SpaceX has quietly pulled the plug on its most affordable internet option for United States customers. Just last month, the satellite internet provider debuted a “Residential 100Mbps” plan for a surprisingly low $40 per month. However, that option has already vanished from the company’s website and mobile app.
Subscribers on Reddit were the first to flag the removal. Many expressed frustration that they missed the window to lock in the price. One user shared a particularly annoying situation: they had temporarily upgraded their service to a faster, more expensive tier to handle extra device traffic while hosting family for Thanksgiving. When they tried to switch back to the $40 plan after the holiday, they found the option was gone, forcing them to stick with a pricier subscription.
This short-lived plan was a major departure from Starlink’s usual pricing model. The standard Residential plan typically costs $120 per month. By capping download speeds at 100 Mbps, SpaceX offered a budget-friendly alternative that was 3 times cheaper than the norm. We previously saw this tier available in specific regions, such as Nebraska, Illinois, and Nevada. Now, it is unavailable to new and existing users in those areas.
SpaceX kept this plan geographically limited, likely offering it only in places where their satellites had extra bandwidth to spare. Although the company did not reply to requests for comment, customers have a strong theory about what happened. They speculate that the sheer volume of people rushing to grab the bargain caused Starlink to hit its capacity limits almost immediately.
The deal isn’t entirely dead, however. The Starlink website still lists the Residential 100Mbps plan for users in Australia and Canada, and the official support pages haven’t been updated to reflect the removal in the US. This move fits a broader pattern for SpaceX. Over the last two years, the company has aggressively tested various discounts to attract users, such as the $80 “Residential Lite” plan introduced in February. It seems this $40 tier was another test run that proved popular—perhaps too popular—for the US network to handle long-term.
