Airalo vs Holafly in 2026: Every Number, and the Date We Checked It
Where these numbers came from
Every figure below carries the date it was checked, because a price in this category is a fact with a shelf life. There are three dates. The competitor survey is 2026-08-31, the headline listings are 2026-08-01, and the expiring ticket listings are 2026-08-24.
None of it came from an aggregator. Each provider was read one at a time from their own public pages and checked against the server rendered HTML. We sell against both of these companies, which is why every figure here carries the date and the page it came off: you can repeat the whole survey yourself in about ten minutes and see whether it still holds.
Destinations: what is marketed, and what the global plan reaches
Both companies market 200 plus destinations. That is true of their local plans and it is not the number you are buying. On the global plan, Airalo reaches 169, Saily reaches 121 and Holafly reaches 113. Orbislo reaches 197.
Our 197 is counted from the catalog the store and the API both run on, which is why our two columns in the table below carry the same figure while four other sellers carry two different ones. Before you compare totals at all, find the country you are actually going to on each list. A large total is worth nothing to you if the one place you need is not on it, and every destination we sell has its own page with the partner networks and the typical speed printed on it.
The gap between the marketing and the product runs right across the category, and the table below shows it at the scale it actually happens on before you trust any headline in it.
Marketed footprint against the footprint you can actually buy
| Provider | Marketed | Global plan reaches |
|---|---|---|
| Instabridge | 190+ | 114 |
| Yesim | 200+ | 83 |
| Nomad | 200+ | 123 |
| aloSIM | 200+ | 147 |
| Orbislo | 197 | 197 |
Airalo and Holafly are absent because we surveyed their global plan counts, 169 and 113, rather than their marketing copy. Our two columns match only because the marketed number is generated from the catalog. Checked 2026-08-31.
Price per gigabyte, on a plan that meters gigabytes
Orbislo is $1.39 a gigabyte at 20 GB. Airalo is $3.30 at the same size, checked 2026-08-31. The Airalo plan expires and ours does not, which is most of the difference in what you pay over a year rather than over a week.
Holafly is not on this table. We found no comparable global metered plan to price, because Holafly sells the day rather than the gigabyte. That is a product difference rather than an omission: if what you are buying is gigabytes, there is no Holafly figure to put in the column.
The Expires column is the one that moves the total. On a plan with a clock on it you pay again for the gigabytes you never reached, so a year of travel costs the sticker plus everything the clock took back. On a wallet with no clock the sticker is the whole cost: 20 GB at $27.89 works out at $1.39 a gigabyte whether you spend it in a fortnight or across the next four trips.
Global metered plans of about 20 GB, by cost per gigabyte
| Provider | Plan size | Price | Per GB | Expires |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Orbislo | 20 GB | $27.89 | $1.39 | No |
| Jetpac | 30 GB | $69.99 | $2.33 | Yes |
| aloSIM | 20 GB | $62.00 | $3.10 | Yes |
| Saily | 20 GB | $64.00 | $3.20 | Yes |
| Airalo | 20 GB | $66.00 | $3.30 | Yes |
| Nomad | 20 GB | $103.00 | $5.15 | Yes |
Jetpac's nearest global plan is 30 GB rather than 20 GB, so the size is a column. Airalo's cheapest global gigabyte is a separate listing at $8.50 for 1 GB over 7 days, checked 2026-08-01. All other stickers checked 2026-08-31.
The day pass, the allowance, and the speed after it
Airalo publishes 3 GB a day at full speed and 1 Mbps after that, on the plan page, before you pay. Those are the two numbers that sit behind the word unlimited, and the table below prints both of them for every seller who states them.
Holafly publishes nothing. No daily figure, no throttled speed, nowhere on their own estate that we could find on 2026-08-31. You are buying a word rather than a number.
Orbislo publishes 2 GB a day at full speed and then 1 Mbps, and both figures sit on the buy button rather than in a help article you find afterwards. For most trips the size of a daily allowance matters less than whether it exists in writing, because a phone rarely gets near it: two hours of navigation, a day of messaging and an evening of social video together come to well under a gigabyte.
Thirty days of global unlimited, and the number behind the word
| Provider | 30 day price | Full speed a day | After that | Where it is published |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Orbislo | $64.89 | 2 GB | 1 Mbps | On the buy button |
| Airalo | $159.00 | 3 GB | 1 Mbps | On the plan page |
| Holafly | $161.50 | Not published | Not published | Nowhere we could find |
Saily lists about $31.00 for the same window, at 3 GB or 5 GB a day depending on tier. Read off each provider's own page on 2026-08-31.
What happens to the data you did not use
At Airalo and at Holafly, it is gone. Both sell a window, and when the window closes the unused gigabytes close with it. That is the normal shape of this product and it is the reason almost everybody overbuys.
Four sellers offer a balance that does not expire: Yesim, Instabridge, Firsty, Roamless. Read that carefully, because it is a different promise. The money stays. The gigabytes still run to a clock once you have spent the money on them. Roamless markets credits that never expire and its own terms say the account goes inactive after 12 months.
The practical effect is a buying rule. On an expiring plan you have to buy for your worst week. On a plan that does not expire you buy for your normal week and top up in about ten seconds when you are wrong. An expiring 10 GB ticket in this category ran $29.00 on 2026-08-24, against $15.89 for 10 GB in a wallet that keeps it. The gap in the stickers is the smaller half of that comparison. The larger half is what each of them is worth on day thirty one.
Refunds, and what ours actually covers
Our survey covered four things: destinations, prices, allowances and where each figure is published. Refund terms were not one of them, so read each seller's own refund page for theirs. This section is about ours, which is the part of the comparison you can hold to a company rather than to a survey.
There are four rules and they fit in a paragraph. A provisioning failure is refunded automatically inside 60 seconds without you asking. Under five percent used, or never installed, and you tap refund in your order. A network that failed you in the destination is a full refund plus a credit. Front line agents can refund up to 200 dollars without approval.
None of the four needs a reason typed into a box. The provisioning case never reaches a person at all: the failure is detected on our side, the charge comes off, and the notification lands before you have finished reading the error on your phone. The under five percent case is a button inside the order rather than a request, so it does not queue behind anybody else's ticket. The destination failure is the one that involves a conversation, and it is where the 200 dollar ceiling matters, because it means the agent reading your message is also the person who can settle it.
The four checks to run before you pay, whoever you pick
Every disagreement in this category comes down to four numbers, and all four are printed or they are not. If a seller will not put one of them in front of you before payment, you have your answer about that number.
The last one catches more people than the other three together. A figure on a buy button and the same figure buried in a help article are not the same disclosure, because only one of them is in front of you at the moment you decide.
- The destination list, not the marketed total. Open the global plan and find the country you are going to on it
- The full speed allowance behind the word unlimited, in gigabytes a day, and the speed after it in Mbps
- What happens on the day the window closes, to the data and separately to the money
- Where each of those is published, and whether you can see it before you pay rather than after
Which shape of plan fits your trip
Start with the length of the trip, because that is what decides between a product priced by the day and one priced by the gigabyte. Under a week in one country, with heavy tethering and no appetite for counting, the day pass is the simpler buy: you pay for the window and stop thinking. Orbislo's runs $16.89 for a week and $64.89 for thirty days, at 2 GB a day full speed and 1 Mbps after it.
Anything longer than a fortnight, or anything crossing several borders, and the metered wallet is the cheaper shape by a distance. $27.89 buys 20 GB at $1.39 a gigabyte across 197 destinations, it carries into the trip after this one, and topping up mid trip takes about ten seconds, so buying slightly short costs you nothing and buying long costs you nothing either.
One last check on whoever you pick. Make sure the price ladder goes the right way. On Jetpac's own site a 20 GB plan costs $40.00 and a 30 GB plan costs $29.99, on every destination we checked. That is their published pricing rather than a transcription error, and it is the sort of thing a price index exists to catch.