If you’ve been looking into getting into Total Wireless but aren’t entirely sure about how the sign-up process goes and how one would go about activating their service, this blog post will tell you exactly what you need to know.

Recently, I went ahead and joined Total Wireless and got myself through the whole registration process right from my smartphone. I thought that it would be nice to try out the company’s services and see for myself how easy it really is to set everything up, from picking the right plan to checking your smartphone’s eligibility for service and making an account with an activated eSIM.

So, if you want to find out how to activate Total Wireless, I will show you just how easy it is to do.

The company offers competitively priced plans with good speeds of data transfer and some special bonuses in the form of additional services which vary depending on the plan, including things as Disney+ and free cloud storage. You can get either a physical SIM-card or eSIM which you can use to activate your service.

Now let’s check out how the activation process goes.

Signing Up for Total Wireless

To get started, I grabbed my phone and headed over to the Total Wireless website.

I scrolled down a little bit because that’s where the plans were listed. There are several different plans available, so if you’re wondering which Total Wireless plan to pick, you’ll want to look through those before you start the activation process.

For this activation, I’m bringing my own phone, so I decided to go with the Total Max 5G BYO plan.

Once I selected the plan, I clicked Bring Your Own Phone.

Then there was another Bring Your Own Phone option, so I clicked that as well.

Since I’ve never had a Total Wireless account before, I selected No, I’m a new customer. If you’ve used Total Wireless before and already have an account, you can log in instead.

Once I selected that I was a new customer, it immediately asked me for my phone’s IMEI.

Checking Your Phone’s Compatibility

Before you can activate your phone, Total Wireless needs to make sure your device is compatible.

Since I’m using an iPhone, the website showed me where to find my IMEI.

On an iPhone, you can find it by going to:

Settings → General → About

Once I found my IMEI, I tried holding down on it and copying the number so I could paste it into the Total Wireless website.

And this is where I ran into my first little hiccup.

I pasted the IMEI into the box, but Total Wireless told me that I needed to enter a valid IMEI.

I’ve actually run into this issue with another carrier before, so I decided to just manually type the number in.

Luckily, that worked.

I’m not exactly sure why copying and pasting didn’t work. Maybe it had something to do with spaces being copied along with the number, but either way, it wasn’t a huge deal.

So, if you’re trying to activate Total Wireless and you get an error when you paste your IMEI, try typing it in manually.

Once the IMEI was accepted, there was a big Activate Now button, so I clicked that.

Choosing a New Number or Keeping Your Current Number

After clicking Activate Now, Total Wireless gave me two options.

I could either keep my current number and transfer it over, or I could activate a completely new number.

My main phone number is currently on Visible, and I wanted to keep that number there, so I didn’t want to transfer it.

Instead, I selected I need a new number.

Total Wireless then asked me for my ZIP code.

I entered that, and it said that my new number was on its way.

So, I clicked continue again to see what the next step would be.

Creating a Total Wireless Account

At this point, Total Wireless asked me to log into my account.

Like I mentioned earlier, I’ve never had a Total Wireless account before, so I needed to create one.

The account setup was pretty simple. I needed to enter my email address, create a password, enter the password again, and create a four-digit security PIN.

So I went ahead and entered all of that information.

After that, Total Wireless asked if I wanted to create a passkey.

If you’ve never used one before, a passkey basically means you don’t need to use a traditional password to log in. You can use something like the passwords app on your phone instead.

I didn’t really want to set that up for Total Wireless, so I just clicked Not Now.

And that’s it — my Total Wireless account was created.

Choosing a Total Wireless Plan

Once my account was created, it looked like I still needed to pick a plan.

So, I clicked Shop Plans and went back to the Total Max 5G BYO plan.

Again, I clicked Bring Your Own Phone.

Now it wanted me to enter my IMEI again.

So I went back to my phone, grabbed the IMEI, and entered it.

And this time, it worked.

It showed the Total Max 5G BYO plan, and it was showing as $30 a month.

The plan included one phone number, and I didn’t have a promo code to enter, so I just clicked checkout at the bottom.

Completing the Total Wireless Checkout

I did have a small issue at this point.

The checkout page wasn’t working correctly, so I had to refresh the page.

Once I refreshed it, though, everything seemed to work, which was good.

The next thing I needed to do was enter my payment information.

I selected credit card and entered my credit card information.

After that, I scrolled down and needed to enter my billing address.

One thing that I thought was kind of interesting was that, in order to activate a phone service, it asked me for a phone number.

That seemed a little weird because I was actually getting a new phone number with Total Wireless.

Luckily, I already have a primary phone number, so I entered that.

Then I had the option to enroll in autopay, which I selected.

I clicked continue at the bottom, and then Total Wireless asked me to agree to the terms and conditions.

Once I agreed to everything, I clicked Place Order.

And now it was time to actually activate the service.

Activating Total Wireless With an eSIM

After placing my order, I got a Finish Cellular Setup option.

I could click the notification, and it would automatically take me through the process of activating my service.

But I also got another option, which was to use a QR code.

So I decided to try the QR code method.

To do that, I held down on the QR code and selected Save Image and then saved it to my Photos app.

Once it was saved, I opened my Photos app and found the QR code.

I held down on the QR code, and my phone gave me the option to Add eSIM.

This is essentially the same thing as clicking the cellular setup notification that I had received.

So I selected Add eSIM.

Then my phone said Activate Your eSIM.

I clicked Activate, and my phone started connecting to the carrier.

Usually, adding an eSIM can take a few minutes, so I was expecting to have to wait a little bit.

But that took literally like five seconds.

Which is always a good sign.

I clicked continue, and then my phone told me that the new eSIM was active.

Great!

I clicked done.

Setting Up Multiple Cellular Services

In my case, I have two cellular services on my iPhone, so I had one more thing to figure out.

My existing service is Visible, and I had just activated Total Wireless as a second cellular service.

My phone asked me which phone number I wanted to primarily make calls from and which one I wanted to use for cellular data.

Not everybody is going to have this option.

If you’re only using Total Wireless on your phone, you probably won’t have to choose between two different cellular services.

But since I had two, I needed to make sure I selected the correct line for calls and data.

Once I finished that, it looked like I had finally activated the service.

That wasn’t too bad!

If I went into the Control Center on my phone, I could see Visible listed as my primary service and Verizon listed as my secondary service.

Now, Verizon being listed there is actually kind of funny because I had just activated Total Wireless.

Total Wireless uses Verizon’s network, so my phone apparently still wasn’t changing the label.

But the important part was that the Total Wireless service was successfully activated.

And that’s really all there was to activating a brand-new number on Total Wireless.

How Long Does Total Wireless Activation Take?

The whole process was quite easy, at least after I overcame those two minor obstacles.

Those two problems were really insignificant.

Firstly, the web site did not accept my IMEI while I pasted it; however, if I entered the number myself, it was accepted by the site.

Secondly, the checkout page needed to be refreshed for the process to go well.

However, after these two small difficulties, the process of eSIM activation was really fast.

Actually, the process of my phone connecting to the carrier took only five seconds.

So, if you own an eSIM-compatible device and want to activate a new number, you may have everything ready in several minutes after signing up.

Moreover, it depends on your phone and whether you activate the number or transfer your existing one.

Also, if you do not use eSIM, you need to wait for your SIM card to be delivered to your place.

What to Expect When Activating Total Wireless

Overall, I believe that the activation process of Total Wireless is quite easy.

First, you should pick your plan, and select the Bring Your Own Device option.

Later on, you’ll check the compatibility of your phone through its IMEI.

Next, you may choose if you would like to port your number, or get a new one.

If you are a new customer, you’ll create an account in Total Wireless through your email address, password, and PIN code.

Then, you’ll pick your plan, enter your payment information, and agree to the terms and conditions.

Finally, you’ll be ready to activate your SIM card or eSIM.

For the devices that support eSIMs, the activation process could go pretty quickly. It will include receiving a notification about the cellular setup or scanning a QR-code.

In my case, after reaching the stage of activation of the eSIM, everything went quite quickly.

Final Thoughts

So, congratulations — you’ve now activated Total Wireless!

Well, hopefully you have, anyway.

After going through the entire process myself, I don’t think there’s anything particularly complicated about activating Total Wireless. There were a couple of small things that didn’t work perfectly the first time, but they were easy enough to figure out.

The biggest thing to know is to have your IMEI ready before you start. And if the website doesn’t accept your IMEI when you copy and paste it, try typing it in manually.

You’ll also want to decide ahead of time whether you’re transferring your existing phone number or getting a new one.

If your phone supports eSIM, that’s probably the easiest way to get started because you don’t have to wait for a physical SIM card to arrive. In my case, the actual eSIM activation took only about five seconds.

If you’ve been considering trying Total Wireless, hopefully this gives you a better idea of what the sign-up and activation process actually looks like.

And should you wish to know the best Total Wireless plan suited for your requirements, I would suggest comparing the different options that exist before going ahead with the activation process to make sure that you know what you are getting into.

All things considered, the procedure was fairly easy to follow and I managed to activate Total Wireless through my mobile phone.

Should you find this guide helpful in activating Total Wireless, do not forget to view the video on YouTube.