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Boost Mobile Will Let You Pay Your Phone Bill by Watching Ads and Playing Games

Boost Mobile is debuting a new way to pay your phone bill by gamifying your attention, saving you a few pennies with every ad you watch.

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David Lumb Mobile Reporter
David Lumb is a mobile reporter covering how on-the-go gadgets like phones, tablets and smartwatches change our lives. Over the last decade, he's reviewed phones for TechRadar as well as covered tech, gaming, and culture for Engadget, Popular Mechanics, NBC Asian America, Increment, Fast Company and others. As a true Californian, he lives for coffee, beaches and burritos.
Expertise smartphones, smartwatches, tablets, telecom industry, mobile semiconductors, mobile gaming
David Lumb
2 min read
Three screens from the BoostOne app: on the left is how much has been saved off your bill, in the middle is a 'spin to win' activity wheel earning 5 to 500 Boost Coins, and the right screen shows a daily login bonus of 100 Boost Coins. Each boost coin earns one cent.

Boost Mobile is introducing a new app where customers can watch ads and play games to pay off their phone bill.

Boost Mobile
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Boost Mobile customers now have a new option for saving on their phone bill. They can trim it down -- or pay it entirely -- by watching ads and playing games.

Customers can use the carrier's new BoostOne app to watch ads, play simple games and engage with Boost partners to earn the coins that will shave a few cents off their bill at a time. It could be a welcome way to save money, especially given how pricey the best unlimited data plans can be. 

A Boost executive said the ads for in-game rewards on Fortnite and Candy Crush inspired the carrier's new payment model. "It's time to move beyond the old ways and to embrace proven digital models popular in other industries," Stephen Stokols, Boost EVP of retail wireless, said in a press release.

Customers will need to spend time to save cash. One of the carrier's so-called Boost Coins knocks a single cent off their bill, and in a video demonstration, watching a several-second ad awarded the watcher two Boost Coins. There's also a "spin to win" wheel that gets players between five and 500 coins, which equates to 5 cents and $5. 

Boost didn't provide other examples for how long it will take to pay off your phone bill, but given those low payouts, it might take awhile, especially since the average phone bill costs consumers $144 per month, according to CNBC.

And Boost plans to expand the uses for its watch-and-earn currency, as eventually Boost Coins will be tradable for new phones. Some consumers might not be interested, but for Boost, it's another experiment in finding alternatives to the current payment method.