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With a massively popular movie star as its face, Mint Mobile has made a huge splash in the wireless space. Its ads featuring former part-owner Ryan Reynolds were inescapable at one point, with the “Deadpool” star’s signature brand of humor adding a bit of perceived legitimacy to the promise of a low-cost phone plan. However, Reynolds cashed out a couple of years ago, and a lot has changed for Mint Mobile since then. Mint Mobile is a mobile virtual network operator, or MVNO. Whereas the big three carriers in the United States  — Verizon, AT&T, and T-Mobile  — are mobile network operators (MNOs) that own and operate their own national networks, MVNOs do not.

Instead, they pay the big three for access to those networks, then make their money back by selling that access to customers in the form of a phone plan. This business model allowed Ryan Reynolds to take an ownership stake in a wireless provider without the billions of dollars or more in capital it would potentially take to build a network from scratch. Ever since Reynolds sold Mint Mobile, it has functioned as a sub-brand of T-Mobile. Although it’s owned by T-Mobile, it still resells bulk service plans from the network to customers, which means it still operates as an MVNO. 

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Mint Mobile is most associated in the public eye with Hollywood star Ryan Reynolds. The telegenic actor bought a 25% ownership stake in the company in 2019. It wasn’t the most interesting celebrity tech product, but it was far more successful than most (not a high bar, to be fair). Reynolds marketed the service aggressively, appearing in television and social media ads that were hard to escape. With such a high-profile celebrity as its owner and spokesperson, it wasn’t long before its growth attracted the attention of a bigger fish.

Fame doesn’t always pay, but Ryan Reynolds has turned his pearly white smile into a billion-dollar brand. In 2023, a deal was announced for T-Mobile to acquire Mint Mobile and its parent company, Ka’ena, to the tune of $1.35 billion. The deal officially closed in 2024. Reynolds himself made $300 million on the deal, which surprisingly isn’t the largest sale he’s made. The price tag for Aviation Gin, which he sold to Diageo in 2020, was $610 million. 

Those business moves make Reynolds’ acting work look more like a side gig; his $50 million “Deadpool and Wolverine” salary helped land him atop the list of highest paid actors, but it was hardly a life-changing sum for the one-percenter. Reynolds didn’t fully exit Mint Mobile after the sale. He stayed on in a creative role and is still featured prominently on the company’s website. He’s also still starring in ads for the company, such as a TV spot in June 2025 wherein he promoted a tie-in deal with Samsung for the Galaxy S25 smartphone.

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Prior to the acquisition, Mint Mobile already used T-Mobile’s network to provide service. Operating and maintaining massive 4G and 5G networks is incredibly expensive and logistically exhausting, but MVNOs are free to spend their time and energy on things like customer service. That’s not to say you’ll always get a good deal with MVNO plans, or that they’re always trustworthy. Look no further than the head-scratchingly bad deal offered by Trump Mobile for proof of that. Additionally, there are often catches built into MVNO plans. They may claim to offer unlimited data, but read the fine print and you’ll see that your speeds get throttled after you hit a certain threshold.

When it comes to Mint Mobile, reviewers have praised the value its plans provide relative to their costs. There’s a reason those enticing $15 introductory plans stuck around even after T-Mobile scooped the company up. However, it does have some of the caveats that often come with pay-as-you-go plans. You’ll get slower data speeds after you use 35 gigabytes, which doesn’t seem like a problem until you forget to turn on Wi-Fi while doomscrolling on TikTok.

If you’re looking for cheap access to a good network, Mint Mobile gets the job done. Since buying Sprint, T-Mobile now has the fastest and most consistent network in the United States, with the best 5G availability. That’s according to research from Ookla, which owns the popular Speedtest app and collected the data from phones using that service. You should still check coverage in your area and compare it against other providers, but it’s easy to get far worse network coverage for a lot more money.