Airalo, checked against its own checkout in 94 countries

What we hold on Airalo, and how we got it

We hold 1,686 Airalo plans across all 94 countries this site covers, and every one of them is verified — read off Airalo's own checkout, in USD, with no code applied.

That happened in two passes. 910 rows on 13 August 2026, covering 47 countries. Then 776 rows on 17 August 2026, covering the other 47, when the dataset grew from 57 countries to 94. The United Arab Emirates was in that second pass rather than the first: it had been in our coverage all along, but its seven Airalo rows came from old article text and had never been read. Seventeen Emirati rows were read on 17 August, and the gap is closed. There is no longer an Airalo price on this site that nobody has looked at.

It is no longer the only provider we have read in bulk, and that matters for everything below. All 436 Nomad rows across 47 countries were read off nomadesim.com on 17 August 2026, and Saily is partly checked at 100 rows across 20 countries. Holafly's 240 rows, eSIMCard's 78 and eSIM Go's 34 remain unread. So the comparison no longer sets one confirmed column against nothing but unconfirmed ones — against Nomad it is now checked against checked, and Airalo loses a good deal more of it than this page used to claim. What has not changed is that in 46 of the 94 countries Airalo is the only seller we hold a single row for.

The catalogue is deep: about eighteen plans per country, at 1, 2, 3, 5, 10, 20 and 50 GB over 3, 5, 7, 10, 15 and 30 days, with a 25 GB, 45-day outlier in Saudi Arabia, plus unlimited at up to six durations in 83 of the 94 countries. Nothing else in our data is that broad.

One verified row is held back from the tables. Airalo's Panamanian 10 GB over 7 days reads $57.50, dearer than the same product's 10 GB over 15 days at $52.50 — more money for less time, which is not how a price list works. We read it correctly and are flagging it rather than quietly averaging it away, but it is excluded from the comparisons below until somebody re-reads it.

Cheapest verified rate in 67 of the 94 countries — usually on the same plan

This page said all 94 until 17 August 2026. That claim only ever held because nobody had read Nomad's prices, and reading them ended it: Nomad has the lowest verified cost per gigabyte in 25 countries, ties Airalo in Argentina and Italy, and leaves Airalo with 67.

Sixty-seven is still most of the map, with the same caveat as before — in 46 of them Airalo is the only seller we hold, so it wins by default rather than on merit. Where it does win, the shape is consistent. In 56 of the 94 countries its own best rate comes from the same plan, 50 GB over 30 days. In 30 more it is 20 GB over 15 days, which is simply the largest plan those markets sell.

Where the ladder stops decides most of it. Thirty-seven of the 94 countries sell nothing above 20 GB — thirty-three stop at 20 GB, three at 10 GB, and Lebanon sells a single 1 GB plan and nothing else. Sri Lanka is the interesting exception: it stops at 20 GB and still reaches $0.90, because that plan runs a full 30 days for $18.

The bottom of the table is where the range now ends, and it is not where it was. Until this dataset doubled, the dearest floor on the site was the Dominican Republic at $3.43. Nigeria and Fiji are now $4.70 and Kenya $4.60, all three capped at 10 GB. Lebanon's $27.00 is the worst rate in all 1,686 rows, but it is one product rather than a market — there is no ladder there to lose money on.

The ladder repeats, and that is the story

Now that the dataset covers 94 countries, something visible only at scale shows up: Airalo's ladder is pinned at both ends and free in the middle.

• 56 countries price 1 GB over 3 days at exactly $4.00.
• 18 of the 56 countries that sell 50 GB over 30 days price it at exactly $49.
• 8 countries price 20 GB over 15 days at exactly $48 — Ecuador, Bolivia, Jordan, Ghana, Laos, Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Canada on its Plus tier.

China, Hong Kong, Macau, Mongolia and Kazakhstan show it cleanly. All five sell 1 GB over 3 days at $4.00 and 50 GB over 30 days at $49 — identical at both ends of the ladder — while the 20 GB rung between them runs $22.50 in Macau, $26 in Mongolia, $27 in Kazakhstan, $28 in Hong Kong and $39 in China. A 73% spread across the middle of a ladder whose ends match to the cent.

Wholesale roaming costs do not land on the same round dollar in Ghana, Ecuador and Azerbaijan. Standard price points do. The most economical explanation is that Airalo prices by tier, anchoring the entry and top rungs to fixed figures and letting the middle move with whatever it actually pays. Airalo publishes nothing about how it sets prices, so this is inference from the data rather than a company statement — but it fits, and it has a practical consequence: compare the rung you want across countries, not the country's headline.

Fourteen countries where it sells two prices for the same data

In Austria, the Bahamas, Belgium, Canada, Colombia, Costa Rica, the Czech Republic, Israel, Jamaica, Mexico, Panama, South Africa, the United Kingdom and the United States, Airalo sells two separately named tiers side by side. In thirteen of those the two offer identical data over identical periods at different prices:

Belgium

10 GB / 7 days is $11 as Belganet and $18 as Belganet+

United States

50 GB / 30 days is $42 as Change and $59 as Change+

Austria

50 GB / 30 days is $29 as Servus Austria and $36.50 as Servus Austria+

Israel

20 GB / 30 days is $23.50 as Annatel and $48.50 as Annatel+ — a 106% premium, the widest we hold

Mexico

20 GB / 30 days is $31 as Chido and $42.50 as Chido Plus

South Africa

10 GB / 30 days is $22 as CellSA and $24 as CellSA Plus

Jamaica

20 GB / 30 days is $45 as Jamcomm and $50 as Jamcomm Plus

Panama

20 GB / 15 days is $61 as Pancell Digital and $57 as Pancell Digital Plus — the one market where the dearer-sounding tier is the cheaper buy, and the reason Panama's floor sits at $2.85 rather than $3.05

Colombia is the fourteenth and the exception: Chimba and Chimba+ never appear at the same size and duration, so there is nothing to compare.

Airalo does not publish what the extra money buys. Not a speed figure, not a priority tier, not a fair-use difference, not a network. Nothing on the checkout page explains a 64% premium in Belgium, a 106% one in Israel, or the reversal in Panama. Until that changes, price both names at every size rather than assuming the plain one is cheaper.

It publishes no host network. Anywhere.

Chimba in Colombia, Merhaba in Turkey, Moshi Moshi in Japan, Belganet in Belgium, Change in the United States, Acuntel in the Dominican Republic, Altoque in Chile, Jitney Mobile in the Bahamas: these are retail product names printed on the checkout page. They are not carriers, and Airalo names no carrier for any of the 94 countries.

This matters because an earlier version of this site put those names in a column headed Network, beside real operators, and then reasoned from them — one page recommended Airalo in Iceland on the strength of a network it does not have. About eighty pages had to be corrected. If you need to know which operator you will be roaming onto, Airalo is not a provider that will tell you, and neither are we.

Where the data does not favour it

This section used to say that twelve countries held something cheaper, that it was Nomad every time, and that since none of it was verified none of it should be acted on. Reading Nomad's site on 17 August 2026 settled all three, and every part of the correction runs against Airalo.

Nomad is cheaper in 25 countries, not twelve, and the figures are now checked rather than claimed. Thailand: $12 for 50 GB over 10 days, $0.24 a gigabyte, against Airalo's $27.50 for 50 GB. Japan: $35 for 50 GB against Airalo's floor of $24 for 20 GB over 15 days. Singapore: $31 against $48 for the same 50 GB month. Morocco: $45 for 50 GB where Airalo's best is $42 for 20 GB. Canada: $69 against $84.

The specific rows this page cited as Nomad's advantage were themselves wrong, and wrong in Airalo's favour. There is no $29 Nomad 50 GB in Belgium, Denmark, Norway or Sweden; the real price is $45, and Airalo wins all four. Nor does Nomad tie Airalo in Austria — Airalo's $29 beats Nomad's $45 outright.

One rung is worth singling out. In the 43 countries where both sell 20 GB over 30 days, Nomad is cheaper in 36, and Airalo's own cheapest 20 GB is usually a 15-day plan rather than a month.

Saily is the third checked column, with 100 verified rows across 20 countries. On 20 GB over 30 days, across the twenty countries where both are checked, the gap is under a dollar in thirteen. Where it opens up Airalo is ahead — $19 against $27.99 in Portugal, $20 against $22.99 in Spain, $37 against $43.99 in Canada. Saily never leads by more than 51 cents, and it is absent from 46 of our 94 countries.

Who it suits

If you want 20 GB or more for a few weeks, Airalo is the strongest case our data supports in the 47 countries where nobody verified sells against it — and roughly a coin toss in the 47 where Nomad does, which takes 25 of them on the cheapest rate and 36 of the 43 shared 20 GB months. If you want 1 or 3 GB, read the country page rather than the brand page — and check whether your destination is one of the 56 sitting on the $4.00 entry rung, because if it is, the small plan is the same price it would be almost anywhere. If the operator you connect to matters — remote driving, ferries, anywhere one network genuinely outperforms another — Airalo will not tell you, so start elsewhere.

The per-country detail is where the numbers live: Japan, Turkey, the United States, Canada, Belgium, Austria, Colombia, Thailand, Mexico and the United Kingdom. The newest markets have hubs of their own, including China, Kenya, Ecuador and Sri Lanka. Every provider is ranked side by side on cost per gigabyte, and how we test explains what verified means here.