Comparisons

How we compare.

Six things are true about buying from us, and every one of them can be checked in a couple of minutes. Data that does not expire, so nothing you paid for is deleted the day you fly home. One profile, installed once and kept for life, instead of a fresh disposable eSIM every trip. Coverage published destination by destination, with 75,333 measurements behind the figures. 100 MB a month of free rescue data when your balance reaches zero. $1.44 a gigabyte on the 20 GB wallet, which is less per gigabyte than Airalo, Saily, aloSIM or Nomad charge on the nearest plan they sell. And the throttle number printed on the buy button, repeated in the terms and in the price index, which we do not move after you have paid.

	Orbislo	Airalo	Holafly	Saily
Data expires	Never	7 to 365 days	1 to 90 days	7 to 30 days
Installs needed	Once, ever	Every trip	Every trip	Every trip
Cost per gigabyte, 20 GB plan	$1.44	$3.30	No metered plan	about $3.20
Free data at zero balance	100 MB a month	None	None	None
Where the throttle number is published	On the buy button	On the plan page	Not published	In the buy box
Coverage published per destination	75,333 measurements	No	No	No
Phone number for bank codes	$3.89 a month	No	No	No

Compared in August 2026 against publicly listed plans, and refreshed monthly. The per gigabyte figures are each seller's own global plan of that size, sticker price divided by the gigabytes in it, read off their own site on 31 August 2026. Ours comes from the same wallet the checkout charges.

The full price index, every seller and every figure behind these rows.

145

Destinations on our global plan, counted from the catalog

169

The Airalo footprint, which is larger than ours

75,333

Speed measurements behind the coverage figures

Sellers read one by one in the survey

The four things that actually differ

Four things separate one travel eSIM seller from another. How many destinations the plan you can actually buy reaches, what a gigabyte costs, what happens to the gigabytes you do not use, and whether the throttle number is printed anywhere.

All four can be checked on a seller's own public pages in about ten minutes, with no account and no purchase. That is how the survey behind this page was done, one provider at a time, on 31 August 2026.

Destination count on the plan you can buy, not the headline. Yesim markets 200+ and its global plan reaches 83. Nomad markets 200+ and reaches 123. Instabridge markets 190+ and reaches 114.
Price per gigabyte at the same plan size. Our 20 GB is $28.89, or $1.44 a gigabyte. The Airalo 20 GB is $66.00, or $3.30. The nearest Jetpac global plan is 30 GB, so sticker against sticker misleads.
What happens to unused data. Ours does not expire, and nobody else sells gigabytes with no clock on them. Yesim, Instabridge, Firsty and Roamless keep a balance alive, which is a different promise.
Whether the throttle number is published. Ours is on the buy button: 2 GB a day at full speed, then 1 Mbps. Holafly and Yesim publish nothing. GigSky publishes 2.5 GB and 3.5 GB for one plan. aloSIM says 1 Mbps on the product page and 0.5 Mbps in its terms.

The three that look like differences and are not

Three things get top billing on comparison pages and decide nothing. They are easy to market because they are easy to picture, and they are the same at every seller in the table above.

5G in the headline. Every seller resells the same host networks, so what you get is the cell you are standing in. 66 of our own 145 destinations are not 5G yet.
Instant delivery and a QR code by email. Everyone does this. Median time here from tapping buy to being online is 41 seconds, and shaving ten off that changes nothing.
The ranking on a review site. Published affiliate rates run Maya 20 percent, Saily 15 percent and Airalo 12 percent, while Holafly, GigSky and BNESIM publish no rate at all.

One by one

Orbislo vs Airalo

The category default. A new eSIM every trip, data on a clock, and nothing left over when you land home.

Orbislo vs Holafly

Unlimited only, no metered plan, and the throttle number is not published anywhere.

Orbislo vs Saily

Plans that expire, at a higher price per gigabyte than our wallet.

Orbislo vs Nomad

Metered plans that expire, at the highest cost per gigabyte in our index.

Orbislo vs Ubigi

A carrier product with a carrier's app. Data expires, and there is nothing free at zero balance.

Where we lose

We reach 145 destinations and Airalo reaches 169, so we lose the row most people check first. This page once claimed the opposite by setting our own marketed 190+ against the real Airalo count. The figure here is now generated from the catalog that feeds our API.

Saily beats us on unlimited twice. Thirty days costs about $31.00 there against $64.89 here, and the Saily buy box publishes 3 GB a day at full speed against our 2 GB. Its bundled ad blocking, audited at 28.6 percent data saved, is the best idea in this category.

Two sellers beat our unit price. Roamless bills by the megabyte with a floor of $2.89 a gigabyte, under our cheapest $1.36. Firsty funds a free tier with advertising. And 5 of our 145 destinations run on one upstream network, with nothing to fall back to.

How to check any seller in ten minutes

Do not take the table on trust. Five checks, ten minutes, on any seller including us, using nothing but their own public pages.

Count their destination list yourself and set the total against the number in their headline. The gap is the finding.
Open the plan page for a country you are actually going to, then divide the price by the gigabytes.
Find the expiry window. An expiring plan costs the sticker divided by what you used, not by what you bought.
Search their site for the fair use number. Help centre only, or two pages that disagree, counts as unpublished.
Look for the affiliate disclosure on whatever review ranked them, and check what that review earns per sale.

Which one you should buy

Four readers, four answers, and three of them are not us. Saying so costs us less than selling you the wrong plan.

One country for one week and the sticker matters most. Check Saily first, then us, and buy whichever is lower.
More than two trips a year. Our wallet, because nothing expires, and a fifth of an expiring plan is typically wasted.
You need a phone number for bank codes. Orbislo Number is $3.89 a month, and nobody else in this table sells one.

Questions people actually ask

Which travel eSIM is cheapest?

It depends on the plan size. At 20 GB global we are $1.44 a gigabyte against $3.30 at Airalo. Saily undercuts us on some single gigabyte plans. Roamless is cheaper than all of us, at $2.89, because it bills by the megabyte.

Is Airalo better than Orbislo?

On destination count, yes. Airalo reaches 169 and we reach 145, so if your country is on their list and not on ours, buy Airalo. On price per gigabyte, expiry and the published throttle number, we are ahead.

Why does every seller advertise 200 plus countries?

Because the headline counts every country the company has a deal in, and the plan you buy reaches fewer. Yesim markets 200+ with 83 on the global plan. Nomad markets 200+ with 123. Count the list yourself.

What does unlimited actually mean on a travel eSIM?

A daily allowance at full speed, then a slower speed for the rest of the day. Ours is 2 GB, then 1 Mbps, printed on the buy button. Saily publishes 3 GB. Holafly and Yesim publish no number at all.

Does anyone pay you for these comparisons?

No seller pays for a row, a rank or a mention here. What we can show you is the working. Every rival figure was read off that seller's own site on 31 August 2026, and the per destination listings sit on the price index.

What happens to data I do not use?

It stays in your wallet with no clock on it, so an unused half is still yours next trip. Every other seller in the table sells a window of 1 to 365 days, and whatever is left at the end is gone.

Buy the one that fits the trip

Pick a destination and see the measured speed, the networks behind it and the price per gigabyte before you pay.

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