@charge.co or @Charge on Twitter if you have questions or feedback. We’d love to hear from you.