Want to save a couple hundred dollars in 2018? You can save money on Comcast and your bill with other internet providers by taking some time to negotiate your bill and learn about different options.

I’ve been calling and reducing my bill every year since 2013. Here are the tips and tricks I’ve picked up along the way.

Before You Begin: Understand Xfinity’s Pricing

The reason you’re able to negotiate your bill and save money on Comcast at all is that Xfinity’s pricing, like their customer service, is notoriously confusing.

While some providers such as Spectrum offer only three or four packages, Xfinity has dozens of Internet and TV bundle tiers, each with different pricing and fine print. These prices vary wildly from zip code to zip code depending on the competition for your business. (Usually, there isn’t much.)

On top of that, Xfinity generally raises the rate on customers every six months by $10 or so. These raises are often hidden in fees on the bill or justified as necessary for speed improvements or the timing out of various promotions you might have been on before.

…Unfortunately, the only way to get rid of them is to call and negotiate it away.

Basically, the true price of Xfinity is whatever the maximum any given customer is willing to pay. That’s to your advantage if you’re one of the “difficult” customers who bother to call and request a better price.

Tip #1: Go Straight to the Retention Department

Xfinity has several departments in their call centers and will route your call based on your reason for calling. The department that has the best deals is the cancellation department — also known as the “retention department,” since their job is to try and convince you not to leave.

You can use this to your advantage by acting like you’re going to cancel the service when you call and then start negotiating when the cancellation operator inevitably asks you why you’re leaving and offers you a promotion to stick around.

Comcast doesn’t want to lose you, and if there’s another option for internet in your areas such as Fios or AT&T, there’s no reason for you to stay with Xfinity if they won’t cut you a good deal. The advertising and installation costs of acquiring customers are fairly high, so in most cases, they would rather let a retention agent offer you a $15/month discount rather than lose the thousands of dollars you give them as a long time customer. Ultimately, they’re only profitable because of customers like you. Don’t forget it!

Tip #2: Be Polite and Do Your Homework

Comcast call centers are not a pleasant place to work, and the agents spend all day listening to customers cuss them out and blame them for the failures of the service. Again, you can use this to your advantage: be polite and kind to the person you speak with, and they are much more likely to be reasonable in return and offer you the maximum discount they are allowed to grant you.

This is where the negotiation skills come in: don’t just accept the first discount they offer. Find competing Internet and TV plans from other providers in your area and explain that you would like Xfinity to match the price for you, or at least come close. If that doesn’t work, request an extension of your sign-up rate, or see if they can reduce any services you don’t use to improve the overall cost.

Finally, be sure to document any issues you’ve had with your internet, such as speed test results dramatically lower than what you pay for, or frequent packet loss while using Skype or FaceTime. In some cases, agents will offer to boost your speeds up to a more advanced tier for the same price rather than a cash back promotion. Depending on your needs, this can actually be a much better deal.

If even that doesn’t result in a deal you like, request to speak with a manager and repeat the process. (Or, actually, cancel and try another service!)

Tip #3: Be Careful With Bundles

In some cases, an agent will suggest that you actually add services like TV or phone service to reduce your rate. This deal sounds too good to be true because it is: basically, once you’ve moved all your services such as phone and TV to Comcast, it’s much easier for them to slowly raise the rate or add on hidden fees to your bill. It also makes it more likely that you’ll agree to a long contract, or be susceptible to upsells down the road.

Only get TV or phone service from Xfinity if you’ll actually use it on a daily basis. The pricing is similar to what you’ll get with a dedicated TV provider like DirecTV, but with higher fees for premium sports channels and DVR rental.

Tip #4: Hang Up and Call Back

Each agent only has so much money that they’re allowed to give away, and for the most part, they do so based on personal judgment of your value as a customer and how likely you are to actually bother with switching to another provider.

It’s likely that you will need to hang up and call back at least once in order to find an agent who’s willing to cut you the deal you actually want.

Pro tip: Call in the morning hours if at all possible. Studies show that people in “judgment” positions are much more lenient and generous in the beginning of their shift, or shortly after a break. Even if the call center is in India, their shift times are skewed to reflect the time of day in the USA time zones where Comcast customers actually live. So even if it’s the middle of the night in whatever country your call gets routed to, you may be the first person that agent talks to if you call right when the helpline opens.

Tip #5: Buy Your Own Router

As for buying a router, just choose any modem/router combo listed as compatible with your plan on Comcast’s Approved Equipment page or check Amazon recommendations.

Ditch the $10/month rental fee for the router by purchasing your own, and you can boost that to $360/year. Talk them down $20, and you’re looking at $240/year in savings.

Not bad for making a fifteen-minute phone call and clicking “buy” on a refurbished modem on Amazon. (The Arris Surfboard is a common option for Xfinity service.)

How to Save Money on Comcast

To recap, your steps to saving money on your Comcast bill are:

Review your billing history and have it on hand for the call Make note of offers from other providers in your area Call Comcast and request the cancellation department Say you plan to cancel your service unless they can grant a discount Negotiate politely, but firmly Buy your own router Repeat after one year

This process isn’t fun, but it’s a necessary evil if you want to avoid forking over hundreds of dollars to Comcast rather than your savings account. The offers I’ve gotten over the past few years have ranged from $5 all the way up to $27 per month. My neighbor pays almost 50% more than me for the exact same service because they’re too lazy to bother calling.

One last word of advice: don’t stay with the same provider for more than five years. This may sound counterintuitive, but the Internet and TV market isn’t like other industries where there’s lots of competition for your business. Since there are only a couple options in most areas, Internet providers are counting on you being too confused about how it works to bother switching.

…Once they’ve convinced you to get TV, Internet, and phone service all from them, it’s easy to start inflating the price. Unfortunately, most customers won’t say anything, and will blindly pay up the extra money for years on end before doing anything about it.

Don’t be one of those customers — pick up the phone and start making demands! Comment here with your success stories so we can encourage others to do the same.

Note: These tips are specific to Comcast, but often work with other cable providers such as Cox and RCN as well. The only major providers that absolutely do not negotiate on plan pricing are, to my knowledge, Charter Spectrum, Verizon Fios, and Google Fiber.