Transparency
How We Rank Plans
A short, honest explanation of how this site actually works — no vague "our algorithm" hand-waving.
The three rules, in one glance
Prices are fetched, never typed in
Every number comes from the provider's own feed, API or storefront, re-checked automatically. No markup, no manual edits.
Order is arithmetic, not opinion
Default sort is price, low to high. Commission, partner status and paid placement are never read by the code that orders anything.
Paid is always labelled
The only paid placement is a fixed "Sponsored" zone. It is never mixed into a plan table, a provider grid, a score or a "best" pick.
Not a promise — enforced in our code
We didn't just decide not to sell rankings. We made it impossible to do by accident.
Every change to this site has to pass an automated test suite before it can go live — and part of that suite exists solely to check that no ranking, scoring, or "best plan" code path ever reads a provider's commission rate, partner status, or paid placement. If a future change ever tried to let money influence an order or a score, the build would fail before it reached the live site. It's the difference between a policy we could quietly change one day and a rule the codebase itself won't let us break.
Where the prices come from
Every price on this site comes straight from a provider's own feed, API, or storefront — we don't add markup, and we never list a price we haven't fetched ourselves. Catalogs are re-synced automatically (most nightly), and every plan shows the date its price was last checked, so you can see exactly how fresh a number is.
How the order is decided
By default, plans are sorted by price, low to high — computed directly from the price and data/duration figures in the feed, not hand-arranged. On a destination's default view, we also round-robin across providers so a single provider can't fill the whole table just because it happens to sell a plan for every duration — every provider gets a turn before any one of them shows twice. The moment you sort by a specific column, you see the real, un-diversified order. The /providers directory's default "Most popular" sort is different — it's real click volume on this site over the trailing 30 days, unrelated to discount codes, commission, or any editorial pick.
Same destination, two views
Default view
Round-robin: every provider gets a turn before any one shows twice.
- 1 A Provider A $4.50
- 2 B Provider B $5.60
- 3 C Provider C $6.10
- 4 A Provider A $4.90
- 5 B Provider B $5.20
Sorted by price
Click any column header and you see the raw order.
- 1 A Provider A $4.50
- 2 A Provider A $4.90
- 3 A Provider A $5.20
- 4 B Provider B $5.60
- 5 C Provider C $6.10
How a provider earns the "Fully verified" badge
Every provider page carries an "About" card: a fixed set of facts we confirm by hand from the provider's own website (help center, terms, refund page, checkout) — never from third-party review sites, press releases, or our own assumptions. If we couldn't confirm a fact, it simply isn't shown; we never display a guess as a "No".
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01 Founded 1 pts
The year the company was founded, as stated by the provider itself.
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02 Headquarters 1 pts
Where the company is headquartered, as stated by the provider itself.
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03 Legal entity 6 pts
The registered company name behind the brand (from its terms or imprint).
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04 Refund policy 6 pts
When a refund is possible and under what conditions, with a link to the provider's own policy page.
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05 Validity starts 4 pts
Whether the plan clock starts at purchase, at install, or on first connection.
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06 Fair-use limit 4 pts
The fair-use limit on "unlimited" plans — the daily high-speed allowance and what happens after it.
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07 Top-ups & rollover 3 pts
Whether a plan can be topped up and whether unused data rolls over.
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08 Lost device / reinstalling 3 pts
What happens if you lose the device or delete the eSIM — can it be reinstalled or reissued?
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09 Billing currency 2 pts
Which currency you are actually charged in at checkout.
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10 Support 3 pts
The real support channels (chat, email, WhatsApp, help center) and their hours.
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11 Payment 2 pts
Accepted payment methods (card, PayPal, Apple Pay, Google Pay, and so on).
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12 ID verification 5 pts
Whether identity verification (passport / ID upload) is required before activation.
Each card shows how many of these 12 facts are confirmed (for example "9 of 12"). A provider is marked Fully verified only when every one of them is confirmed from its own site. A missing fact means we haven't confirmed it yet — not that the provider lacks it — and we re-check the card periodically; the date of the last check is printed on it.
Fully verified is a completeness signal, not a quality endorsement: it says we know the provider's policies, not that they are the best. It has no effect on how plans are ordered.
What a "specialist" chip means
Most providers we compare sell eSIMs for a hundred or more destinations. A few sell for exactly one. When a provider's entire catalog covers a single country, we mark it as that country's specialist — and when the headquarters we confirmed from its own site is in that same country, the chip becomes ":country-based", meaning you are buying from a company that actually sits in the place you are travelling to. Both facts are recomputed every night from the catalog and the About card, so the chip disappears on its own the day a provider adds a second destination.
A specialist chip is a fact about scope, not a recommendation: a local operator is not automatically cheaper or better, and the chip has no effect on the order of any table, the eSIMKart Score, or any "Best …" pick. Sort by price to check.
How the eSIMKart Score is calculated
Each provider page shows a single 0-100 score. It is arithmetic over data we already hold and can stand behind — nothing is hand-picked, and it is recomputed every night after the catalogs re-sync. The components and their maximum points:
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Trust card max 40
Weighted count of the trust facts confirmed from the provider's own site — refund and legal entity weigh the most, founding year and HQ the least.
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Price max 15
Where the provider's cheapest price per GB ranks against every other provider, averaged across all the countries it sells in.
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Coverage max 10
How many of our active destinations the provider covers (log-scaled, so 50 → 100 countries matters more than 150 → 200).
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Data max 10
How the catalog reaches us (partner API > public feed > scraped storefront > manual) and how recently every price was re-verified.
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Discount code max 10
A live, working discount code — more for a bigger percentage, and a little more when it is an ESIMKART code negotiated for our readers rather than a generic public one.
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Plan variety max 5
Unlimited, regional, global, cruise and pay-as-you-go plans on offer.
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Live deals max 5
Time-limited promotions currently running (from the provider's affiliate network feed — providers outside one can't earn these yet).
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Popularity max 5
Real human clicks on this site over the last 30 days, log-scaled against the most-clicked provider.
How the 100 points split — the bar is generated from the same configuration the score itself uses.
Inside the trust component, each confirmed fact is worth a fixed number of points — the facts that protect a buyer most weigh the most:
Whether a provider is an affiliate partner, and what commission it pays, is deliberately not part of the score. Popularity is real visitor clicks on this site, not anything a provider can buy.
How we make money, and what it doesn't affect
Here is every label and mechanism that involves money or partnership on this site, and what each one does to the order you see.
| Label | What it means | Affects ranking? |
|---|---|---|
| Affiliate link | We may earn a commission if you buy through it. The commission rate is never read by any ordering or scoring code. | No |
| "Partner" badge | A tracked, approved affiliate relationship exists. A relationship disclosure, not a quality endorsement. | No |
| "Featured" on a discount code | Our editorial call that a specific code deserves attention (e.g. a capped code a plain percentage sort would bury). Marks a code, never a provider's position. | No |
| "Best price with code" card | The cheapest realistic plan once the provider's live, verified exclusive code is applied — the price you actually pay at checkout, cap and scope included. Shown only when it undercuts the plain "Best price" with a different plan. It reads the code's percentage, never commission, partner status or paid placement; a provider without a code simply has no discounted price to compete with. | No |
| "Also" lines under a "Best …" card | The next two plans by that card's own rule (price, price per GB, price per day, cheapest unlimited, price after code), from the same realistic plans the card reads, each from a different provider than the winner and each other — so a card shows two or three options instead of one. Price and size only — never commission, partner status or paid placement. | No |
| "More picks" row | Under the "Best …" cards on a destination page: the cheapest fixed-data plan with at least 10GB, the cheapest with at least 20GB, and the cheapest plan lasting at least 30 days, from the same realistic plans "Best price" reads. A chip appears only when it names a plan no card above already shows. Price, data and duration only — never commission, partner status or paid placement. | No |
| "Sponsored" zone (Partner Spotlight) | A paid placement in a fixed, clearly labelled slot. Never inside a plan table, provider grid, score or "best" pick. | No |
| "Listed, not promoted" hold | New partners (automatic 30 days) or providers whose claims we could not reconcile sit below others in the default view and out of "from $X", lanes and "Best …" cards. Any explicit sort shows the honest order. | Default view only |
Some links on this site are affiliate links, and we may earn a commission if you buy through one — that commission never determines which plans are shown or how they're ordered. A "Partner" badge means we have a tracked, approved affiliate relationship with that provider; it's a relationship disclosure, not a quality endorsement or a ranking boost. Separately, a "Featured" tag on a discount code is our own editorial call that a specific offer is worth extra attention (e.g. a capped or non-percentage code a plain sort would rank too low) — it marks a code, never a provider's position in a list.
Some pages carry a clearly labelled "Sponsored" zone (Partner Spotlight). Those are paid placements in fixed positions — a visual highlight only. They are never mixed into plan tables, provider grids, scores or "best" picks, and the code that ranks anything never reads the sponsorship data.
Some partners are temporarily "listed, not promoted": new partners still being verified, a provider whose public claims we could not reconcile with independent sources, or a provider where independent public reviews keep describing the same serious problem (the eSIM not working, support not answering, or charges the buyer did not expect) while we look into it. We ask the provider first and keep it on a quiet hold. If it does not answer within 14 days, the same reports keep coming, or we confirm the problem ourselves, its pages and plan rows carry an "Under review" label until it is settled; a provider that does not resolve it may be removed. A hold is not a verdict, we do not publish the details of a single case, and affiliate, Spotlight or Insights status never changes this rule in either direction. Every new partner starts with an automatic 30-day hold. Their plans stay in every plan table with an honest trust card and can be sorted to the top by any visitor who asks for it, but in the default view they sit below every other provider, and they are held out of "from $X" starting prices, the cheapest-plan-per-country lane pages, quick-pick and "Best …" cards, the homepage coupon wall, the "Best discount" badge and Partner Spotlight until the hold is lifted.
Spotted something wrong?
Tell us about a stale price or anything that looks off through our contact form — we check reports directly against the provider's current listing.
Run one of the providers listed here?
Your trust card is built only from your own public pages. If a fact is missing or out of date, email us the page it lives on and we will re-verify it. Partner Insights shows you exactly how your plans rank in every destination.
[email protected] Partner Insights →
Not listed yet? Run an eSIM service we don't list yet? Partner with us.
