Cricket vs Boost Mobile used to be a choice between two networks. It no longer is. Cricket runs on AT&T’s network and is owned by AT&T. Boost Mobile belongs to EchoStar, which finished moving its customers’ traffic onto AT&T’s towers on November 15, 2025.
Side by side
| Cricket | Boost Mobile | |
|---|---|---|
| Owner | AT&T | EchoStar |
| Network | AT&T | Mainly AT&T, with access to T-Mobile’s |
| Cheapest plan with automatic payments | $30 a month, 10 GB | $25 a month, unlimited with 30 GB of premium data |
| Cheapest unlimited with automatic payments | $35 a month, Select Unlimited | $25 a month |
| Top plan with automatic payments | $55 a month, Supreme Unlimited | $60 a month, Unlimited Premium |
| Without automatic payments | $5 more | $5 more |
| eSIM | Yes | Yes |
Figures are from each brand’s plans page, read on October 8, 2026. Cricket’s Auto Pay price starts after the first month.
Price
Boost is cheaper at the bottom. Its $25 plan is unlimited talk, text and data, and Boost calls the price “$25 Forever”. Cricket’s cheapest unlimited plan is $35 with Auto Pay.
Cricket’s Select Unlimited comes with conditions. It is for new lines only, every line on the account has to be on it, and it has no hotspot.
What “unlimited” means on each
Boost describes all its plans as unlimited “with a premium data cap”. On the $25 plan that cap is 30 GB, after which speeds may drop to 512 kbps.
Cricket says data on Select and Smart “may slow if the network is busy”, and video streams in standard definition on both. Supreme Unlimited, at $55 with Auto Pay, is the Cricket plan with unlimited high-speed data and 50 GB of hotspot.
Network
Both depend on AT&T’s towers now. EchoStar says Boost customers “will continue to have access to the T-Mobile network” as well. If someone tells you Boost was poor in your area, ask when. Before November 2025 it was a different network.
Which one
Choose Boost Mobile if price comes first and 30 GB of full-speed data is enough.
Choose Cricket if you want hotspot data or use in Mexico and Canada in a mid-priced plan, which its $45 Smart Unlimited includes.
Full details: Cricket Wireless and Boost Mobile.