How to Receive a Corporate Cell Phone Discount

A few minutes could save you big money on your monthly bill

Woman selling cell phones in a store
Sean Gallup / Staff/Getty Images
by Adam Fendelman
A syndicated technology journalist and senior web designer with a passion for cellphones.
Updated December 15, 2018

If you’re spending $100 per month right now on your cell phone plan, chopping your bill down to $75 a month for the same service sounds attractive, right?

While there are no catches to obtain this mega cell phone discount, there are two requirements.

  1. You must be employed.
  2. Your employer must be on your cell phone carrier’s corporate discount list (or, as a more time-consuming process, you must receive carrier approval to add your employer).

The easiest way to learn your immediate corporate cell phone discount is to simply call your carrier and ask for it.

If you work for the New York Times Company, for example, you could receive an 18 percent discount on your monthly service from Sprint. If you work for EDS, Sprint could award you a 26 percent discount.

Corporate cell phone discounts typically range from 15 percent to 25 percent on each monthly bill. AT&T, T-Mobile and Verizon Wireless have similar corporate cell phone discounts. You just have to be employed, and you just have to ask for it.

Even if the phone you're using is an Android phone (no matter who made it: Samsung, Google, Huawei, Xiaomi, etc.) you can still take advantage of these discounts.

Potential Roadblocks

While getting your corporate discount can be as simple as calling your carrier and asking for it, you could run into some issues.

If your company is too small, you might not be on your carrier’s discount list. This discount is usually awarded to users at larger companies. Even if you work for a well-known company, your carrier still might not have an established discount.

Also, even if you get immediately approved for a discount, you might have to wait one or two billing cycles for the savings to go into effect. In addition, smaller cell phone carriers (and some prepaid wireless carriers) may not offer corporate cell phone discounts.

Cell phone carriers are supposed to verify your employment. However, this job verification isn’t always properly conducted. Sometimes you’re just taken for your word.

Reason for the Corporate Cell Phone Discount

Why would cell phone carriers award such large discounts to users who are employed by certain companies?

The major cell phone carriers have business agreements with many larger companies for discounted wireless service. The corporate discount is designed to motivate many employees of a company to either sign up on their own or through a group plan at work.