How To Lower ATT Bill

Sometimes you get your AT&T bill and it’s so outrageous that you immediately look for ways how to lower your ATT bill.

We’ve been there before so that’s why we created BillSmart.

At BillSmart, our bill negotiators have lowered thousands of ATT bills saving our clients over $6.1mm+ to date.

Below we’ll tell you some of the secrets that we’ve learned.

If you follow these tactics, you should be able to reduce your ATT bill back to what it was if not even lower.

Just want us to do it for you? Click the button below to get started.

Steps to lower your AT&T bill

1. Get your cell phone bill and do some research
2. Call AT&T at (800) 288-2020 
3. Access your account by providing your pin
4. Remove features on your plan that you’re not using
5. Negotiate a lower rate for your bill
6. Save money with one-time credits
7. Get a reference/confirmation number

Pre-Negotiation Preparation

Have your monthly bill out.  An example of a typical monthly bill is below. Get your pin out (usually 4 digits).  Call ATT at (800) 288-2020. 

If you’re on the fence and are prepared to cancel your plan, you can call the AT&T loyalty department at (877) 844-5584.

Hold times recently have been about 30 minutes. The best time to call is around 10 am Eastern Time.

You can also talk with AT&T tech support if the wait times are too long.

If you’re looking for ways to lower your ATT Uverse bill, we wrote a guide about specific things to lower your Uverse bill here.

How To Reduce ATT Bill

The best and easiest way to reduce your ATT bill is to right-size your plan and stop spending money on features you don’t need or use.

AT&T and other cell phone service providers change their plan offerings and pricing.

If you signed up years ago you could be paying hundreds of dollars a year for features you don’t know you have and you don’t want.

Cell Phone Service Differences

AT&T breaks up its plans into Unlimited Plans and Mobile Sharing plans.

Please note that unlimited wireless service plans do not truly have unlimited data.

Your service gets throttled once you hit go over certain data bandwidth caps or if there is congestion around your area in the network. 

In the case you go over your data plan usage for mobile share plans, you won’t be charged per gig but instead, your data will be capped at 128 Kbps which is pretty bad but is still usable for texting and less intensive websites.

AT&T’s cheapest plan is the MobileShare Plus 3GB plan which has a cost of $50 for a single line and a cost of $120 for four lines. 

The cheapest wireless plan is Unlimited Starter which is $65 for a single line and $140 for four lines.  You can compare the features of the various plans here.

Why Is My ATT Bill So High

For most clients, we’ve found that the reason why their ATT bill is so high is that they’re overpaying for hotspots.

An unlimited hotspot can add $15 to your account per line every month.

You can save a significant amount of money by downgrading your hotspot to one that has 15 gigs of data a month before being throttled. 

If you don’t know how much you or the other people on your plan have been using, you can ask the representative and they’ll provide you with hotspot usage over the last 3 months.

Enrolling in auto pay and paperless billing is also another useful money savings tactic.  Right now you can save $10 per line if you enroll in auto pay and paperless billing.

Cell Phone Insurance Savings

Another great opportunity to save money on ATT is to see if you’re paying for cell phone insurance.

Many times you could have insurance from a cell phone you bought years ago and are overpaying based on the current replacement value of the phone.

You can even get a refund on the insurance that you’ve paid in the past.

The typical customer saves $10 a month with better insurance although we’ve seen cases where it’s gotten up to $50 a month savings.

AT&T Employee Discounts On Your Monthly Bill

AT&T also has special cell phone plans that you could be eligible for if you’re in the military or a senior.

The full list includes an employee discount program, military cell phone plans, and special ATT plans for seniors.

These employer discounts could save you $10 per month per line. This is especially helpful if you’re on a family plan so everyone is on one bill and can share the savings.

You can check if you’re eligible here by putting in your work email.

Low-income families can also get $30 off their bills every month with the ACP. We don’t know how long this will last though so check if you’re eligible.

Previously, the ACP was the EBB Program (Emergency Broadband Benefit) and was a $50 a month discount.

How to negotiate ATT bills

Here’s the exact script to use to negotiate your ATT bills and get discounts that aren’t available online or in store.

Say that you’re thinking of getting a new plan but you want to stay with AT&T if you can get a better deal.

It’s better to call in the morning because ATT customer support reps have cancellation save scorecards to hit to not get a coaching from their supervisors.

They’ll be more inclined to help you if you can help them hit their numbers for the day. 

Tactics For Reducing Your AT&T Bill

One thing that we found works is saying that you’re upset with the taxes and fees that AT&T has included to raise prices for their customers.

If you did it right, they should offer you a discount of $5-$20 on your account for the next twelve months. 

Ask for a supervisor or call again another day to get a call center with more lenient customer discount policies if that didn’t work.

Actually, the Filipino call centers are the most generous.

For the best discounts, call the AT&T loyalty department. 

Another effective strategy is threatening to cancel.  This triggers additional discounts if you’re a good customer and you can always back out of canceling.

Other Things To Note

You haven’t gotten the full amount of savings from AT&T yet. 

Ask for a reference code for your savings and when it will take effect.  You can get more savings by asking for it to apply immediately which results in a pro-rated credit for your current month. 

If the savings are not permanent, ask for it to be extended by 50% more than the promotion length first provided.  Both these tactics can increase your savings dramatically.

AT&T also provides one-time credits if you ask for them. 

If you’ve been with ATT for many years, you can just flat-up ask to get a credit on your next monthly statement for being a long-time customer.

Additional Considerations

Always ask to see if they can increase it by 50% from what they offer – they’ll just need to check their system to see if the increased amount is approved. 

Loyalty credits range from $15-$50 depending on your plan.

You could also mention that you’ve had spotty cell phone service over the last couple of months and get credits from that. 

In the case you’ve paid late or activation fees in the past, see if you can get those refunded.  They will generally refund you if you ask them even if those fees were months in the past.

Is My AT&T Bill Outrageous

We’ve seen some pretty outrageous AT&T bills over our years negotiating with ATT.

Want an example? Take a look at some of these monthly statements above and below.

It makes us sad because these customers had more than enough coverage for their usage but a pushy ATT salesperson signed them up for the wrong plan.

The customer below was overpaying $123 a month for more than two years.

Why Did My ATT Bill Go Up

Most of the time, your ATT bill goes up because a promotion expired or because AT&T introduced an exciting new fee.

Unfortunately, there’s not much you can do to reduce the fees on your cell phone bill. AT&T says it’s passthrough for taxes but that’s a lie.

The best way to get a discount and save money on your wireless service is to get AT&T to lower your bill.

If you’re not having much luck, consider a bill negotiation service like BillSmart.

A Final Way To Lower Your AT&T Bill

Finally, the best way to lower your AT&T often is to go to a different provider.

There’s not much savings if you go to one of the big carriers like T-Mobile or Verizon in the long term but you can often get an iphone promotion when you move that can make it worth it.

Just note that you’ll be locked in for at least 24 months unless you’re willing to give up the discount.

For the lowest monthly rates in America for cell phone service, your best bet are prepaid mobile phone carriers.

Some of the top ones include Mint Mobile, Visible, and Metropcs.

Plans will be much cheaper – often half off. It’s your choice.

Lower Your ATT Bill With BillSmart

Fully maximizing your AT&T savings can take a couple of hours. It’s beset to renegotiate your ATT account every six months or so.

It’s a shame that AT&T often treats their new customers better than long time customers.

If you’re busy and you want the experts to handle it, you can sign up at getbillsmart.com.  

We do this all day and we know the latest tricks. There’s no cost to you if we don’t save you money.

Get started by clicking the link below.

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