Nomad in the Philippines: the broken rung was ours, not Nomad's

The correction that removes this page's original argument

This page used to say Nomad sold five Philippines plans, that the 5GB cost $17 against $18 for the 10GB, and that the whole range therefore collapsed to a single sensible purchase. It also listed a 15GB plan at $27.

None of that survived a look at Nomad's own site. There is no 15GB Philippines plan. The 5GB does not cost $17. The prices were carried in our data without anyone reading a checkout, and the pricing quirk the page was built around was an artefact of them.

Here is the range, read from nomadesim.com on 17 August 2026:

There are two uncapped plans as well: $18 for five days and $33 for ten.

The rate falls the whole way up the ladder, which is what a sanely priced range looks like. The 20GB is the odd one only in duration — it runs 45 days rather than 30, which is longer than anything else in the Philippine market.

Where it sits against everyone else

Airalo's Philippines prices were read from its site on 13 August 2026. The Saily and Holafly figures were read off their own sites on 18 August 2026; eSIMCard's rows have been withdrawn: we read its own pages on 18 August 2026, found the figures we held were wrong, and could not store the real ones. See our eSIMCard page.

Nomad is the cheapest plan in the country at 3, 5, 10 and 50GB, on prices that have been checked. At 20GB Saily's verified price is $29.99 for thirty days, which is $3 above Nomad and fifteen days shorter. This page previously put Saily at $23.99 and had it winning the tier; that figure was never read off Saily.

The 50GB row matters most. At $45 it gives the Philippines a floor of 90 cents a gigabyte, below Airalo's verified $48 and $0.96, which this site had as the country's cheapest rate until Nomad's prices were read.

The entry rung is where Nomad loses. Its 1GB week is $4, level with Airalo's verified $4 for three days and a cent above Saily's verified $3.99 for a week. Nobody should buy a single gigabyte from anyone here if a longer plan is in reach — $3 more buys three times the data for a month.

Unlimited, which we said it did not sell

An earlier version of this page said Nomad had no unlimited product in the Philippines at all. It has two: $18 for five days and $33 for ten. Both undercut the verified Airalo equivalents — $18.50 and $34.50 — and both sit below Holafly's verified $20.50 and $36.50.

That said, the metered plans are the better buy for almost everyone. At 90 cents a gigabyte, Nomad's own $45 buys fifty gigabytes over a month; $33 buys ten days of unlimited. Resort and hotel wifi does a lot of the work in the Philippines, and very few travellers get near 50GB of mobile data in a fortnight.

What Nomad says about the network: nothing

This page used to report that Nomad's Philippines listing pointed to Globe and described the service as 5G. Neither claim is in Nomad's data. Nomad publishes no host network for the Philippines, and none for any of the 47 countries we hold its prices for — every network field against it is empty.

Airalo is the same, and so are Saily and Holafly. The Smart and Globe pair our data once carried against eSIMCard's two smallest Philippine plans came from this site's own text rather than from eSIMCard, and has been withdrawn with its prices.

On Philippine coverage generally: it is dense and quick across Manila, Cebu, Boracay and the developed resort areas, and it thins fast beyond them — Batanes, the Camiguin hinterlands, the smaller Visayas islands, the interior of Palawan and Mindanao, and the open water between island-hopping stops such as Big Lagoon and Kayangan Lake. Smart Communications has the widest island and inter-island reach. If reliable signal on a remote island decides your trip, a local prepaid SIM bought from the carrier by name is the only way to get it, and no travel eSIM here is an alternative.

Practical notes

No passport or ID is needed to buy the eSIM. A local Philippine SIM costs around $5 at the airport, undercutting every Nomad plan on entry price, but registration needs your passport and eats time on arrival.

Nomad's plans are data only — no Philippine number, no calls, no SMS. Hotspot tethering is supported, which matters if the 10GB is meant to cover a laptop as well as a phone.

Verdict

Buy Nomad in the Philippines. On checked prices it is the cheapest at 3, 5, 10 and 50GB, and its 20GB runs 45 days at $27 against Airalo's $30 for 30. The 10GB month at $17 is the plan most travellers want; the 50GB at $45 is the one to take if you are working from Siargao or El Nido for a month.

The old advice to ignore everything but one plan was a consequence of prices nobody had read. The full field is on the Philippines hub.