Garmin Inreach service alternatives

[AndyGNSS]

Could someone please suggest alternatives to the Garmin Inreach service.

Garmin has just changed its Inreach subscription plans and in my case, because I use it only twice per year, it has become 50-60% more expensive. Which I find totally unreasonable.

So I’m considering selling my Inreach mini2 and finding an alternative.
I’m wondering which alternatives are available to Garmin Inreach as far as yearly costs are concerned.

I’m interested mainly in the SOS functionality and not so much in messaging, although being able to communicate with rescue services is a huge plus.

 

[Nuvi-Nebie]

Take a look at what Spot have to offer

 

[AndyGNSS]

Spot is definitely a more economical choice than Garmin.
That's a handy table, but as far as I understood it doesn't reflect the new situation for Garmin plans. As stated on the Garmin site the current plans no longer have any annual program fee.
See here: https://support.garmin.com/en-US/?faq=nVmBNWZg1v3zNcPXlBnlI8

Crucially Garmin has also removed the "suspend plan" which allowed users like me to pause their inreach service at no cost until they needed it again. You would then pay only the yearly fee.

Instead now you would have to deactivate and reactivate, and pay 40 $ reactivation costs every time. Otherwise you have to pay the fixed monthly fee all year round even if you don't use it.
In any case if you use Inreach only a few times per year it will cost you much more now.

 

[Nuvi-Nebie]

I think it would also worth watching what Apple are doing, they claim any iPhone 14 or later running iOS18 can make satellite messages for free, (this is a 2 year offer), as far as I know they haven't anounced what the cost will be after 2 years and it's not clear in which areas it can be used (below 62 degrees North ?)

https://support.apple.com/en-gb/120930