Laos is the dearest market in this group at $2.40 a gigabyte, and the reason is that the ladder stops at 20 GB
Airalo's best rate in Laos is $2.40 a gigabyte, on the 20 GB plan at $48. There is nothing larger. Seventeen prices, all read off the checkout on 17 August 2026, from the one provider we hold for Laos.
One seller, seventeen prices, one date
We hold one eSIM provider for Laos: Airalo. Seventeen plans, every one of them verified — read off airalo.com on 17 August 2026. That is the whole of our Laos coverage, and it is not a survey of the market. Saily, Holafly, Nomad, eSIMCard and eSIM Go all sell travel eSIMs; none of them has been priced here yet, so none of them appears below with a number beside it.
Airalo's Lao plans carry the name Pak Ou Mobile. That is Airalo's own retail label for the product, not a network. Airalo does not publish which Lao operator its eSIM roams onto — it publishes host networks for no country at all — so coverage is the one thing this page genuinely cannot help you with.
The ladder, and where it stops
| Data | Days | Price | Per GB |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 GB | 3 | $6 | $6 |
| 3 GB | 3 | $12 | $4 |
| 3 GB | 7 | $13 | $4.33 |
| 5 GB | 7 | $17.50 | $3.50 |
| 5 GB | 15 | $18.50 | $3.70 |
| 5 GB | 30 | $19 | $3.80 |
| 10 GB | 7 | $28 | $2.80 |
| 10 GB | 15 | $28.50 | $2.85 |
| 10 GB | 30 | $29 | $2.90 |
| 20 GB | 15 | $48 | $2.40 |
| 20 GB | 30 | $49 | $2.45 |
Eleven metered plans and six unlimited ones. The important thing about that table is not any single row but the fact that it ends where it does. Laos stops at 20 GB. There is no 50 GB plan, and that absence is what sets the price.
$49 buys 20 GB here and 50 GB next door
Laos and Cambodia share a border and a great many itineraries, and on 17 August Airalo wanted $49 for 20 GB in Laos and $49 for 50 GB in Cambodia. Same seller, same day, same money, two and a half times the data on the other side of the Mekong.
That is the clearest illustration on this site of the one thing worth understanding about eSIM pricing: the top of the ladder decides the floor. Markets where Airalo sells a 50 GB plan land near a dollar a gigabyte. Markets that stop at 10 GB are the dearest we hold anywhere — Kenya at $4.60, Fiji and Nigeria at $4.70. Laos stops in between, and its floor lands in between.
The pattern is a tendency rather than a law. Nepal also stops at 20 GB and reaches $1.75, and Sri Lanka stops at 20 GB and still gets to $0.90 — so a short ladder does not have to mean a dear one. In Laos it does.
Against the 94 countries on this site, $2.40 is expensive. Thailand's floor is $0.55, Austria's $0.58, Belgium's $0.65. It is not the worst we hold, though: before this batch that was the Dominican Republic at $3.43, and Kenya, Fiji and Nigeria now sit above that.
Calendar time is cheap here; data is not
The duration surcharge in Laos is small. The same 5 GB costs $17.50, $18.50 or $19.00 over 7, 15 and 30 days. 10 GB is $28.00, $28.50 and $29.00. 20 GB is $48.00 for 15 days and $49.00 for 30. A dollar or so buys three extra weeks in every case, so if your dates could move at all, take the longer window.
The data itself is where the money goes. Stepping from 5 GB to 10 GB over the same 7 days takes $17.50 to $28.00 — $2.10 for each additional gigabyte, which is more than the entire per-gigabyte rate of the best plan in Cambodia or Bangladesh. Going from 10 GB over 7 days to 20 GB over 15 costs $20 more and lands at $2.40 a gigabyte, the lowest rate in the country.
Unlimited costs a lot for what it is
Six unlimited plans, priced by duration alone: $20.50 for 3 days, $31.50 for 5, $39.50 for 7, $46 for 10, $62 for 15 and $99 for 30.
None of them is obviously good value. Three days of unlimited is $20.50 against $12.00 for 3 GB over the same three days — an $8.50 premium, roughly twice what the equivalent swap costs in Cambodia. Fifteen days of unlimited is $62, fourteen dollars above the 20 GB plan that covers the same fifteen days. And $99 is the highest single price we hold for Laos, more than twice the 20 GB monthly plan.
There is one real case for buying unlimited here, and it follows from the ceiling. Because nothing metered exists above 20 GB, a traveller who knows they will use more than that has no metered option at all. Below 20 GB, metered wins at every duration.
Which tier to buy
- A few days in Luang Prabang. 3 GB over 3 days at $12.00, or 5 GB over 7 days at $17.50 if you want the week.
- A week. 10 GB over 7 days at $28.00. Fifty cents more stretches it to 15 days.
- Two weeks or longer. 20 GB over 15 days at $48.00, or $49.00 for 30. This is the lowest rate in the country at $2.40 a gigabyte.
- More than 20 GB. No metered plan goes higher, so an unlimited one is the only route: $62 for 15 days or $99 for 30.
What this page does not cover
Local SIMs in Laos: nothing at all. We hold no counter prices, no shop names, no registration rules and no operator list, so this page says nothing whatever about buying on arrival. That is a gap in our research, not a verdict on the option.
The other five sellers: also nothing. If one of them beats $2.40 a gigabyte in Laos — entirely possible at this price level — we would not know it, and we are not going to guess. How we test sets out the standard. Our Airalo page covers the seller across every market we hold, and the cheapest eSIM plans shows where $2.40 lands against the other 93 countries.
Common questions
Why is an eSIM so expensive in Laos?
We cannot tell you why, only where the difference shows up. Airalo's Lao ladder stops at 20 GB, and the largest plan in a country is almost always its cheapest per gigabyte — so with no 50 GB plan, the best rate available is $2.40. Cambodia and Bangladesh both sell 50 GB and both reach $0.98. Airalo does not publish its per-country pricing logic and we are not going to invent one.
What is the cheapest Laos eSIM plan?
By rate, the 20 GB plan over 15 days at $48, which is $2.40 a gigabyte — the lowest we hold for Laos. By outright price, the 1 GB plan over 3 days at $6, but that works out at $6.00 a gigabyte and is poor value unless you genuinely need almost no data. These are Airalo's prices; no other provider has been priced here.
Which Lao network does an Airalo eSIM use?
We do not know. Airalo publishes no host network for Laos, and none for any other country either. Pak Ou Mobile, the name on the listing, is Airalo's own product label rather than an operator, so it tells you nothing about which network you will attach to or what the coverage is like outside the towns.
Can one eSIM cover Laos and its neighbours?
Not in anything we hold. Our data for these markets contains single-country plans only, with no regional or multi-country product, so a trip through Laos and Cambodia means buying twice on the evidence we have. The prices are worth comparing before you do: $49 buys 20 GB in Laos and 50 GB in Cambodia from the same seller.