Our resident phone guy hates them and makes sure to let everyone know. He has some good reasons, and you should read them when he posts them.
His username is I. P. Daley and while I currently am a Republic Wireless customer, I'll let you know his biggest gripes with Republic:
1.
Their customer support is kinda lacking. - The only way to get support is through their online forums. There is no phone number to call if you have trouble, you can only make a post on their forum and hope an employee takes a look and fixes it for you (after dealing with unhelpful drivel from the masses who think they can solve your problem). If you use this phone for a business, their support is likely not going to cut it.
2. Unless you need a lot of data,
there are cheaper options. - For almost anyone with a reasonable amount calls and texts, you can get cheaper plans from other MVNO's. Also, if you actually are offloading your calling to wifi like they recommend, then you should be using a cheap home VoIP provider because that is MUCH cheaper.
3.
You can't really resell a Republic phone or buy one second hand - The Republic phones only work on republic's service so you can't buy a different phone cheaply on ebay when yours breaks, or resell yours when you want to upgrade.
4.
Republic doesn't interoperate with established standards for VoIP calling - Similar to number 3, if a device uses established standards for VoIP, it can be transitioned from one voip provider to another. There have been all sorts services which used proprietary technology and left their customers out in the cold when they went out of business. Republic Wireless falls into the "uses proprietary technology" category.
All of these are very legitimate concerns, but for me personally, I use a fair amount of cellular data, and I got a really good deal on the original phone purchase so the finances worked out for me personally. Search the superguide (
https://forum.mrmoneymustache.com/share-your-badassity/communications-tech-isps-voip-cell/) for more information about republic and see what other options are out there.