Tracfone Data-Only Card and How to Reduce Data Use

Guide to Tracfone Data Cards and How to Buy Data for your Smartphone

Welcome to the TracfoneReviewer blog! This post will share specifics on how data works on smartphones with Tracfone.

How Data Works and How to Save on Data

Tracfone is a prepaid cell phone service provider that offers both phones and airtime cards. On their smartphone devices, you also get data when adding an airtime card which you can use to surf the web when not connected to WiFi.

Data is very useful on smartphones, but how does the data work on Tracfone smartphones, how can you get more, and what can you do with the data you have?

We are going to cover these questions and more in this post sharing all the details about how Tracfone Data works on smartphones.

Tracfone offers a number of different smartphones and you can see all the newest devices in our List of the Latest Smartphones from Tracfone.

Or you might be interested in the Tracfone BYOP program, which allows users to bring their own smartphone. Follow the link to learn more, and see a list of the possibilities.

Both the smartphones offered by Tracfone, and the BYOP devices, use data in the same way. So let's get started looking at how data works on these phones.

What is Data on Tracfone Smartphones?

Data is the term generally used to describe the amount (usually in megabytes) you can download or upload on your smartphone via the cell phone network. So data is basically information you download or upload from the internet. This can include many different activities, like checking email, posting photos on Facebook, reading webpages, watching videos, or texting photos.

Data is consumed based on the amount of megabytes you download or upload. So if you download a 20 MB image, that will use 20 MB of your data. If you visit a webpage that takes 1 MB to load, you will use 1 MB of data. (further down we will share more on estimating how much different online activities will use up your data.)

On older, non-smartphone devices, data was used at a rate determined by the amount of time you were on a website, but this is not the case for smartphones which is a nice improvement.

As you can see, data works similarly to your calling minutes, in that you are charged based on how much you use. But calling minutes are based on time, rather than megabytes. (For example, if you make a 20 minute call, you will be deducted (about) 20 minutes of talk time.)

On Tracfone Smartphones and BYOP devices, airtime is split into three pools, Talk, Text and Data. Learn more about How Airtime Works with Tracfone Smartphones in our recent post.

How Can you Buy More Data for your Tracfone Device?

There are two ways to get more data for your smartphone:

Airtime Cards - You can add both Regular Airtime Cards or Smartphone Only Cards and get a certain amount of data along with talk, text and service days.
Data Only Card - You get only Data, at 1 GB for $10 (Visit Tracfone's add on page here)

For most situations you will probably want to add an Airtime card to your phone to increase all your 'buckets' of talk/text/data.

But sometimes you may only want to add data, in which case the data only cards are useful. Let's take a closer look at Data cards to better understand how to use them.

What Are Data Only Cards?

As mentioned above, the Data only card increase the amount of data for your smartphone, without adding any additional texts or talk minutes.

This is similar to the Text only cards we recently discussed.

There are some important things to be aware of the make the Data only cards unique.

First, they can only be used with smartphones, including the Android devices offered by Tracfone, and all phones offered through the BYOP program.

Second, like the Text only card, Data only cards do not triple, so you get the amount listed on the card (1 GB).

Tracfone's price of $10 per 1 GB is quite expensive compared to the average price of cell phone providers which is somewhere under $5 per GB depending on sources. 

Tracfone has not changed their price, while the average cost of data has gone down.

Data Amounts for Tracfone Airtime Cards (Which is the Best Deal)

Tracfone offers a number of different airtime cards that include various amounts of data. Below are the list of airtime card options available.

Smartphone Airtime Cards:

• $15 - 30 service days - 500 minutes - 500 texts - 500MB data
• $25 - 60 service days - 500 minutes - 1000 texts - 500MB data
• $35 - 60 service days - 750 minutes - 1000 texts - 1GB data
• $45 - 90 service days - 750 minutes - 1000 texts - 1.5GB data
• $50 - 90 service days - 750 minutes - 1500 texts - 2GB data
• $125 - 365 service days - 1500 minutes - 1500 texts - 1.5GB data

Unlimited Airtime Cards (discount available for 3, 6, or 12 month plans):

• $15 - 30 service days - unlimited talk/text - 0 data
• $20 - 30 service days - unlimited talk/text - 2GB data
• $25 - 30 service days - unlimited talk/text - 3GB data
• $30 - 30 service days - unlimited talk/text - 5GB data
• $40 - 30 service days - unlimited talk/text - 10GB data
• $199 - 365 service days - unlimited talk/text - 24GB data

There are a lot of airtime card options available from Tracfone that include data. From the list above, note that the smartphone airtime cards offer 30, 60, 90 or 365 service days depending on which card you buy. Ideally, purchasing the card that includes the talk, text and data you expect to use in that service day period is the best way to go, but Tracfone also includes carryover for unused talk, text or data.

The unlimited cards are all 30 service days, except for the $199 card which includes 365 service days. These cards are a better option for those that use a lot of talk, text and data and these cards also include data carryover.

The best deal are the two 365 day airtime card options as they come out to $10.42 per month for the $125 card and $16.58 for the $199 unlimited card. The $199 unlimited card includes enough data for 2GB per month (24GB total) and you can use as much or as little throughout the year.

Anyone using more than 5GB data per month would likely save money by finding an alternative to Tracfone that includes unlimited data.

Where to Buy Tracfone Data Cards

Tracfone Data cards are available form a variety of sources, as is the case for Tracfone Airtime cards. You can find Data cards on the Tracfone website under Airtime.

You can also find the Tracfone Data cards in many retail stores, and even online through other retailers. We have found (affiliate link)Data cards on eBay in various amounts.

Now let's cover one more question that we see asked quite often.

How Much Can you Do Online with 300 MB of Data?

A common question we see is, what can you do online with a certain amount of data? This is a very good question, because many people tend to estimate how many airtime minutes they will need, and then buy the airtime card that suits their needs best. But if you're unfamiliar with how much data is used by smartphones, it makes it hard to estimate.

It is a little hard to give a straight answer to this question, it all depends on what you do online  Take a look at this image (provided by Tracfone) to help give you a better idea:

Estimated usage for 300 MB of data with Tracfone

From this table we see you can visit about 245 webpages with 300 MB of data, or send/receive about 4000 emails. Hopefully this information will help you gain a better understanding of how data is used with Tracfone, and where your data is going.

If you notice, doing certain things online, like streaming music, or even more so, streaming video, will use your data quickly, while visiting webpages or sending emails, especially those with few images, will use less of your data.

Another good resource for estimating your data usage is the Data Calculator on Verizon's website. Enter your estimated activities, and it will tell you about how much data you will use in a month.

Remember, that if you want to stop using data, you can go into the settings on your device, select data, and turn it off. Using WiFi networks, like at your home or work, does not deduct from your data.

Tips for Reducing Data Use

Here are some helpful tips to reduce the amount of data you use.

• Keep track of your data use and set data use warnings to help
• Turn off background data (learn more here)
• Download/upload large files over WiFi as much as possible
• If you use Google Maps often in a certain area, download the map of that area over WiFi. Here is some helpful information about using Google Maps without using data.
• Download songs/podcasts over WiFi instead of streaming them.
• Set your Apps to only update over WiFi.
• Download Images/Videos only when using WiFi

As you can see, the best way to reduce data usage is to avoid using it for large downloads or uploads, which will quickly drain your data. Using free WiFi whenever possible will go a long way in extending your data.

Here is a helpful article on what online activities use data, and some other basic details about data usage from an AT&T Forum.

We hope you found this information helpful, and please leave a comment with any questions, or if you have something to add!

Learn the basics of how Tracfone works with our Beginners Guide to Tracfone.

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Take a look at one of our other popular posts, the Over 30 Great Android Apps to use with your Smartphone.

And check our recent post on 7 Ways to Reduce Your Airtime Usage with Tracfone including some more tips for making your data last longer.

Thanks for visiting!

Originally published 8/2015 and Updated 8/2020