Wealth Finance

Verizon subscribers have been a stalwart bunch. While AT&T ( T ) customers flaunted their iPhones the last 3.5 years, Verizon subscribers countered with claims of network clarity and Droid superiority. But now that their iPhone drought is over, the very loyalty that has kept them with the company for so long might backfire and hit them in the wallet.

Some 9 million current Verizon subscribers are expected to upgrade to the iPhone when it becomes available — representing 75% of the iPhones Verizon ( VZ ) is expected to sell over the rest of this year. But that move comes with plenty of upfront costs, from buying all those apps again to the early upgrade costs of up to $750.

Even so, those otherwise rational, patient Verizonites will buy anyway, says “Buyology” author Martin Lindstrom, a branding consultant who has studied the effect of marketing on the brain: The same qualities that have made current subscribers loyal to Verizon make them prime targets for the cult of Apple.

Turns out, it’s not merely a battle of the geeks (Verizon Android loyalists) and the cool kids (iPhone lovers); consumers have a little bit of both in them. But Verizon partisans have already displayed their loyalty, a quality Apple aficionados are famous for. In Lindstrom’s studies, Apple loyalists had similar brain scans to those of devout Christians. Considering that Verizon customers have probably owned one or more of the nearly 300 million iPods sold, the opportunity to consolidate their affections is particularly potent. Already the availability of a new handset is enough to drive Apple’s devoted fan base to buy, regardless of the cost or how satisfied they are with their current phone, says David Shepherd, a professor of marketing at Georgia Southern University. (Need proof? Apple devotees who left Verizon to get an iPhone with AT&T have registered consistent complaints about the actual cell service for the last 3.5 years, Lindstrom says.) Add in Verizon, and it’s a very emotion-driven purchase that could override rational arguments about cost or need, says Lindstrom.

But Lindstrom and even Shepherd — who admits he’s “part of that following that’ll buy whatever Steve [Jobs] tells me to”– say Verizon fans who have been salivating at the thought of an iPhone on a superior network shouldn’t let excitement drive their buying decision. “It’s not really about the Apple product,” Shepherd says. “It’s about the network and the iPhone’s intersection with Verizon’s policies.”

People who upgrade without a thorough assessment could find themselves paying more upfront and down the road, says Schwark Satyavolu, the president of cellphone plan comparison site BillShrink . So just for a moment, let your geeky, rational iPhone loyalist side come to the front of the line—at least long enough to consider these five hurdles before you make the switch.

Plan pricing

Analysts expect Verizon will let consumers continue to pick their own buckets of voice, text and data plans—and that includes the carrier’s smartphone requirement of a minimum $15 150MB data plan (for family plans, that’s $15 per phone on top of the regular voice plan). The carrier’s unlimited data plans currently cost $30. A Verizon spokeswoman said the carrier is not prepared to talk about data plans for the iPhone yet, but store associates say they’ve heard options will remain the same for now.

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