Virgin Mobile has three kinds of contract plans: Silver, Gold and Platinum. Within each of these tiers are plans with varying options of Canada-wide minutes and monthly data. Often, the inclusions are identical but with differing prices, based on how much you pay for your phone up-front. So which do you choose; Silver, Gold or Platinum?
Silver – up to $200 off up-front
Silver is the lowest-cost monthly plan. As such, it also carries the largest up-front cost if you want a new handset. Its eight cap options are identical to those found in the Gold tier, but each comes in at exactly $8 per month under its Gold counterpart.
$8 per month comes to $192 over the 2 years of the plan. If the phone you want sees a discount of $192 up-front more than if you were to go Gold instead of Silver, then Gold is worth considering.
If it’s less than $192, then Silver will be cheaper in the long run.
Example case: Motorola Moto G 3rd Generation.
|
Silver |
Gold |
$50(up-front) |
$0(up-front) |
Here, you would pay $50 more up-front on Silver than you would on Gold. Remembering that, over 24 months, Gold requires $192 more in monthly fee payments, this means that users on Gold would end up paying $142 more over 24 months than if they went on Silver.
Not every phone is available on Silver plans, but if yours is be sure to do a quick cost comparison.
Gold – Up to $300 off up-front
The Gold plans are a popular option for more-expensive and mid-range phones. It has identical call and data inclusions to Silver, but for $8 more each month ($192 over 2 years). If you can save more this way than if you went with Silver, it’s a good idea to go with Gold.
Check out the LG G3 on Virgin:
|
Silver |
Gold |
Platinum |
$279.99(up-front) |
$0(up-front) |
$0(up-front) |
Here you save about $280 up-front by going with Gold rather than silver. Over two years, we then subtract the $192 that Gold ends up costing for the plan itself, leaving you $88 better off if you go with Gold. Even better, you have no expensive up-front costs.
In this case, Platinum would also be a bad idea. Both the Gold and Platinum options have the same $0 up-front cost. As such, you would end up paying a higher monthly fee on Platinum, but with no up-front benefit.
Platinum - Up to $700 off up-front
Platinum is different. The variance between its prices and the lower tiers vary, so there’s no standard point at which you can say it’s a better or worse deal across all plan options.
It also has different plan inclusions. Platinum plans all have unlimited Canada-wide calls. The 5GB plan found on Silver and Gold is also missing in favour of a smaller 4GB one.
Finally, there's a huge amount of money to be saved up-front, which you end up paying off in the long-haul.
Platinum is pretty much for users that want a top-tier phone, but don't want to pay a big chunk up-front. It's also the only way you can get your hands on an iPhone on a contract from Virgin; all iPhones, even the iPhone 5s, are restricted to Platinum plans.
There’s not much point pitting Platinum device with Silver, but there are some interesting comparisons to be drawn between it and Gold. Compared this way, over 24 months, Platinum is $600 more expensive on the 500MB plan, $360 on the 1GB plan, $240 on the 2GB and it's $120 more for the Platinum 4GB than the Gold 5GB. As such, you'll need to see a price difference either equal-to or more-than these numbers between the Gold and Platinum up-front cost if you want to come out on top.
Take the vastly-popular Samsung Galaxy S6 on Virgin:
|
Gold |
Platinum |
$729.99(up-front) |
$249.99(up-front) |
The price difference up-front is $480. As such, the Galaxy S6 is actually cheaper over 24 months on the Gold plan. For all the rest - 1GB, 2GB, and 4GB - it's cheaper to go with the Platinum plan. It's unlikely you'll be using just 500MB per month with a premium device like this, so in general we'd suggest saving yourself both money in the long term and money up-front by going Platinum.
Silver, Gold and Platinum image originally from Shutterstock
Find a better phone plan
Thousands of cell phone plans unpacked. All the facts. No surprises.
Related Articles
Find Better Phones and Plans
Hundreds of cell phone plans unpacked. All the facts. No surprises.
