How we check prices and rank eSIMs
Plans are scored on value, data fit, user reviews, our research rating, coverage and features. Affiliate commission is not an input. Prices are read weekly from each provider's own site, and every plan shows the date its price was last checked.
- Do affiliate commissions affect eSIMScope's rankings?
- No. Commission rates are not an input to the ranking engine at all. Plans are scored on trip fit, price, user reviews, our research rating, coverage and features. Some providers we rank highly pay us nothing.
- Where do the prices come from?
- From each provider's own website, in US dollars. A script reads the public plan pages and plan data feeds; it never clicks or loads affiliate tracking links. Each plan shows the date its price was last checked. Plans we could not re-check keep their older date.
- How often are prices checked?
- A price check runs every week and flags any change for review before the site is updated. Providers whose sites block automated reading are listed as skipped and checked by hand when possible.
- What does "Unlimited*" mean on eSIMScope?
- Most unlimited eSIM plans slow down after a full-speed allowance (for example 3 GB per day, then 1 Mbps). We show the allowance and the slowed speed when the provider publishes them, and say when the terms are unknown or only reported by a third party. We only call a plan "truly unlimited" when the provider's own page says there is no full-speed cap.
- What does "(unverified)" next to a network mean?
- The network list comes from older research and has not yet been confirmed on the provider's own site. Networks without that label were read from the provider's site on the date the plan was checked.
- Is the provider rating a hands-on test?
- Not yet. The rating is a research rating built from user reviews (Trustpilot, the App Store and Google Play), complaint analyses and published tests. Where we have tested a provider ourselves, that hands-on rating replaces the research figure and is labelled as such.
- Which destinations does eSIMScope cover?
- Country plans for Japan, Mexico, the United Kingdom, Italy, France and Spain, plus regional Europe, Asia and global plans. We focus on destinations popular with travelers from the United States and add more as we can check their prices properly.
Last updated 2026-10-30.
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