The two best options out there are mint mobile and visible. Visible runs on the Verizon network, and mint mobile runs on T-Mobile.
Mint Mobile is cheaper the more time you pay for, so if you pay for a year in advance, it's $360 or $30/mo for their 'unlimited' data plan.
Visible costs $30-45, depending on your needs. If you don't need international calling or roaming in Mexico/Canada, just stick to the $30 plan.
On a side note, EVERY carrier says 'unlimited data' and this is a bald face fucking lie. There is ALWAYS a data limit. The reason they can say 'unlimited' is that they 'throttle' your internet speeds down after a certain amount of data. The thing is they throttle it down so far, it's basically at dial-up speeds, making it completely unusable.
Mint Mobile's highest 'unlimited' plan cuts you off after 35gb of data, which is more than what most people will use and is the best deal out there other than...
Visible, which has 'theoretically' truly unlimited data, although even their small print says there is no data limit, some people say they start jerking your connection around after 40-60gb. I've been using visible for years and have only had issues in the most remote places and have done as much as 40-50gb in a month without problems.
The 'catch' with Visible is that they will 'de-prioritize' you for full-price paying Verizon customers if there's too many people connected to the same cell tower. This is essentially the same as 'throttling' but works slightly different on a technical level. I've only experienced this de-prioritization (very rarely) in very busy cities. If you're traveling in the USA, it almost never occurs.
Both carriers will let you bring your own phone if that phone is unlocked, or was previously activated on their carrier (i.e. an old T-Mobile phone on mint mobile, or an old Verizon phone on Visible) but Visible is much stricter on what kinds of phones will 'work' on their network. Unfortunately, this is mostly bullshit, as they just want you to use a newer phone or buy one from their store. You can get around this though by submitting a fake IMEI number when signing up, but that's a discussion for another time.
Ting is no longer a good choice due to the options that Mint Mobile and Visible have been offering for years now. You can get more data/better service for much less money.
Boost has always run on the Sprint network, which was bought out by T-Mobile a few years back. You're better off going with Mint Mobile if you want to stay on that network, you'll save yourself up to $20/mo.
No offense, but tracphone has
always been one of the worst options in the market. Very expensive, very few talking minutes, ridiculous data limits. Not sure if that's changed since they got bought out, but their reputation is so poor that I'm not even going to bother googling their latest prices.
I've tested Visible in just about every part of the country and only had a major dead zone in eastern Utah on the South Wyoming border. So if you want most coverage, they got it. I have to say though, I've used Mint Mobile for years as well, and they're a very close 2nd in terms of coverage.
I think it's worth noting that Verizon/Visible in the past has pretty much given law enforcement unlimited access to their phone databases
without a warrant. This means they can look up a record of where you've been and when and who you called/text at any time. They literally had a portal set up for law enforcement to log in whenever they want. I recall this being in the news many years ago, but I can't seem to find a reference article other than this one:
The newly obtained document shows in granular detail the sort of data that the country's carriers keep, and for how long.
www.vice.com
Which just lays out what information which companies save and for how long. I also found a page on Verizon's site stating
they don't give that information out without a warrant, so maybe they changed gears on this, but it's something to consider.
Anyway, hope that helps!