Negotiating A Better Rate With Xfinity
Cable and internet bills can be so annoying at times. Like many subscriptions, they bring you in with a great rate – knowing that price will explode in your face a few years later. Every one does it, and their game plan is essentially banking on you being lazy down the road. We, as humans, are resistant to change after all. We will pay a bit more to just not deal with something. That is until they push the envelope too far at least. And that is exactly what happened to me. It is why I ended up negotiating a better rate with Xfinity for our internet service. All in all, it will save me over $1,500, which was the best use of 20 minutes of my time all year.
RELATED: How I Am Getting Almost Free Mint Mobile Service
The Backstory
I set up Xfinity as our internet provider years ago at our cottage. It is a small town and there were only a few options to choose from. Xfinity seemed to offer the best speeds at the time, which is necessary with my online work. The price was pretty good at the time too. We locked it in for $80 a month, which included their provided all-in-one modem and WiFi router called xFi Gateway.
The price was about what we paid at home for internet and I didn’t need to purchase any hardware. That was a win-win in my book. I also liked that they had an easy online hold process, since this was a seasonal home. We were able to pay just $8 a month half the year to pause the services. We could then pick the date to reactivate it online. No need to have anyone out to the house, drive to a store front to drop stuff or pay year round for service I wasn’t using.
They were going to lock in the price for two years, but it ended up being for a bit longer than that. All of that changed last summer though.
Price Increases Start To Hit
I noticed once we started up service again in 2025 that the price had increased to $108 a month. A pretty substantial bump, but not out of this world. I had it on my list to call and haggle the price back down, but it kept ending up on the bottom of the to-do pile every time. We paid that rate for the five or so months the cottage was open and moved on with life.
Once the service came back on in 2026 I was hit with another big increase. Now we were being charged $134 a month – just for internet service! That was a bridge to far for me, and I knew I needed to work on negotiating a better price with Xfinity.
How I Lowered My Xfinity Internet Bill
The new 2026 price was a substantial $54 more per month compared to our initial price, or a 68% increase. Not to mention that this is when T-Mobile and others are offering internet for $35 a month. To be fair, that is based off of cell towers (and not available where we are at), but it shows that the market has a much lower end overall. Had Xfinity not been so greedy I may have let it slide another year. Maybe I should thank them for their greed…
I moved our cable bill to the tippy top of my to-do list. When I called in I informed the Xfinity call center employee that I was interested in negotiating a better rate with Xfinity. I had looked at the direct competitor’s new customer pricing and informed her that we needed to get down into that $80 range once again for me to stay as a customer.
The initial offer was for $70 a month for a higher speed internet package, at up to 1 Gig internet. Yes, I was going to get better service for like half the price. She said she could lock this price in for 12 months.
Always Ask For More
The last thing I wanted to do is have to call again in a year when they jacked up my price again. I asked if Xfinity could lock it for 2 or 3 years instead. That is when she offered to give me the same 1 Gig speed at $80, but she could lock that rate in until 2031 (5 years). Music to my ears! I was okay giving up the $50 – $60 this year in savings to guarantee my price for a longer term. This would bring me over $1,500 in savings compared to our current pricing over the five years.
Negotiating A Better Rate With Xfinity: Final Thoughts
The process for lowering your internet or cable bill with Xfinity is usually fairly harmless. I imagine they take hundreds of these calls every day. The hope of all cable and internet companies (plus most subscription models) is that your laziness will get the best of you. Or, maybe you just don’t pay that close attention to your credit card statements for a few years.
They can extract hundreds (even thousands) of dollars in increased revenue during that time frame. Once you catch them red handed cable companies are more than willing to bend over backwards to keep you as a customer.
One other takeaway from this is to resist taking the first deal offered to you. Even though it will often be the best offer, that is not always the case. The company rep may even think it is the best they can do, and that is why they lead with it, but it may not be what is best for you. Always ask for what else they can do, or for a longer term etc.
Let me know if you recently lowered your internet bill down below, or over in the MTM Facebook Group.
Fortunately, we have cell coverage at our house. We’re on Mint for $30 per month, which piggybacks on T-Mobile. We combine it with the 6GB cell plan. Out the door, it’s less than T-Mobile itself and it’s substantially lower than when we were using hard-wire Internet. I want to say around $1500 per year less.
Totally agree. One of the best things I did last year was switch to TMobile fiber when they bought MetroNet out. I got what I think might be the best deal on internet ever. $70 a month, for 2 Gig speeds, locked for 10 years! I love not having to haggle.
Infinity is advertising $50 per month for 1 gig for 5 years in our home market. It is very high on my list to ask AT&T to match that price. That includes a $10 discount for autopay from our checking account, so we would likely pay $60 because one should NEVER sign up for autopsy.
That is a great deal – hopefully you have success getting them to match it!
Same here locked in 1 gig for $50 for 5 years
And only cell line free for a year – their plan. Ow covers international so all in all way better than cox + tmobile