Verizon will charge $10 a month for iPhone Handoff, twice what T-Mobile asks

Verizon says iPhone Handoff, which shares one number across two iPhones, is coming soon at $10 a month, double T-Mobile's fee. It has not given a date.

Pinkesh Gajera17 Oct 20264 min read

Verizon will charge $10 a month for iPhone Handoff, the iOS 27 feature that lets two iPhones share one phone number.

The price appears in Verizon's iPhone Duo offers release, published on 16 October as Duo pre-orders opened. Verizon says Handoff is coming soon and names the iPhone Duo and iPhone 18 Pro as examples of compatible models running iOS 27. It gives no launch date. MacRumors reported the price first that evening, and 9to5Mac followed shortly after midnight UTC. Both outlets point to the same Verizon release.

Handoff keeps a number active on one iPhone at a time. According to Apple's support article, unlocking the other iPhone moves the number to it, along with calls, voicemail, messages and Find My location, and the phone shows a Switched to this iPhone confirmation. Verizon's release says customers keep full access to its 5G network on whichever phone is active.

What does iPhone Handoff cost on each carrier?

Apple said at its September event that Verizon and EE would follow T-Mobile and Deutsche Telekom before the end of the year. Every carrier that has named a price so far charges for it unless a premium plan includes it.

Carrier	Price	Status
T-Mobile (US)	$5 a month	Available
Verizon (US)	$10 a month	Coming soon, no date
AT&T (US)	None announced	No commitment
Telekom (Germany)	€6.95 a month, included on MagentaMobil L and XL	Available
EE (UK)	£5 a month, included on Full Works Plus	Coming soon, no date

Apple's support article still lists only T-Mobile and Telekom as supported carriers, and says carrier fees might apply.

What Verizon has not said

When the feature switches on. The release says only that it is coming soon.
Which plans qualify, and whether prepaid customers can add it.
Whether the fee is charged per line or per account. For a dual SIM setup, Apple says each eSIM has to be set up for Handoff separately.

Our take

Ten dollars a month is $120 a year for one number on two phones. That is a lot to pay for a convenience feature, and Verizon has not explained why it costs twice what T-Mobile charges for the same thing. The useful comparison is not with a second line, which is a different product with its own number. It is with T-Mobile, which has been selling exactly this since iOS 27 shipped.

The price also leaves AT&T looking more isolated. In September we reported that AT&T would not commit to Handoff and pointed customers to its eSIM transfer tools instead. With Verizon on board, AT&T is now the only one of the three big US carriers with no plan at all. Verizon's price is high, but it is still a price.

Verizon's timing is aimed at the Duo. A person who already owns an iPhone 18 Pro and wants a foldable for some days is exactly who Handoff is for, and our guide to setting it up covers who else it suits. But Apple's US store was quoting 25 January for new iPhone Duo orders within hours of pre-orders opening, so most Duo buyers will not need Handoff before the new year in any case.

One line in Apple's support article matters more than the price. Deleting the eSIM from an iPhone does not end the charge, and the carrier can keep billing until you ask it to stop. Anyone who tries Handoff at $10 a month and decides it is not worth it should call Verizon, not just remove it from Settings. The advice APPDOOK gives a Verizon customer is simple: wait for the launch date and the plan terms before deciding, because the fine print Verizon has not published yet is what decides whether $10 is the real cost.

For app makers there is nothing new to build. Apple warns that some apps may sign a user out on one iPhone when they sign in on the other, and that banking apps may ask for approval on the existing device. Each Verizon customer who switches the feature on brings that behaviour to more people who will not expect it.