Prepaid eSIM, pay as you go

How the billing actually works

1. 1

   Load a USD balance

   From $5, plus a one-time $5 eSIM setup fee on your first order. What you pay is what lands on the eSIM — no bonus-credit games, no rounding.

2. 2

   Install the eSIM

   One QR code. There is nothing to configure: no country to choose, no bundle size, no duration, no plan name.

3. 3

   Use data anywhere

   The eSIM attaches to a local network in whichever of the 200+ countries you're in. Hotspot is enabled, so a laptop can share the same balance.

4. 4

   Get metered per megabyte

   The network reports usage roughly every ten minutes and deducts it from your balance at that country's published per-GB rate.

5. 5

   Top up when you want

   Any amount, any time, from any browser. It goes onto the same eSIM — you never reinstall and never get a new QR code.

Every country we cover has its own per-GB price, and all of them are on one page. You can see the live per-GB rate for all 200+ countries before you spend a cent — that list is the whole pricing model, not a summary of it.

The bundle model's real flaw: you have to guess

Every bundle eSIM opens with the same question — how many gigabytes will you use? That's a forecast, and you're asked to make it before you know whether the hotel Wi-Fi works, whether you'll navigate on foot all day, whether you'll tether a laptop in an airport, or whether one video call home will run for an hour.

There are two ways to be wrong and both cost you money:

• Guess too low and you're buying data again mid-trip — normally a small emergency package, normally at a worse per-GB price than the one you already bought, normally while standing somewhere with one bar of signal.
• Guess too high and the surplus expires with the validity window. You paid for it. You simply don't get to keep it. That is the whole reason a prepaid balance that never expires beats a bundle with a clock — see the section below.

Per-megabyte billing deletes the question. There is nothing to forecast, because there is nothing to size.

The same trip, two ways

The figures below use a hypothetical $2.00/GB so the arithmetic is easy to follow. Look up the real published rate for your destination before you travel — some countries are well under it, some are above.

Notice that the heavy user isn't punished either. Topping up mid-trip costs the same per gigabyte as the first dollar you loaded — there is no premium for being wrong about your own appetite, because there was never an estimate to be wrong about.

Bundle vs balance

What a prepaid eSIM is — and how it differs from a monthly plan

A prepaid eSIM is paid for before you use it. There is no contract to sign, no monthly fee, and nothing that renews on its own. You load credit, the eSIM draws on that credit while data is moving, and when you stop travelling the cost stops with you. A subscription or monthly-plan eSIM works the other way round: it bills every cycle whether you left home or not, and keeps billing until you remember to cancel.

The prepaid eSIM here goes one step further than most. Instead of prepaying for a fixed number of gigabytes, you prepay a dollar balance, so you are never buying an allowance you have to size in advance.

A prepaid eSIM balance that never expires

Prepaid credit that quietly expires is the standard complaint about this product category. Ours doesn't. It's a billing model, not a promotion that gets withdrawn next quarter, and five mechanics do all the work:

• You buy credit, not gigabytes. Your top-up lands on the eSIM as a USD balance. There is no allowance to run down and no bundle size to pick.
• Nothing starts a clock. The balance has no activation date, no validity window and no renewal. Installing the eSIM doesn't start one either.
• You're charged only while data is flowing. The network meters your usage and deducts it from the balance roughly every ten minutes, at the published rate for the country you're standing in.
• At zero, data pauses — it doesn't bill. There is no overage and no surprise invoice. Add credit and the same eSIM is back online in seconds. No reinstall, no new QR code.
• Leftovers survive the trip. Whatever you didn't spend in Lisbon is still there in Lima next February. One balance, every country.

What expires with a bundle — and what doesn't here

The honest limits

• The $5 eSIM setup fee is one-time and charged on your first order only. Once the eSIM has been provisioned, that fee isn't refundable.
• Country rates can change. The balance doesn't expire, but what a gigabyte costs in a given country is whatever the rates page says on the day you use it.
• Unused balance is store credit. It never expires and you can spend it on any future trip, but it isn't paid back to a card or a crypto wallet.
• Your activation QR is single-use. Once it's installed on a phone it stays with that phone — moving to a new device needs a re-issue from support.