Saily's India eSIM: a tidy range, priced within a penny of Airalo

A five-rung ladder, almost all monthly

Saily keeps its India range simple. One small plan on a weekly clock, then four plans that all run for 30 days:

Every figure in that table was read from Saily's own site on 16 August 2026.

That structure is a genuine strength. Airalo's India catalogue splits each allowance across 3, 7, 15 and 30-day versions, which produces seventeen plans and a decision you did not want to make. Saily gives you a month by default and asks only how much data you want. For a three-week India trip — long enough that short-validity plans start to bite — that is the right default.

No unlimited tier. If you want unconstrained data in India, Saily is not in the conversation; that is Holafly's and Airalo's ground.

What the check changed

Until this week these rows were indicative — carried over from older data and never confirmed at Saily's checkout. Reading the site moved one of them. The 10GB month, published here at $22.99, is actually $23.99. A dollar is not a scandal, but it ran in the direction that flatters a comparison table, and it was the number this page previously used to argue that Saily undercut Airalo at 10GB. It does not.

This is the same pattern we found in Thailand, where the Saily 10GB plan in our records turned out to be selling for six dollars less. Provider catalogues drift, and the only defence is going and looking. Our method is set out at how we test.

Against Airalo, where the numbers are also checked

Airalo's India prices were read from Airalo's own site on 13 August 2026. Both columns below are now verified, at matched allowances and matched validity:

That is about as close as two catalogues get. At the two most popular sizes the difference is a rounding artefact, and at the largest size Airalo is a dollar ahead. Nobody's holiday budget turns on any of it.

So the tiebreak is not price. It is validity and shape: if you only need a week, Airalo's shorter windows are genuinely cheaper — its 5GB over 7 days is $13.00 and its 10GB over 7 days $22.50 — while Saily's flat 30-day range is simpler if your trip is long. Airalo also runs further at the top, with a 20GB over 15 days at $36.50. That works out at $1.82 a gigabyte, which was the lowest rate we held for India until Nomad's prices were checked. India does not stop at 20GB, although this page used to say so. Nomad's verified 50GB month at $43 is 86 cents a gigabyte and the cheapest data in the country.

Our data used to put an eSIMCard gigabyte below Saily's $3.99 at the very bottom of the market. That row has been withdrawn: we read eSIMCard's own pages on 18 August 2026 and the figure we held was not one it charges.

Saily names no Indian network

An earlier version of this page said Saily's listing pointed to Airtel and Jio. Reading Saily's own site settled that: it names no carrier for India. What it offers is a "reliable connection from India's best networks", which is marketing rather than information. Treat the host network as unknown.

Airalo is in the same position — its Indian plan is sold as Indicomm, a product name rather than a carrier — so between the two providers whose prices we can vouch for, neither will tell you whose towers you are on.

What is safe to say about India generally: coverage in the cities and along the tourist circuits is dense and fast, and it thins in rural Rajasthan, in Himachal above roughly 3,000 metres, on the high passes of the Leh–Manali highway, in the remoter Andaman and Nicobar islands and in parts of the Northeast. If those places are the point of your trip, buy a local SIM from a carrier you can name rather than an eSIM from a provider who will not name one. Airtel is the easiest for a foreigner to register; Jio has the wider rural reach.

Buying, and what you don't get

No passport or ID is needed for the eSIM. That is the practical case for any travel eSIM in India, where a local prepaid SIM requires passport and ID at registration and the counter process takes time you may not want to spend on arrival — up to 24 hours before the line carries data, on our Delhi record. The local SIM does start cheaper — around $7 at an airport desk — so the eSIM premium is buying you the skipped queue as much as the data.

Saily's India plans are data only: no Indian number, no calls, no SMS. Its listing says hotspot tethering is supported across the range. India runs on WhatsApp to a degree that surprises first-time visitors, so the missing voice line rarely turns out to matter.

Verdict

Saily is a reasonable India buy and a badly differentiated one. The range is well judged, the 30-day default suits how people actually travel here, and the prices are competitive — but they are competitive by a penny.

Buy Saily if you want one decision rather than seventeen: pick a size, get a month, done. Buy Airalo if your trip is short enough that its cheaper 7 and 15-day windows count. Buy Nomad if you want the cheapest 30-day price at any size, or the only plan above 20GB. Neither will tell you which network you are on, so if that is what matters, the answer in India is a local SIM and the paperwork that comes with it. The full field is laid out on the India hub.