Live price index · rebuilt 2026-09-09
What travel data actually costs.
Every number on this page is computed from the same provider feeds that power our comparison tables — 5 providers, refreshed daily. No estimates, no round numbers invented to look tidy.
The headline finding: one gigabyte costs 6.0× more in United Arab Emirates ($1.45/GB) than in Thailand ($0.24/GB) — even when you pick the cheapest available plan in both.
Cost per GB by destination
Where data is cheap, and where it isn't.
Ranked by the lowest cost per GB we can find in each destination. "Entry price" is the cheapest plan of any size — useful if you only need a couple of days of maps and messaging.
| Destination | Best $/GB | Cheapest by | Entry price | Unlimited /day | Plans |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 Thailand | $0.24 | Nomad | $0.54 | $1.10 | 53/ 5p |
 Turkey | $0.62 | Nomad | $0.60 | $2.28 | 50/ 5p |
 Singapore | $0.62 | Nomad | $0.54 | $2.28 | 49/ 5p |
 Greece | $0.62 | Nomad | $0.54 | $2.28 | 53/ 5p |
 Australia | $0.64 | Nomad | $0.54 | $2.22 | 53/ 5p |
 Germany | $0.64 | Nomad | $0.54 | $1.97 | 52/ 5p |
 United Kingdom | $0.68 | GigSky | $0.54 | $1.63 | 66/ 5p |
 Italy | $0.68 | GigSky | $0.54 | $2.13 | 53/ 5p |
 Spain | $0.68 | GigSky | $0.54 | $2.10 | 52/ 5p |
 Portugal | $0.68 | GigSky | $0.54 | $2.28 | 52/ 5p |
 France | $0.69 | GigSky | $0.54 | $1.97 | 70/ 5p |
 China | $0.70 | Nomad | $4.00 | $2.30 | 51/ 5p |
 Japan | $0.70 | Nomad | $2.99 | $2.20 | 50/ 5p |
 Vietnam | $0.78 | Nomad | $0.54 | $2.28 | 48/ 5p |
 South Korea | $0.78 | Nomad | $2.99 | $2.28 | 49/ 5p |
 United States | $0.80 | GigSky | $0.54 | $1.80 | 69/ 5p |
 Indonesia | $0.82 | Nomad | $0.54 | $2.28 | 49/ 5p |
 India | $0.86 | Nomad | $0.54 | $2.90 | 48/ 5p |
 Mexico | $0.90 | Airalo | $2.99 | $2.07 | 61/ 5p |
 Canada | $1.20 | GigSky | $2.99 | $2.87 | 62/ 5p |
 United Arab Emirates | $1.45 | Nomad | $3.99 | $2.40 | 47/ 5p |
Provider comparison
No single provider wins everywhere.
Median cost per GB across every plan a provider offers in our indexed destinations. "Cheapest in" counts how many destinations that provider holds the lowest per-GB rate — the reason a comparison table beats picking one brand and sticking with it.
| Provider | Median $/GB | Best $/GB | Entry price | Unlimited | Cheapest in |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Yesim203 plans · 21 destinations | $1.54 | $0.82 | $0.54 | 105 | 0/ 21 |
| Nomad179 plans · 21 destinations | $1.70 | $0.24 | $4.00 | 76 | 13/ 21 |
| Airalo441 plans · 21 destinations | $2.10 | $0.55 | $4.00 | 132 | 1/ 21 |
| GigSky105 plans · 21 destinations | $2.16 | $0.53 | $2.99 | — | 7/ 21 |
| Saily209 plans · 21 destinations | $2.20 | $1.00 | $2.99 | 125 | 0/ 21 |
Unlimited plans
When unlimited stops being a gimmick.
Across our index, unlimited plans cost a median of $2.28 per day, while metered data runs $2.00 per GB. The break-even point is roughly 1.1 GB per day — below that, a metered plan is cheaper; above it, unlimited wins.
We index 438unlimited plans. Nearly all carry a fair-use policy: a daily full-speed allowance, then throttling. Providers publish that threshold on their own plan pages, and it varies — treat "unlimited" as "uncapped but speed-managed".
| Destination | Unlimited /day | vs metered |
|---|---|---|
| Thailand | $1.10 | 4.6 GB/day |
| United Kingdom | $1.63 | 2.4 GB/day |
| United States | $1.80 | 2.3 GB/day |
| Germany | $1.97 | 3.1 GB/day |
| France | $1.97 | 2.9 GB/day |
| Mexico | $2.07 | 2.3 GB/day |
| Spain | $2.10 | 3.1 GB/day |
| Italy | $2.13 | 3.1 GB/day |
| Japan | $2.20 | 3.1 GB/day |
| Australia | $2.22 | 3.5 GB/day |
"vs metered" = how much metered data the same daily spend would buy in that destination. Use more than that per day and unlimited pays off.
Methodology
How these numbers are produced.
Plan data is pulled directly from each provider — product feeds, public pricing APIs or their own store data — normalised into a single schema, and refreshed every day. This page recomputes from that snapshot at build time, so what you see matches the comparison tables exactly. Last rebuild: 2026-09-09.
Cost per GB is plan price divided by included data, so it only applies to metered plans; unlimited plans are measured per day instead. Where a provider sells the same allowance at several durations, each combination is counted separately. Prices are shown in USD as published by the provider; currency conversion in the interface is for display only.
We deliberately exclude plans below a minimum usable allowance (very small multi-week bundles that work out to a fraction of a gigabyte per day), because they distort a "cheapest" ranking without being usable on a real trip.
One thing we don't claim: per-activity data consumption figures shown in the calculator's usage table are typical industry estimates, not our own measurements. Prices are ours; usage estimates are not.
Data license: This compiled price index is provided for informational comparison only. No rights to redistribute the dataset are granted. Provider names, trademarks and source pricing remain the property of their respective owners. For reuse enquiries, contact hello@esimlane.com.