TL;DR — The Short Answer
What a Contract Buyout Actually Is
You want to switch internet providers. You call to cancel, and your current ISP tells you there’s a $180 early termination fee because you’re seven months into a two-year agreement. That fee is the single biggest reason people stay stuck with internet they don’t like.
A contract buyout is a new provider’s answer to that problem. They agree to reimburse the penalty your old company charged you — up to a set cap — so the cost of leaving stops being your problem.
Here’s the part the ads don’t lead with: almost nobody pays your old provider directly. You cancel, you get billed, you pay the fee out of your own pocket, and then you file a claim to get that money back weeks later. It arrives as a prepaid card or a credit on your new bill. The buyout is a reimbursement, not a rescue.
Contract Buyout Programs Compared (2026)
Every program below is live as of August 2026. The differences that matter aren’t just the dollar caps — pay attention to the payout format (cash-like card vs. bill credit) and the filing deadline, because those two details decide whether you actually see the money.
Every Major ISP Contract Buyout — Full Breakdown
| Provider | Max Buyout | How You’re Paid | Filing Deadline | Notable Catch |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| T-Mobile 5G Home / Fiber | Up to $750 Best | Virtual prepaid Mastercard | Within 60 days of activation | Must show 90+ days in good standing with old ISP |
| Metronet | Up to $750 Best | Virtual prepaid card | Per rebate terms at signup | Allow ~14 weeks after submission |
| Spectrum | Up to $500 | Check / reimbursement | Typically 30–90 days | Must keep qualifying services active through payout |
| Verizon Fios | Up to $500 | Bill credit | Within 90 days of install | Credit applies after ~90 days of active service |
| Optimum | Up to $500 | Bill credit | Varies by market | Terms differ between fiber and cable markets |
| Frontier Fiber | Up to $500 | Bill credit | Submit after final bill | Cancel inside 90 days and the credit is clawed back |
| AT&T Fiber | Matches your ETF Varies | AT&T Visa Reward Card | 75 days from reward notice | Old bill must be dated within 60 days of your order |
| Ezee Fiber | Up to $500 | Reimbursement | After install, via email claim | Regional — Texas and select metros only |
| Ziply Fiber | Up to $200 | Account credit | Within 90 days of purchase | One claim per account, lifetime |
| Wyyerd Fiber | Up to $200 | Bill credit | Within 90 days of install | Credit lands on your 4th statement |
| Google Fiber | None N/A | — | — | No buyout, but never locks you into a contract either |
Every one of these programs requires proof that you were charged an ETF. That means you have to sign up with the new provider first, then cancel the old one — and the final bill showing the fee has to arrive before you can file. Cancel first and you may end up with a final bill dated outside the eligibility window.
The Best Plans With Buyouts, Provider by Provider
Below are the buyout offers worth building a switch around, ranked by how much they’ll actually put back in your pocket and how painless the claim process tends to be.
T-Mobile 5G Home Internet
Rely / Amplified / All-In plans
$750
Contract Freedom cap
- Paid as a virtual prepaid Mastercard you can spend anywhere
- No annual contract and no equipment fee
- 5-year price guarantee on eligible plans
- Works for home and small business internet
- Needs 60 days of service before the claim validates
Metronet Fiber
Symmetrical fiber, no annual contract
$750
Same cap as T-Mobile
- Virtual prepaid card, not a bill credit
- Free professional installation
- Symmetrical upload and download speeds
- No bundling requirement to qualify
- Allow roughly 14 weeks after you submit
Verizon Fios & 5G Home
Fiber and fixed wireless
$500
As a credit on your Verizon bill
- Applies to Fios and 5G Home both
- Fee must be under 4 months old
- No contract on 5G Home plans
- Credit, not cash — no refund value
- Charged back if you leave early
Spectrum Internet
Cable · nationwide footprint
$500
Combined across old providers
- Can combine bills from two providers
- No contracts on Spectrum’s own plans
- Verification takes 5–7 business days
- Spectrum Mobile doesn’t qualify
- No TV service in the last 30 days
Frontier Fiber
25 states, up to 7 Gbps
$500
Residential & business
- Credit matches your exact ETF up to the cap
- Multi-year price locks on most fiber tiers
- Free install on 1 Gig and above
- Unlimited data on all fiber plans
- Leave within 90 days and the credit is reversed
AT&T Fiber
Switcher Reward Card · 300 Mbps+
Full ETF
Rounded up to the nearest $10
- No dollar ceiling on the reimbursement
- Symmetrical speeds, no data caps
- Often stacks with a $200 reward card
- Old bill must be under 60 days old
- Redeem within 75 days or forfeit
Pricing reflects AutoPay and paperless billing discounts where applicable. Availability and promotional terms vary by address.
First, Figure Out What You Actually Owe
Before chasing a $750 headline number, work out your real fee. Most people owe far less than they fear, because nearly every ETF prorates down each month you stay.
What Common ISPs Charge to Leave Early
| Provider | How the fee works | Realistic range |
|---|---|---|
| Xfinity | About $10 for each month left on the term; waived in the first 30 days | $10 – $230 |
| Verizon Fios | Starts at $350 and drops roughly $15 every month you stay | $0 – $350 |
| Frontier | Tied to the reward-card agreement: $150 on slower tiers, $200 on 500 Mbps and up | $150 – $200 |
| Cox | Prorated over the remaining term on contract plans only | $0 – $240 |
| Spectrum | No contracts on residential internet — nothing to pay | $0 |
| Optimum | No annual contract on current residential plans | $0 |
| T-Mobile / Astound / Google Fiber | No annual contracts by design | $0 |
Notice how many of those are zero. A big share of people who go looking for a buyout aren’t actually under contract — they’re on month-to-month service and just assumed a penalty existed. Check your account portal before you plan around a fee you may not owe.
The other thing that isn’t an ETF: unreturned equipment charges. No buyout program covers those. If you don’t send back the modem, gateway, or cable box, you can eat a $100–$370 charge that nobody reimburses. Get a receipt when you drop it off and keep it for three months.
How to Actually Get Paid: The Six-Step Process
Every program follows roughly the same sequence. The order matters — doing step 3 before step 2 is the single most common way people disqualify themselves.
Install and activate the qualifying plan before you cancel anything. Buyouts are for people switching to them, and several programs check that your old service was active within the last 45–60 days.
Call and cancel. Ask again for confirmation that the termination fee will appear on a bill, not just be charged to your card. Note the cancellation date.
This is the part people skip. Most programs require the fee to be paid, and an outstanding balance can void the claim outright. Yes, you’re out of pocket for now.
The ETF sometimes lands on the statement after your final one, up to 30 days later. Watch for it. It must show your name or service address, the provider name, and the fee clearly labeled.
Each provider has its own portal and its own clock — 75 days for AT&T’s reward card, 90 days after installation for Verizon, 60 days of active service before T-Mobile validates. Missing the window is final.
Almost every program requires you to stay in good standing through the whole redemption period. Cancel early and the credit gets reversed onto your final bill.
Screenshot the bill showing the fee, the confirmation page when you submit, and the payment confirmation from your old provider. Buyout disputes are common enough that these forums fill up every year with people who submitted and heard nothing. Documentation is the difference between a support ticket you can win and one you can’t.
Does the Math Actually Work? Let’s Run It
Take a realistic case: you’re 14 months into a 24-month Xfinity contract at $95/month after the promo expired. Ten months left, so roughly a $100 fee. You’re eyeing T-Mobile’s Amplified plan at $60/month with AutoPay.
Switching mid-contract vs. waiting it out
Now flip it. If you’re two months from the end of your term and owe $20, you’d be filing paperwork, floating money for ten weeks, and locking yourself into a claim window to recover twenty dollars. Just wait it out.
The rough threshold: a buyout is worth the effort when your fee is over roughly $100, or when the monthly savings alone justify switching and the reimbursement is a bonus. Never switch providers because of a buyout. Switch because the new plan is better, then collect.
Where These Claims Go Wrong
We’d be doing you a disservice by making this sound frictionless. Search any provider’s community forum and you’ll find threads of people who switched on a promise and spent months chasing the credit. Here’s what actually causes it.
What gets claims approved
- A final bill with “early termination fee” printed as a line item
- Name and service address matching between old and new accounts
- The old bill dated inside the provider’s lookback window
- The fee paid in full, with proof
- New service active and in good standing throughout
- Submitted well before the deadline, not on the last day
The Downsides
- A bank statement or card-charge notice instead of a bill
- A cancellation notice that predicts the fee but doesn’t bill it
- Bills in a spouse’s or roommate’s name
- Fees from a mobile line rather than home internet
- Unreturned-equipment charges submitted as an ETF
- Downgrading or cancelling the new plan during redemption
There’s also the plain reality that a sales rep on the phone may promise a buyout that your specific plan doesn’t qualify for. Get the offer confirmed in writing — chat transcript, order confirmation email, anything — before you cancel your old service. Verbal promises don’t survive a claim review.
The Better Long-Term Move: Stop Signing Contracts
Every buyout program on this page is a solution to a problem you can avoid entirely. The providers with the most aggressive buyout offers — T-Mobile, Spectrum, Optimum, Astound — are the same ones that don’t put you under contract in the first place. That’s the actual pitch.
Contract-free service means you can leave the month your promo rate expires, which is exactly the leverage that keeps your bill honest. It also means that when a better plan shows up at your address, you can take it without a spreadsheet and a claim form. If you want to see how the underlying technologies compare before you commit, our breakdown of fiber vs. cable internet covers the speed and pricing differences in detail.
One more thing worth knowing: providers are now required to publish standardized broadband nutrition labels that spell out contract length, early termination fees, and post-promo pricing before you sign. Read the label. It’s the fastest way to find out whether you’re about to need a buyout in two years.
Our Verdict
If you’re stuck under contract and unhappy, contract buyouts are legitimate and worth claiming. T-Mobile’s $750 ceiling is the most generous and its no-contract, price-locked structure means you won’t be in this position again. AT&T Fiber is the pick if your fee is unusually large, since it’s the only program with no dollar cap — and you get genuinely better internet out of it.
But treat the buyout as a rebate, not a reason. Choose the provider you’d want at your address anyway, verify your actual termination fee first, and go in expecting to float the money for two to three months. Do that and it’s a straightforward few hundred dollars. Go in expecting your new ISP to make a phone call and settle your old bill, and you’ll be disappointed.
Frequently Asked Questions
No, and this trips up almost everyone. Every major buyout program reimburses you after the fact — as a prepaid card, a Visa reward card, or a credit on your new bill. You remain fully responsible for paying your old provider. If you skip that final bill expecting someone else to handle it, you’ll end up in collections and disqualify yourself from the buyout at the same time.
Plan on six to twelve weeks from submission. Spectrum verifies in about 5–7 business days and pays within roughly 10 business days after approval. T-Mobile requires 60 days of active service before it even validates your claim. Verizon’s credit typically shows up within two to three billing cycles. AT&T sends a reward notification within about six weeks, then the card arrives three to four weeks after you redeem it.
Wait one more billing cycle. Several providers charge the ETF on the statement after your final one, sometimes up to 30 days later. If it still doesn’t appear, call your old provider and ask them to send documentation showing the fee amount. Without that line item, your claim will be rejected — buyout programs don’t accept bank statements, screenshots of card charges, or notices saying a fee is coming.
Sometimes. Spectrum explicitly allows it — if you had internet with one company and TV with another, you can submit both bills and combine the fees up to the $500 ceiling. Other programs are stricter and only reimburse fees from the internet service you’re replacing. Check the terms before you assume, and submit each provider’s bill separately if the program allows it.
No. Every program specifies “early termination fee” and nothing else. Unreturned modem, router, gateway, and cable box charges are your own cost, and they can be steep — T-Mobile alone charges up to $370 for a gateway you don’t send back. Return everything, keep the drop-off receipt, and hold onto it for at least 90 days in case the return doesn’t get logged.
You lose it, and in some cases you owe it back. Verizon’s terms state that if service is cancelled within 90 days of installation, the ETF credit is charged back to your final bill. Most other programs require you to maintain qualifying service in good standing throughout the redemption period. Downgrading your plan can also break eligibility, so leave it alone until the money lands.
Yes, and it’s tighter than people expect. Verizon covers fees incurred within the last four months and requires documentation within 90 days of installation. AT&T requires your previous provider’s bill to be dated no more than 60 days before you ordered service. Optimum requires proof you were an active competitor customer within the last 45 days. If you cancelled six months ago and are only now switching, you’re probably out of luck.
