Compare eSIM Plans by Country: Best Prices and $/GB

How to compare travel eSIM plans

This page is the front door to our whole price database. Every prepaid travel eSIM plan we can verify is in here, sorted into 50 destination tables and 10 providers — metered buckets, unlimited-by-day plans, and the tiny trial sizes that set the entry price on a country page.

Nothing on this index is editorial. Each country card shows the same three things pulled from the same snapshot: how many brands sell there, how many plans we track, and the single cheapest plan we found. The country page behind the card then lists every plan line by line.

eSIM cost per GB and cost per day explained

Travel eSIM marketing pages quote one number, usually the entry price of the smallest plan. That number is real, but it is close to useless for choosing: a $0.51 plan is a 500MB trial, not a trip.

So every row on this site carries two derived figures, computed with the same formula for every provider.

Cost per gigabyte is the listed price divided by the data allowance. It is the number that tells you whether a 20GB plan is better value than ten 2GB plans, and it is the column that decides the default sort order on every country page.

Cost per day is the listed price divided by the validity in days. It is the number that matters when you are buying unlimited data, where there is no gigabyte count to divide by.

Where a provider sells unlimited plans, we mark them and list them last rather than pretending they can be ranked by the gigabyte. Their real limits live in the fair-use policy, and we decode those in a separate table on each country page.

What a country eSIM comparison shows

Each destination page follows the same structure, so the third country you look at is as quick as the first: a three-line verdict that picks the cheapest plan, the best value per gigabyte and the best long-stay option; the full plan table with every provider and every badge; a fair-use reality check on the unlimited plans; a network section explaining which local carriers each brand rides; and a FAQ section answering the questions the table cannot.

Why travel eSIM prices differ by country

Three things, in order of impact.

Wholesale rates in the destination. A travel eSIM brand is effectively an MVNO: it buys capacity from the local carriers and resells it. Destinations where wholesale data is expensive — island nations, countries with a single dominant carrier, markets with heavy roaming regulation — start higher and stay higher, no matter which brand you pick.

How many brands compete there. Popular destinations carry eight competing brands and sharp prices. Thin markets carry two or three, and the spread between them widens. The card grid above is sorted so you can see which countries have the deepest lineup.

Whether the plan is metered or unlimited. Unlimited-by-day plans are priced for heavy users and are usually the wrong buy for a light trip: at a typical day rate, two weeks of unlimited costs more than a metered bucket that would never have run out. The crossover point is on every country page.

Local SIM vs roaming vs eSIM

A travel eSIM is not automatically the cheapest option — it is the cheapest option that works before you land. Where a country sells prepaid SIMs freely at the airport, a local SIM can undercut a travel eSIM on price; the trade-off is the queue, the registration rules and the phone number you lose. Where roaming from your home operator is included in your plan, roaming can beat both on convenience. Our destination pages tell you which case you are in, and the country quirks section on each page covers ID rules, registration and coverage traps.

How to use this eSIM comparison index

Pick your destination from the grid, or search for it. Read the three-plan verdict at the top of the country page first — it answers the question most people arrive with. If your trip is heavier than average, or you need hotspot sharing, drop into the full table and filter by trip length. If you are still deciding where to go, the cheapest-destination ranking below shows where the same money buys the most data.