In addition to prepaid cell phone service, Earth Tones is also a provider of long distance telephone service and dial-up internet access. The company focuses on being environmentally friendly and states that it donates all of its profits to environmental causes. The company was founded and is operated by a coalition of non-profit organizations.

Earth Tone’s most basic prepaid cellular plan is called Anywhere 0.25. There’s a monthly $10 fee and all airtime is billed at $.25 per minute. All in all it’s a rather pricey program. There are six other plans for which the monthly fee includes a specified amount of airtime beginning at $20 per month for 100 minutes which equates to $.20 per minute. The most inclusive plan is $85 monthly and provides 1,200 minutes of usage or just a little more than $.07 per minute. A bit of an anomaly, the lowest per minute rate comes with the $55 monthly plan which includes 800 minutes of airtime and equates to just under $.07 a minute. With any of the plans, exceeding the specified number of minutes results in a $.25 per minute charge. Both incoming and outgoing text messages are $.10 each. Multimedia messaging and wireless web access aren’t available.

There are four different phones available from Earth Tones ranging in price from free to $100. Earth Tones charges a $40 activation fee regardless of the plan chosen. There is no domestic roaming fee.

For objective comparisons of the best of the prepaid cell phone services, we suggest taking a look our reviews of Boost Mobile, Cricket and Virgin Mobile.