Buying a phone outright is a large initial investment, but comes with lower monthly bill payments. The cost of buying and financing a phone are the same because most phone plans offer 0% financing.
When you have your own phone, you’re making no promises or commitments. Bring your own phone plan is different from a monthly plan in that you haven’t signed a term contract with a carrier, nor agreed to contract.
With prepaid Plans, you pay in advance for a capped amount of talk, text and data. Since you have to stay within those limits, there are no overage charges because you can’t talk, text or use data beyond the caps imposed by your prepaid plan. When you exceed the caps or the month is up, you have to top up by prepaying for another period of access.
Prepaid plans may also have other restrictions. There may be no option to make international phone calls or texts, or roam into a foreign country using the same service. These are often features associated with monthly post-paid plans carriers offer.