Days after Verizon rolled out a $20 upgrade fee on all device payment plans and at full retail price, it looks like AT&T has matched that fee.
An AT&T support page shows that the big blue carrier is charging a $20 activation fee for installment purchases, bring your own device (BYOD) users, and AT&T Next customers. That fee was $15 as recently as Monday, April 4, as you can see in this cached Best Buy page (which is also shown below), which has been updated to list the fee at $20.
AT&T hasn’t made any announcements about the $20 upgrade fee, but one Reddit user that claims to be an AT&T employee leaked the price increase yesterday.
We often see AT&T and Verizon mirror one another we it comes to plan and pricing changes, with one carrier making a tweak and then the other following shortly thereafter. Now AT&T’s upgrade and activation fees mirror Verizon’s recent change, so if you’re an thinking about upgrading or activating a device on AT&T soon, keep the $20 fee in mind.