I struggled with it, and decided that straighttalk/Tmo was better because my wife is not technical and a smartphone to begin with is pushing her technical ability
So it's $45, but the service is awesome. I was on VM/$25 plan but there was no joy in sight for them upgrading their backhaul. On a good day the phone would get 128 kbps. That's old skool edge speeds, and it was on 3G. She now is getting 9 Mbps which is 72x faster for $20 more a month and unlimited voice (she uses a lot of voice).
In any case with her employer discount I could have gotten a good deal for $67 + taxes but in NY taxes are like $20 so that would have been $87 which is $350/yr or $700 over the life of the contract more and you are locked into the contract. If I don't like this, I put in a new SIM and off to the races. The Nexus 4 is the perfect defector's phone.....