Back when contract pricing was a more regular thing, I ended up doing the math on the plan rate after I requested for the device contract subsidy to be removed as I didn't want to upgrade the device. I had a Droid DNA at the time.
The monthly rate dropped by $25 just to keep the same device. (Nevermind that I had to ASK for them to not continue to charge me the extra $25/mo after 2 years)
$25 a month for 24 months is $600.
The device on contract was $199.
Full retail price if you didn't opt in for a 2 year contract when getting it? $699.
So I ended up paying an extra $100 for the device than if I had just bought it outright.
Even if the offerings/terms are different now... Verizon, regardless of how they market anything, absolutely makes you pay full price (and then some) for the device you get at 'discount.'
It's funny now that we're seeing people being able to BYOD to Verizon these days and AT&T is the one engaging in aggressive whitelisting.
