What goes into a BetterSIM score
Every score on a provider page is a weighted average of five sub-scores. Weights are fixed and apply equally to every provider in our database.
Median dollars-per-gigabyte across the countries each provider covers. Normalized so providers with smaller coverage footprints are not penalized for offering pricing in fewer places.
Count and quality of countries supported. Weighted by how often each country appears in real user searches on the site, so coverage in popular destinations counts more than rarely-searched ones.
Two separate signals, shown separately on every provider page. Service reviews come from Trustpilot (real customer experience with the eSIM service itself), weighted by review count. App experience comes from Apple App Store and Google Play (a different signal, since a great service can have a frustrating app and vice versa). Each rating shows the source URL and the date verified. We never fabricate a number when a provider is not listed on a platform.
Length of the refund window, whether activated plans qualify, and the actual processing path (in-app, email, or chat-only). Specifics are taken from each provider's published terms.
First-response and resolution times on test tickets we open quarterly as ordinary customers, plus public availability of human support channels. The one place we test directly.
Where the data comes from
Every claim on this site falls into one of these buckets. We label the source on the page when it matters for a purchase decision.
Plans are read from each provider's public listing pages. Stored with a timestamp. Anything you see on a destination, provider, or comparison page reflects the most recent snapshot. The current snapshot was captured in March 2026.
Refund windows, fair-use limits, and feature flags come from each provider's public terms. We re-read them quarterly and log any change with a date on the provider page.
Star ratings and review counts come from the public App Store and Google Play listings. We track both the rating and the review count, because a 4.9 from 300 reviews is not the same signal as a 4.6 from 50,000.
Coverage notes use each local carrier's published map. When carriers shift roaming partners (a regular occurrence in Europe and Asia) we update the destination page and flag the change.
First-hand notes from travelers who used a specific plan in a specific country. Used to surface anomalies (dead zones, throttling, captive portals). Reports are attributed and dated.
We have not personally tested every plan in every country. When we have firsthand experience we say so on the page. When we do not, we cite the source. We avoid review language we cannot back up.
How we make money, and what it does not buy
BetterSIM earns affiliate commissions when readers buy through our links. Here is exactly what that does and does not affect.
How often pages get updated
Different content has different refresh cadences. We label dates everywhere we can.
Corrections policy
We get things wrong sometimes. When we do, here is what happens.
- Email a correction request to [email protected]. Include the page URL and what is wrong.
- We confirm receipt within one business day.
- If the correction is verified, we update the page and add a dated note at the bottom describing what changed.
- If we got something materially wrong (a price off by more than 20 percent, a policy detail that would change a buying decision), we add a callout at the top of the page until the next quarterly refresh.
Who runs this
One person, by design. Here is how that works in practice.
Hi, I am Jed. I built BetterSIM and I run it. There is no team behind the “we” on the rest of this site. There is one person, this page, and a pricing database I keep updated.
I started this because every eSIM comparison site I tried looked the same. The same top-ten lists. The same affiliate links. The same generic copy that read like it was scraped from the provider sites it was meant to be reviewing. Most of them never told me how they ranked anything, and the rankings often did not match the numbers.
What that means for you, in practice:
- One person reads every support email. A reply usually comes within a business day.
- If you find something wrong, the person who fixes the page is the same person who picks up the email. No queue, no escalation path.
- I have not personally bought every plan in every country. The methodology above explains how I handle that, and what I will and will not claim.
- No editorial team, no content quota, no advertiser pressure to write something I do not believe.
What I am trying to be
The site grew out of one person being annoyed with how every other eSIM site looked. These are the values that came out of that, written down so I can be held to them.
When I have been somewhere myself, I say so. When I am going off the database, I say that too. No fake field reports.
A clear recommendation for one trip beats a 30-row table that pushes the decision back to you. If the answer is 'it depends,' I say what it depends on.
If a sentence needs Wikipedia to parse, it gets cut. The tool should work for someone who has never bought a travel eSIM and is leaving in three days.
The pricing database, the methodology, and the score formula are designed to be readable five years from now without an asterisk for every plan that has since changed.
Want to help out?
One person can only travel so much. If you visit a destination and notice something I have wrong, or have data I do not, I would genuinely love that.
- Corrections. A wrong price, a stale policy, a country I have miscategorized. Email [email protected] with the page URL and what I got wrong. I confirm receipt within a business day.
- Speed test data. If you used a specific eSIM in a specific country and ran a few speed tests, send the screenshots. I aggregate submissions into the rolling 90-day medians on the destination pages, and bylines go on the country pages where you contributed.
- Trip reports. Anything that did or did not work the way the provider claimed. Coverage dead zones, surprise throttling, refund processing that took longer than promised. Real first-hand notes are how this site stays better than the ones that paraphrase each other.
What we will not do
A short list, because it matters more than the long one.
- Write “we tested” or “we measured” unless we actually did. Customer-support testing is the one place we do, and we say so explicitly on the provider page.
- Invent stats. Numbers on this site come from sources we can cite. If a number is approximate, we say approximate.
- Hide affiliate links. Every page that contains one carries the disclosure with a link back here.
- Accept content from providers. Provider PR teams do not see our reviews before publication and cannot request edits.