Airalo vs Holafly vs Saily vs Nomad vs Amigo eSIM: Which One Should You Buy in 2026?

Airalo, Holafly, Saily, Nomad or Amigo: Which eSIM Fits Your Trip?

Airalo, Holafly, Saily, Nomad and Amigo eSIM each suit a different trip rather than one universal winner. Short single-country trips come down to cents: Nomad and Saily are cheapest in France, and Saily, Airalo and Nomad sit within a cent of each other in the UK. Multi-country Europe itineraries favor Airalo's 41-country regional plan, and travelers who might cancel favor Holafly's refund window.

Phone numbers and heavy data depend on the country. In France and Europe a real phone number means Saily's paid add-on or Airalo's separate Discover+ Global product; in the UK, Amigo eSIM, Airalo and Nomad list packages with minutes and SMS, and Amigo eSIM's 200GB package has the lowest price per GB among the fixed-GB packages compared, €0.115 against €0.69 or more at the other three.

Amigo eSIM, the publisher of this comparison, is also one of the five services reviewed here. The 13 criteria below were fixed before any price or rating was checked, with France as the reference country and the United Kingdom added alongside it, and every figure was verified directly on each provider's own site.

Full methodology, sources, the data collection date and how conflicting numbers were resolved appear at the end of this article, before the source list.

Airalo vs Holafly vs Saily vs Nomad vs Amigo eSIM at a Glance

The table below lines up all five providers on the same 13 criteria, checked directly on each provider's website. Two terms are worth defining first: a "fixed GB" plan sells a set data allowance, such as 10GB, that runs out once used, while an "unlimited" plan sells unrestricted data that a Fair Usage Policy throttles to a slower speed after a daily threshold, whether or not a provider publishes that threshold.

One asymmetry affects the price rows. Holafly sells no fixed-GB packages at all, so its "cheapest package" is its shortest unlimited plan rather than a data allowance, and it has no price per GB. The other four providers are compared on a matching 1GB entry-level package where one exists.

The lowest price per GB is the lowest price divided by the data pool among a provider's 30-day fixed-GB packages in the UK, whether or not a package includes minutes and SMS.

Airalo

Airalo is one of the two most recognized eSIM brands worldwide, operated by Singapore-registered AirGSM Pte Ltd, with local, regional and global plans across more than 200 destinations. It sells France as a single-country eSIM alongside a 41-country Eurolink regional plan for Europe, and its review base is the largest of the five providers compared here. Its France and Europe plans are data-only, and its UK page adds packages with local calls and SMS.

Airalo: pricing and data plans

Airalo's cheapest France package is 1GB for 3 days at €4.00, and its cheapest UK package is the same. Its Standard tier also sells larger allowances, and a separate Unlimited tier runs alongside it for travelers who'd rather not track data.

In the UK, the lowest price per GB among Airalo's 30-day fixed-GB packages is €0.72, for 50GB at €36.00; all prices in the table are for its data-only packages.

Airalo's 41-country Europe plan costs only slightly more than France alone to start, and rises to €62.50 for its largest fixed-GB package. The regional plan isn't a discount on France; it's a wider footprint at a small premium.

Airalo: coverage and data model

Airalo's Eurolink regional eSIM covers 41 countries and networks, more than the 33 to 35 countries in the regional plans of Holafly, Saily and Nomad. Airalo sells two data models side by side for the same country or region: fixed-GB packages and a separate "Unlimited" tier.

On the Unlimited tier, Airalo publishes its throttling threshold outright in its fair use policy for unlimited data plans: speeds drop to 1 Mbps after 3GB of full-speed data used in a day. That default threshold can vary for specific packages, which Airalo says it discloses in the package details before purchase. The UK page states the same rule for its six Unlimited packages: 1 Mbps after 3GB used in a day.

Airalo's UK page lists 30 packages in all, with EE as the network: 5G on the fixed-GB packages and 4G on the Unlimited ones. Its coverage note excludes Jersey, Guernsey and the Isle of Man.

Airalo: voice, texts and hotspot

Airalo's France and Europe eSIMs carry no phone number at all: the plans are data-only, confirmed directly on Airalo's own help pages. The only Airalo product with real calls and SMS there is Discover+ Global, a separate and pricier eSIM whose number is always US-based regardless of where the traveler is from.

The UK page is different. Next to its data-only packages it sells a second line with calls and SMS, whose operator note says "Only local calls are allowed": 1GB with 10 minutes and 10 SMS for 3 days costs €5.00, and 10GB with 100 minutes and 100 SMS for 30 days costs €21.50. The page doesn't say whether those packages come with a UK number.

Hotspot sharing has no separate cap on any Airalo plan. Tethered data draws from the same pool as the rest of the package, and Airalo's Fair Use Policy states explicitly that there's no limit on tethering or the number of connected devices.

Airalo: flexibility, refunds and support

Airalo sells only fixed-day packages: 3 to 30 days for France and the UK, plus 90- and 180-day options on the Europe plan. There's no way to pick an arbitrary number of days.

Its refund window is the shortest of the five providers compared here. Consumers get a statutory 14-day right to withdraw, but that right expires the moment the eSIM activates and connects to a network, whichever comes first, so a single connection closes the window even within the 14 days. Support runs 24/7 in multiple languages through in-app chat, WhatsApp and a help center.

Airalo: trust, extras and limitations

Airalo has by far the largest review base of the five providers: 43,374 ratings on Trustpilot (4.1/5, labeled "Great") and roughly 184,000 on Google Play (4.7/5).

Airalo offers no VPN, ad-blocking or other security add-ons, an area where Saily is ahead. The clearest limitation: almost every Airalo eSIM, including both France and Europe plans, is data-only, with a real phone number available only through the separate, pricier Discover+ Global product; the UK calls-and-SMS packages allow local calls only and don't say whether a UK number comes with them.

Holafly

Holafly built its brand on one promise: data sold as unlimited, offered as a Trip eSIM across more than 200 destinations. It's the only one of the five providers letting buyers pick any number of days from 1 to 90 instead of choosing from fixed tiers, and its Trustpilot score is the highest of the group. Every Trip plan is data-only, with calls and texts available only through a separate subscription launched in November 2025.

Holafly: pricing and data plans

Holafly doesn't sell a 1GB or 5GB option for France: the only choice is how many unlimited days to buy. Its interactive price calculator quotes €3.79 for a single day.

Further down the same France page, a static price table quotes the same plans in US dollars only, not euros:

Holafly's Europe plan costs the same €3.79 for one day as France; Holafly doesn't charge extra for the wider 33-country footprint. The UK page prices a single day at €3.79 too, and its static table gives the same USD figures as the France page. Like France, it sells no fixed-GB package: all 90 variants, from 1 to 90 days, are unlimited, so no price per GB exists to compare.

Holafly: coverage and data model

Holafly's Europe eSIM covers 33 countries, including France. Every plan sold under the Trip line is described as unlimited data with no fixed GB allowance. In the UK, Holafly lists five networks: Orange UK, T-Mobile UK, H3G UK, VirginMediaO2 UK and Vodafone UK.

Holafly is the only one of the five providers that does not publish a GB/day threshold for its Fair Usage Policy anywhere on the FAQ of its France eSIM page, where the only figure given is that any slowdown lasts no more than one day. Its UK page publishes no threshold either, and gives the same one-day limit on any slowdown.

Holafly: voice, texts and hotspot

Holafly's Trip eSIMs for France, Europe and Global are data-only: no phone number, no calls, no SMS, confirmed with identical wording across all three product pages, and the UK page says the same. A separate product, the Holafly Plans subscription launched in November 2025, does add a phone number (US, UK or Canada), but it supports inbound SMS and VoIP calling only, not traditional incoming cellular calls.

Hotspot sharing is capped at 1GB a day on every Trip plan, a limit confirmed on three separate Holafly pages, including its own tethering guide and the UK page. A 7-day plan therefore includes 7GB of total shareable data, not an unlimited pool.

Holafly: flexibility, refunds and support

Holafly is the only one of the five providers with a genuinely flexible plan length: any number of days from 1 to 90, not a fixed list. A day runs on a rolling 24 hours from activation, not the calendar clock.

Holafly also gives the longest refund window by far: up to 6 months to request a refund on an unactivated Trip eSIM, alongside a separate 14-day statutory right to withdraw if the plan has already been activated. Refunds tied to connection problems can be reduced by a $3.50 administrative fee. Support runs 24/7 through WhatsApp, live chat and email.

Holafly: trust, extras and limitations

Holafly's Trustpilot score is the highest of the five: 4.7/5 from more than 111,246 reviews. Its Global plan automatically includes a VPN for use in China, with no separate activation required.

The clearest limitation: Holafly has no cheap, low-data option anywhere in its Trip line. A traveler who needs only 1–2GB for a short trip still pays full price for a day of "unlimited" data, because no smaller, fixed allowance exists.

Saily

Saily is the eSIM service built by Nord Security, the company behind NordVPN, and it bundles ad-blocking and network-protection features into every plan at no extra charge. It sells France and more than 200 other destinations in fixed-GB packages plus a separate Unlimited tier, and it's the only one of the five offering an add-on real phone number. Saily also runs a separate Ultra subscription with its own monthly data allowances and travel perks.

Saily: pricing and data plans

Saily's cheapest France plan is 1GB for 7 days at €3.49, and its cheapest UK plan is the same package at €3.99.

Saily's France Unlimited tier, with a choice of 5 to 30 days, starts at €37.49. In the UK its Unlimited packages run from 5 days at €16.99 to 30 days at €63.99, and the lowest price per GB among its 30-day fixed-GB packages is €1.37, for 20GB at €27.49.

Saily's Europe plan starts a little higher, at €4.49 for 1GB over 7 days, with its own Unlimited variant from €44.49.

Saily: coverage and data model

Saily's Europe plan covers 35 countries, and it sells fixed-GB packages alongside a separate Unlimited tier for the same country or region, similar to Airalo and Nomad. Saily's own Europe order widget states its Unlimited plan runs at full speed for 3GB a day before throttling to 1 Mbps.

That figure sits at the lower end of the range in the Fair Usage Policy in Saily's Terms of Service, which lists 3GB or 5GB depending on the destination country. A Saily blog post from February 2025 states a flat 5GB threshold instead; the Terms of Service are the more recent document.

Saily's UK page states 5GB a day at full speed, then up to 1 Mbps, and names no network operator, describing its speed only as 3G, 4G, LTE and 5G depending on local network providers.

Saily: voice, texts and hotspot

Saily's standard plans are data-only by default, but Saily is the only one of the five providers offering an add-on real phone number: a US (+1) number usable for calls in more than 130 countries. That number doesn't support MMS, call forwarding or premium numbers, and anyone calling it from their own network may be billed an international rate to reach the US.

The UK page works the same way: the add-on number is still a US (+1) number, paired with separate call and SMS plans for the UK, from 5 minutes and 5 SMS at €1.99 to 200 minutes and 200 SMS at €12.49 for 30 days.

Hotspot sharing is advertised as unlimited on Saily's France and Europe pages, worded as "share as much as you want." Saily's Terms of Service separately restrict tethering to "occasional personal use."

Saily: flexibility, refunds and support

Saily's plan lengths are fixed presets that vary by product: 7 or 30 days for France and the UK, up to 90 days for Europe, and a separate set of day-count options for its Unlimited tier. There's no arbitrary day count on any plan.

Its refund window depends on what was bought. A one-time plan gets 30 days if it's unused and unactivated, but Saily's Ultra subscription gets only 14 days. Support runs 24/7, 365 days a year, through email and an in-app chatbot rather than a live human chat line.

Saily: trust, extras and limitations

Every Saily plan, not only its premium Ultra tier, includes a free ad blocker that Saily says saves an average of 28.6% of data usage, based on independent testing by West Coast Labs, plus 115+ virtual locations and network protection built on NordVPN's technology. Saily's Trustpilot score is 4.7/5 from 31,037 reviews.

The clearest limitation sits in its phone-number add-on: the US number doesn't support MMS, call forwarding or premium numbers, and callers from the traveler's home network may be billed an international rate to reach it. Saily also warns that access to its own app "may be limited in Turkey" because of local restrictions, even though Turkey sits inside its Europe plan.

Nomad

Nomad eSIM is the consumer travel brand of LotusFlare, Inc., a Santa Clara company with more than 3 million registered users since 2020. It covers France and more than 200 destinations worldwide, selling fixed-GB packages alongside separate Unlimited plans for single countries and for a 35-country Europe region. Its France and Europe plans are data-only (its UK page adds packages with minutes and SMS), and its cheapest France package is the lowest starting price of the five providers checked here, narrowly ahead of Saily's.

Nomad: pricing and data plans

Nomad's cheapest France package, 1GB for 7 days, is €3.45. That's the lowest entry price of the five providers in this comparison for France; in the UK its 1GB package costs €4.

The UK page has no data-only 50GB package; its largest data-only package is 20GB for 30 days at €22.22. Counted as price divided by GB, the lowest price per GB among Nomad's 30-day fixed-GB UK packages is €0.69, for the 50GB package with minutes and SMS; among its data-only packages it is €1.11, for the 20GB package.

Nomad's Europe plan, covering 35 countries, starts at €4.74 for the same 1GB/7-day tier, slightly more than its France-only price for identical data.

Nomad: coverage and data model

Nomad's Europe plan covers 35 countries, and it sells fixed-GB packages alongside a separate Unlimited tier, similar to Airalo and Saily. Nomad throttles its Unlimited plans after 2GB of full-speed data in 24 hours, the tightest published daily threshold among the four providers that state one at all.

Nomad's own pages don't agree on the resulting speed, though. A help-center article on Nomad's Unlimited data plans says the throttled speed is "1 Mbps or 2 Mbps" depending on the plan, while the specific Fair Usage Policy document for the network partner used on Europe and France plans states 512 kbps instead.

In the UK, the 3-, 5-, 7- and 10-day Unlimited packages carry the same 2GB-a-day allowance, while Nomad's blog describes its 30-day UK Unlimited package, at €43.55, as having no throttling at any point.

On the UK page the speed after the allowance is 1 Mbps in its plan data and 512 kbps in the plan-type text, and the sources name Nomad's UK networks differently: the page lists Hutchison 3G, EE and Vodafone, its blog says Three and O2 for data and Vodafone as well for voice, and a help-center article tells users to select 3 (UK) or O2 (UK).

Nomad: voice, texts and hotspot

Nomad's France and Europe eSIMs carry no phone number, no voice calls and no SMS. Some devices may show a placeholder "dummy number" for carrier identification only, unusable for any actual communication, including verifying apps like WhatsApp.

The UK page is the exception: four of its nine fixed-GB packages include minutes and SMS.

Nomad's own sources disagree on what these are. Its blog describes a dedicated local UK phone number for voice calls and SMS, while the plan-detail document for these packages says they do not come with a number, so no call and text service will be available.

Hotspot sharing is supported, and Nomad's help center doesn't publish a separate daily cap for it, only a general note that stability can vary by device and network. An unpublished limit isn't the same as a confirmed absence of one.

Nomad: flexibility, refunds and support

Nomad sells fixed-day packages only: 7 or 30 days for GB plans, 3 to 10 days for Unlimited plans (plus a 30-day Unlimited package in the UK). There's no option to buy an arbitrary number of days, though activation itself can be deferred up to 60 days after purchase.

Refunds are available within 30 days for an unactivated fixed-GB plan, but every Unlimited plan, and the UK Voice plans, are excluded from refunds entirely, regardless of activation. A France Unlimited buyer has no refund path at all. Nomad's help center lists only in-app chat and website chat as contact channels, with no published phone number or email.

Nomad: trust, extras and limitations

Nomad's Trustpilot score, 4.3/5 from 43,047 reviews, places it just behind Airalo among the five.

Nomad also runs a loyalty program, Nomad Points, awarding 25 points per $5 spent and redeemable at 100 points per $1 off future purchases.

Nomad offers no VPN, ad-block or similar security features.

The clearest limitation: every Unlimited plan, along with a handful of other named products, is completely excluded from refunds.

Amigo eSIM

We're Amigo eSIM, a business name of Core Communication Retail Limited, a company registered in England and Wales. Our France and Europe plans are fixed-GB packages only; the one unlimited tier we sell is UK-only.

Amigo eSIM: pricing and data plans

Our cheapest France package is 1GB for 7 days at €5, rising to €39 for 30GB over 30 days.

Our regional Europe plan uses the same price ladder as France, from €5 for 1GB to €39 for 30GB, so the wider footprint costs no extra.

Our separate World plan, also sold on the France page, runs from €22 for 5GB up to €48 for 20GB and is always labeled "Data Only."

Our cheapest UK package is the same 1GB for 7 days at €5. The UK page also sells larger packages on Three and O2, up to 250GB for 30 days at €34:

Counted as price divided by GB, the lowest price per GB among our 30-day fixed-GB UK packages is €0.115, for 200GB at €23.

Amigo eSIM: coverage and data model

Our Europe plan's country list has 44 entries, including France, Poland and Iceland and six French overseas territories; the plan includes the United Kingdom, and Turkey is not on it.

Our UK page sells separate O2 packages (125GB, 200GB and 250GB) whose Details window shows coverage "United Kingdom + Europe," with the note that the plan must be activated in the UK first; it shows no country list for the Europe part. Our Three and 1GB UK packages cover the UK only.

On the UK page, our 1GB package runs on Vodafone and Everything Everywhere, our O2 packages on O2 and its roaming partners at 5G, and our Three packages on Three and its roaming partners, up to 5G.

Our France and Europe packages are fixed-GB only, from 1GB to 30GB, so the daily throttling threshold that applies to the other four providers doesn't apply to them. The one unlimited tier we sell, UnlimitedGB, is UK-only at €39 for 30 days, and our Fair Use Policy allows throttling "at specific times of day and/or in specific locations" without a numeric threshold.

Amigo eSIM: voice, texts and hotspot

Our United Kingdom plans of 40GB and above are labeled "Data, Minutes and Texts" and come with a UK (+44) number. Their Details window shows unlimited UK minutes and texts on the O2 plans, with 50 international minutes to 42 countries on the 125GB and 200GB plans and 250 on the 250GB plan, and unlimited calls and texts on the Three plans.

Our 6GB-and-up France and Europe plans carry the same label, with "Calls: Unlimited" and "Texts: Unlimited" in the Details window; our 1GB plans are labeled "Data Only."

Our Terms & Conditions say, in the section covering all plans: "Your Services do not allow you to make calls or access emergency services. Subject to partner networks' terms." The same document links the terms of O2, Three and EE, so what a plan allows depends on its operator: Three, for example, includes calls in Europe.

Our FAQ page says a data-only plan "does not support traditional voice calls or SMS," and that calls and messages can go through apps such as WhatsApp and FaceTime.

Hotspot is listed as "Unlimited" on our product pages, and our Fair Use Policy lets us throttle heavy use without publishing a threshold.

Amigo eSIM: flexibility, refunds and support

We sell fixed-day packages only: 7 or 30 days for France, Europe and the UK, and 14 days for one World plan, with no option for an arbitrary trip length. We consider a refund only within 30 days of purchase, for a "valid reason" our Terms & Conditions never define; refunds don't cover incompatible or locked devices or data left unused after expiry.

Our Contact us page lists an email address and a message form, with no phone number or live chat.

Amigo eSIM: trust, extras and limitations

Our Trustpilot profile shows 4.4 out of 5 from 84 reviews. Our site doesn't mention a VPN, ad-blocking or cashback feature.

Installation runs through a QR code emailed after purchase, or manual entry of an SM-DP address and activation code, with the full steps in our installation guide. The clearest limitation is the gap between the "Data, Minutes and Texts" label and our Terms & Conditions, which still say the services do not allow calls or access to emergency services, subject to partner networks' terms (see the calls section above).

Which eSIM Should You Book, Depending on Your Trip?

No single provider wins every category above. The right choice depends on which of these eight situations is closest to your own trip.

1. A short trip (7 days or less) to one country, price above everything else. Nomad (€3.45/1GB/7d) and Saily (€3.49/1GB/7d) are the cheapest of the five for France, ahead of Airalo (€4.00/1GB/3d) and Amigo (€5). In the UK, Saily (€3.99), Airalo (€4.00) and Nomad (€4) sit within a cent of each other, and Amigo still costs €5.
2. A month in the UK with heavy data use. Amigo eSIM sells UK packages of up to 250GB for 30 days on O2 and Three, with 200GB at €23 (€0.115 per GB), while Airalo and Nomad top out at 50GB (€0.72 and €0.69 per GB) and Saily at 20GB (€1.37). Holafly's 30-day Unlimited plan (€68.90) and Amigo eSIM's Fair Use Policy publish no throttling threshold.
3. You need a real phone number for calls or texts in France or Europe. Saily's paid US number add-on and Airalo's separate Discover+ Global product are the only two paths to a working number among the five; the other plans carry none, and Amigo's Terms & Conditions state that its services do not allow calls, subject to partner networks' terms.
4. You need calls or texts in the UK. Amigo eSIM lists a UK (+44) number with unlimited UK minutes and texts on its packages from 40GB, though its Terms say its services do not allow calls. Airalo's packages with calls and SMS allow local calls only and don't say whether a number comes with them, Nomad's own sources describe its packages with minutes and SMS both with and without a number, and Saily's UK call plans use a US number.
5. A multi-country Europe trip, and you want the most countries under one regional plan. Airalo's 41-country Eurolink plan is larger than the regional plans of Holafly (33 countries), Saily (35) and Nomad (35). Amigo's Europe list has 44 entries, but six are French overseas territories and Turkey is not on it; the plan includes the UK.
6. Heavy hotspot or tethering use, with no interest in surprise caps. Airalo has no separate hotspot limit and publishes its 3GB/day throttling threshold outright. Holafly is the one to watch here, with a hard 1GB/day hotspot cap on every Trip plan.
7. Travel plans might still change after you book. Holafly's refund window, up to 6 months on an unactivated plan, runs far longer than the 14-to-30-day policies at the other four providers.
8. A long track record matters more to you than one high rating. Airalo has the largest review base by far, 43,374 on Trustpilot; Saily has the highest rating with a solid sample, 4.7/5 from 31,037; Amigo has the smallest review base of the five, with 84 Trustpilot reviews.

How We Compared These Five eSIM Providers

Every comparison in this article rests on 13 criteria, fixed before a single price or rating was checked, plus two reference countries, France and the United Kingdom, checked identically for all five providers.

Full methodology, criteria and how conflicting data was resolved: show / hide

Sources

• Airalo, Unlimited Data Plans - Fair Use Policy: https://www.airalo.com/m/resources/unlimited-data-plans-fair-use-policy
• Holafly, eSIM France: https://esim.holafly.com/esim-france/
• Saily, Saily's consumer terms of service: https://saily.com/legal/terms-of-service/
• Nomad eSIM, Nomad eSIM's "Unlimited" Data Plans: https://www.nomadesim.com/help-center/en/articles/12980538-nomad-esim-s-unlimited-data-plans
• Trustpilot, Amigo eSIM Reviews: https://www.trustpilot.com/review/amigosim.com