How I Got 4 Years of Free Wireless With My Mint Mobile Referral Link
This article may contain referral and/or affiliate links.
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In this article, I’m going to share how I was able to use my Mint Mobile referral link to get 4 YEARS of free wireless. And I did it without being THAT friend, spamming everyone because “I thought you might be interested.”
In fact, the people who clicked my link were already interested in Mint Mobile, and I was able to talk them into trying it. But more on that in a minute.
The Mint Mobile Referral Program
Mint Mobile, a budget prepaid phone carrier, offers a referral system that increases the reward for every referral. The first referral nets you a $25 account credit. The next one gets you $30. Then $35. Then, $40 for the 4th. But the reward for the 5th referral jumps to $110.
Together, the 5 referrals total $240 — enough for a whole year of the carrier’s mid-range plan. Your 6th referral starts you over at $25. You get capped at 10 referrals per calendar year — enough for 2 years. For me, it’s actually more than 2 years of free wireless because I use the lowest-tier 4GB plan.
I Scored 4 Years of Free Wireless
Over the course of about 6 months in summer and fall 2020, I got all 10 referrals and had to wait until January to get more. In January this year (2021), I got all 10 referrals for the year. The total of credits I’ve received to date is $975 (the math doesn’t quite work out because Mint Mobile gave me an extra $15 on top of the standard for each referral I got for a period of a few weeks).
In the screenshot below, you see a renewal balance of “only” $795 – because I just renewed my Mint Mobile 4GB plan for a whole year for free with my renewal credits!
Here’s How I Did It
When I embarked on my journey to get a free year of wireless, I made the following decisions:
I didn’t want to spam my friends, because no one likes “that guy” and I did not want to be him.
- I didn’t want to put in much effort, because I wasn’t sure how successful I would be.
- I wanted to ensure I wasn’t violating any rules or laws, so as to nullify any earnings.
With all that in mind, the obvious option was to share my link online — but not on social media. I think I may have shared it a time or two on Facebook, but really didn’t want to. I decided to try both a blog post and a YouTube video, both which would contain my referral link.
For both methods, I opted to do a review of my experience. I was unsure if this was the best idea because Mint Mobile reviews are all over the place, especially on YouTube, each with their own referral link of course.
But I decided to try my hand, because I believed my review would have more to offer than the average person’s because I’d already used Mint for a whole year and could speak to that, where the average reviewer was eager to just get their referral link out there after having just activated.
What didn’t work: YouTube
I’ll start by saying that my YouTube video wasn’t really a success. This could be because of the abundance of video reviews already on YouTube. It could be because I used a PowerPoint as the video portion, instead of me talking or related video of the experience. It could be because I have a terrible voice, or because I spent very minimal time producing it. I’m not sure. But it has yet to receive 300 reviews, and as far as I know, no one has activated through the link I posted in the description.
Blog Post for the Win
Ultimately, I was already seeing success with my blog post long before I made a YouTube video. The YouTube video was an afterthought. So how did I earn 4 years of free wireless with Mint Mobile through a written review?
I chose a platform I knew was Google-friendly
From my experience with Medium, I knew the platform could be Google-friendly. I also have some knowledge of search engine optimization and was able to use that knowledge to my advantage — note that you should use the desktop version of Medium to customize things like Search engine previews, which aren’t available on the app (for whatever reason).
I turned off the Medium paywall
Medium has the option to enable articles for earning by way of putting them behind the Medium paywall, so that Medium members only can read them — and that’s how you earn money on the platform. They pay you when you write content that paying members want to read.
But I knew that Mint’s affiliate program would pay out more than I’d get from the Medium platform, so the goal was to get as any pageviews as possible. I turned off the paywall so that anyone who got to my article via Google could read it and click the link if they chose to sign up.
I wrote my review about a service I truly enjoy
I was a customer for over 2 years prior to writing it, versus having just signed up like most reviewers. I also have a minimal-ish, less-social-media mindset that paints the limited data of prepaid carriers like Mint Mobile as a benefit and not a disadvantage.
I was honest
Reviews hawking affiliate links often describe rainbows and sunshine. Of course, I showcased the positives in my article – but I also described details about the aspects of my Mint Mobile experience that were lacking, so that people know what to expect. For example, I have never really gotten Wifi calling to work on Mint Mobile so I discussed that; I didn’t successfully port my phone number over, so I shared that, too. And lastly, the network speed and customer service are just like that of any prepaid carrier, so I made that clear.
I spoke to common questions
I brought up all the common questions I could think of, and then discussed my experience related to them. I specifically spoke to the aspects of Mint Mobile that are different than the norm.
For example, I thought about all the questions and fears I had around buying a whole year of service at once – will they slow my speed once they have a year’s worth of my money, and my pleasant surprise when there wasn’t a change.
I shared details and specifics
I talked about my experience specific to where I live, the number of lines I needed, the plan I chose, the carriers I’ve used before, and the amount of money I saved by switching to Mint Mobile.
I used real screenshots from my account
This gives validity to the experience I shared – I showed the progression of my renewals, including the 1-year renewals.
I used a photo of my truck instead of a tacky header
I have no idea if this worked or not in terms of showing authenticity, but I used a photo of my truck at the beginning as a frame of reference for why I switched to Mint Mobile in the first place. I sold my truck to save money, and I switched to Mint for the same reason.
I laid out my research
Before landing on Mint Mobile, I researched extensively to find the lowest cost wireless provider. So in my review, I laid out the research and explained that as the baseline for my decision.
I was thorough
My review covered all the major components of my experience: initial setup and porting my number; call quality; wifi calling; data speeds; network reliability; the Mint Mobile referral program; and other components.
I used my SEO knowledge
As mentioned earlier, I have some basic SEO knowledge, so I used that to work for me in my review. I used the right keywords in my title, headings, and throughout my review. I also used the desktop version of Medium so that I could customize my tags and my search engine preview. Also, the detail and honesty I’ve described is greatly rewarded by Google:
I was strategic with link placement
I placed a referral link right at the top of the article after providing a TL;DR review, so that if someone wanted to go ahead and try, they didn’t need to read the whole thing to get to my referral link. And then, I placed it at the bottom so that if someone did read the whole thing and decide to give it a shot, they didn’t have to hunt for it.
And, I was honest about the fact that if they purchased through my link, I’d earn a referral.
Numbers/Summary
Because I wrote an article that was at least a little SEO-savvy, was honest and detailed, spoke to points that others couldn’t, and was on a Google-friendly platform in Medium, my article landed in the top few spots in the Google results for phrases like “Mint Mobile review” and “Mint Mobile 1-year review.”
Because of that, I received thousands of views on my post, so it didn’t take long to get 5 referrals with my link to gain an entire year of free wireless with Mint Mobile. And then, I got 5 more – another year. After that, they cap your referrals, but on January 1 of the following year, the referrals rolled in and I got 2 more free years within 2 weeks.
And because Mint Mobile’s referral system is so generous and the price for their plans is so low, 5 referrals is all you need to land an entire year of free wireless! So even if you don’t want to write a blog post or make a Youtube video, you can probably think of 5 friends or family members who are looking for ways to save money. Work it into conversation naturally if saving money or wireless carriers come up, then offer to send them a link. Not spammy!
Click here to try Mint Mobile for only $15/month
Downsides to Mint Mobile’s referral program
There are really only two negatives to Mint Mobile’s referral program. The first I already discussed – They cap you at 10 referrals a year. The other, I almost forgot to mention. The renewal credit is called a “renewal credit” and not a “credit” or “account credit” for a reason. Beware! If you want to add to your Mint wallet or top-up if you go over your data – the credit can’t be used, and you’ll be charged to your payment method. This wasn’t terribly clear to me, so I wanted to share it with you. I paid for extra data one month because I thought it would come from my renewal credit – it didn’t.
But by way of 4 years of free wireless, the referral program has saved me around a thousand bucks (or way more if you compare my free Mint Mobile service against what I was paying with my old carrier).
So all in all, Mint Mobile provides a great value – both in the wireless service they provide, and with their referral program. Get started now by kindly helping me out with my own referrals, by clicking my referral link below: