Saily in Portugal: cheap at 1GB and 3GB, beaten everywhere above

Most European visitors should buy nothing

If the SIM already in your phone comes from anywhere in the EU or EEA, Portugal is covered by your home allowance under roam-like-at-home rules. You will pay no more in Lisbon than in Lyon or Ljubljana. Buying any travel eSIM for Portugal in that situation is money spent on nothing.

Everything below is for travellers arriving from outside that bloc — the UK on a plan without EU roaming, or from the Americas, Asia, Africa or Oceania.

The five plans

These figures were read from Saily's own site and are verified. Hotspot sharing is supported and no plan includes calls or texts. The range stops at 20 GB — our corrected data carries no unlimited Saily plan for Portugal, and an earlier version of this page quoted one at $68.39 that it should not have.

That earlier version was wrong on all five metered rows too, in both directions: the 3 GB month is $7.99 rather than $9.99, the 5 GB month $9.99 rather than $12.99, and the 10 GB month $16.99 rather than the $16.14 we carried. Nothing on this page now rests on an unverified Saily figure.

Where Saily wins: the small end

The entry plan is genuinely good. One gigabyte over seven days at $3.99 is the cheapest week-long gigabyte we hold for Portugal, and it undercuts Airalo's verified $4 gigabyte, which expires after three days.

Seven days of validity suits how data actually gets used here. Free wi-fi in cafés, hotels and both major airports carries most of the load, and mobile data fills the gaps between them.

The 3 GB month at $7.99 is the cheapest three-gigabyte plan we hold over a month, below Nomad's verified $9. Weigh it against the next rung before buying: Airalo's verified 5 GB for 30 days is $9, so two extra gigabytes over the same month cost $1.01 more. Unless you are certain three gigabytes is your ceiling, the $9 plan is the better buy.

Where it loses: everything from 5 GB up

At 5 GB the gap is a dollar and you might reasonably ignore it. At 10 GB and 20 GB you are paying roughly half as much again for identical data over an identical month, and both sides of that comparison are now verified prices rather than estimates.

The ladder also runs further than Saily's does. Airalo's verified 50 GB month costs $35, or $0.70 per gigabyte — half Saily's best rate of $1.40, which it only reaches at the top of its range. If you want a lot of data in Portugal, Saily has nothing to sell you.

No host network is published

Saily names no Portuguese carrier anywhere on its site, describing only a reliable connection from the country's best networks. An earlier version of this page said its listing named NOS and MEO; that was unsupported and has been withdrawn.

The coverage picture is national rather than provider-specific in any case. Expect solid service in Lisbon, Porto, the Algarve resorts and along the main motorways, and thin or absent service in the Alentejo interior, the Trás-os-Montes mountains, sections of the Algarve cliff walking trails, and the remote Azores, where Flores and Corvo are limited.

Verdict

If you carry an EU or EEA SIM, buy nothing at all.

If you do not: Saily is a good way into Portugal and a poor way through it. Saily's 1 GB week at $3.99 is the cheapest sensible arrival plan in the country, and its 3 GB month at $7.99 is defensible for a light user, though Airalo's verified 5 GB at $9 is barely more.

From 5 GB up, Airalo's verified prices beat it at every size — by 11% at 5 GB, 54% at 10 GB and 47% at 20 GB — and only Airalo goes on to sell a 50 GB month. The rest of the range is on the Portugal hub.