Apple says you can get up to $11,000 off the iPhone 16 Pro Max but which iPhone deal is the best to find out I analyzed all the deals from Apple AT&T Boost Mobile T-Mobile and Verizon to find you the best deal that will save you the most money on your new iPhone 16 Pro Max and I found the number one best deal that's better than them all but before I tell you what the best deal is you need to understand that getting the best deal on the iPhone 16 Pro Max starts by getting the most money for your old phone you have three options you can trade it into Apple you can sell it online on sites such as swapa eBay or Facebook Marketplace or you can trade it in to a carrier which option gives you the most money here's a breakdown of the different values you can get for your old phone by trading it into Apple selling it on swapa or or doing a trade-in deal with one of the carriers and you can clearly see the carrier deals give you the most money for your old phone take the iPhone 13 Pro Max you'd get around $400 from trading it into apple or by selling it online but from the carriers you would get between $800 and $1,400 of credit which is double or triple the value of your phone and Boost Mobile's deal specifically gives you the most amount of total credit how does this work this works because Boost Mobile is giving all new customers $1,000 off the iPhone 16 Pro Max with no tradein required and if you do decide to trade in your device you get $1,000 off plus the trade-in value of your device from Apple and that's you can get the most money for your old phone you'll also notice some of these options give you enough credit to fully cover the cost of the new iPhone 16 Pro Max on Boost Mobile as a bonus here are the trading values for older phones going back to the 7-year-old iPhone 10 so the carrier deals are clearly the best right wrong whenever someone gives you something for free you have to ask what is the catch there are two catches with the carrier deals catch number one is these deals require you to be on specific plans and not just any plans the carrier's most expensive plans catch number two is you don't get the trading credit UPF front no it turns out that on T-Mobile and Verizon you get Apple's trading value for your iPhone upfront and then you get the remainder of the credit applied as Bill credits over 24 or 36 months and with AT&T and Boost Mobile you will get all of the credits applied as Bill credits over 36 months so to get your full $1,000 of trading credit you are effectively trapped as a customer on the carrier's most expensive rate plans for the next 3 years you need to ask yourself is it worth it how much would I pay over those three years and if I'm going to pick a deal which deal is best I told you at the beginning of this video that I found the best deal on the iPhone 16 Pro Max and I will show it to you in just a second but first here are the three-year cost totals for one line on AT&T Boost Mobile T-Mobile and Verizon using an iPhone 13 Pro Max as an example tradein device and of these deals Boost Mobile is easily the most affordable offer it saves you between $500 and $1,600 over 3 years compared to the other carriers but it's not the best offer because what would happen if you traded your phone into apple and purchased an unlocked iPhone 16 Pro Max instead an unlocked iPhone is any iPhone that isn't tied to a carrier or contract you'd be free to use the phone on any plan from any carrier you choose and suddenly instead of being tied to one of the big carriers most expensive plans you could trade in your example iPhone 13 Pro Max and get $400 of credit from Apple and then pick any more affordable plan that you wanted and this is where you can unlock some real savings for example you may consider visible $25 unlimited plan this comes with unlimited minutes unlimited texts truly unlimited highspeed data and truly unlimited hotspot data at 5 megabits per second visible is owned by Verizon and it uses the Verizon network to provide coverage and suddenly if you go with a plan such as visible $25 Unlimited Plan you save yourself an extra $500 over the Boost Mobile promotion in fact any cell phone plan that is $39 or less per month will save you money over boost mobile and any cell phone plan you choose that is $54 or less per month will save you money over AT&T so what are the best cell phone plans at those price points lucky for you it turns out I just uploaded a video going over the best cell phone plans at every price from $5 to $100 so go check that video out for some excellent picks but this still isn't the best deal out there it turns out there is one more even more affordable option and that is Boost Mobile's new 5G phone free 5G service promotion the deal is if you buy an iPhone 16 Pro Max from Boost Mobile at full price it comes with one free year of service on Boost Mobile's $25 Unlimited Plan and the best part and the reason I am mentioning this at all is the iPhone 16 Pro Max can be unlocked immediately right after you activate it on Boost Mobile so in in the worst case scenario you just got an unlocked iPhone that came with a free year of service on Boost Mobile you can test out the Boost Mobile network if you want to or use the unlocked iPhone on whichever other carrier you prefer and the best case scenario is you use Boost Mobile as your primary carrier you sell your old phone and suddenly you save yourself around $220 over the visible base plan so this makes Boost Mobile's free year of service promotion the most affordable option here again using that iPhone 13 Pro Max as an example and before we move on to family plans and the best iPhone 16 Pro max deals for two three four and five lines I can already hear you typing but Stetson these prepaid plans are worse than the post-paid plans they don't have unlimited data they are deprioritized and they have worse coverage and to be honest you bring up some good points it's true many prepaid plans C come with a set amount of high-speed Data before unlimited data at slower speeds that said you can also find prepaid plans that do come with truly unlimited highspeed data and yes it's also true that many prepaid plans are deprioritized which means you may temporarily notice slower data speeds during times when the network is busy however you can also find prepaid plans that come with priority data usmobile includes priority data on Verizon and offers a priority data add-on on AT&T there are also prepaid unlimited plans from visible AT&T an T-Mobile that all include priority data and yes it is also true that prepaid carriers do have less coverage than the big carriers but not that much less coverage it turns out the areas prepaid carriers miss out on are the areas with partner coverage these are typically small Pockets around the United States where instead of building their own cellular networks the big carriers partner with regional providers to offer service in that area for example AT&T partners with US Cellular for coverage in parts of Iowa and Wisconsin for some people such as those living in Iowa and Wisconsin having access to these partner coverage areas may be important for others such as you and me the coverage of the Native network will likely be enough so yes going with a plan from a prepaid carrier may have compromised but at least for me the savings I get compared to the big carriers make it easily worth it okay speaking of which which of these deals is the number one best deal I touted at the beginning of this video well best is subjective if you prefer to finance your phone and you don't want to pay a large upfront cost then Boost Mobile's $11,000 off deal is your most affordable option AT&T's deal is a great runnerup if you prefer the most affordable option then you may consider trading your phone into Apple getting an unlocked iPhone 16 Pro Max and using it on an affordable plan such as visible $25 unlimited plan or even US Mobile's $15 5 gig plan as for my personal number one pick and the deal I will most likely be signing up for it is Boost Mobile's free year of service deal I was going to buy an unlocked iPhone 16 Pro Max from Apple anyway and the fact that Boost Mobile Steel effectively gives you an unlocked iPhone and a free year of service makes it a no-brainer for me okay but what about family plans we know the big carriers offer great multi-line discounts so how do the promos stack up when you have two three four or five lines it turns out something surprising happens when we get to five lines for two lines though the best deals remain the same Boost Mobile's free year of service deal Remains the most affordable option then we have getting an unlocked iPhone from Apple and going with a prepaid carrier such as visible and in third place we have Boost Mobile's free iPhone 15 Pro max deal with $11,000 of credit for three lines things change Boost Mobile's free year of service deal is still the most affordable and getting an unlocked iPhone from Apple is still in second each of these saves your family between around $600 and $3,800 over 3 years but your third most affordable option is now going with AT&T's deal on the unlimited starter SL plan moving on to four lines and while Boost Mobile's offer is still the most affordable AT&T deal is now in second place if you have a family with four lines it may be worth considering AT&T because their pricing is very competitive in third place for a couple hundred extra over 3 years you also have that option of getting an unlocked iPhone from Apple and making a prepaid plan of your choice however when we get to five lines you can see something surprising happens AT&T's deal with the unlimited starter SL plan suddenly jumps up and becomes the most affordable option the combination of AT&T's feline discount and getting $11,000 off per line with a tradein makes this deal the cheapest option available now that we've covered the best deals some of you may be thinking of switching carriers to get the absolute best possible deal on the iPhone 16 Pro Max and this can be a great idea for three reasons switching carriers can give you special bonus offers exclusive to new customers potentially lower your cell phone bill and possibly even give you better coverage and faster data speeds but before you switch you have to ask yourself how can you tell which carrier provides the best coverage and fastest speeds in your area and how can you compare your current carrier with the one you're thinking of switching to the answer is to use the free coverage map application if you go to the search tab you can enter any state city county or zip code and instantly see how the big three carriers compare you can compare the coverage percentages the median download speeds and even our calculated reliability score scrolling down on the page and you can see a detailed breakdown of great good and poor reception as well as an option to view the exact percentages scrolling down further and you will see a breakdown of the median download and upload speeds in your area so you will know exactly which carrier has the fastest performance you can also use the maps tab to browse the crowdsource speed test map this shows you exactly what data speeds people are reporting on the different carriers in your area you can tap on any Square to view the speeds and you can also consider using the best carrier view to instantly color the squares by the carrier with the fastest speed in each Square there is also a signal strength map so you can compare coverage Footprints and see what the reception quality will be like on the different networks in your area go ahead and download the free coverage map application right now at the link in the video description if you enjoyed this video please do me a favor and share this video with one friend because it helps support my channel I'm Stetson and I hope that's helpful enjoy your new iPhone 16 Pro Max and I'll see you next time