About the comparison
What RoamCompare does
RoamCompare helps UK travellers work out whether it is cheaper to use their own network abroad or buy a travel eSIM — and what each option actually gives them.
Last updated 27 Aug 2026
What we do
You tell us where you are going, for how long, how heavily you use your phone and which UK network you are on. We estimate how much data you will need, work out what your own network would charge, and compare that against travel eSIMs big enough for the trip. Hotspot rules, speed caps, fair-use limits and activation rules sit beside every plan, and every price links back to the provider so you can check it yourself.
What we do not do
We are not a mobile network or an eSIM seller. We do not issue SIMs, take payment, look at your phone or promise you will get a signal. Prices and eligibility can change between our check and your checkout.
Affiliate disclosure
Some outbound links are affiliate links. If you buy after following one, RoamCompare may earn a commission at no extra cost to you. We currently have affiliate relationships with Klook, Saily and Nomad. Airalo is listed with no affiliate relationship at all — its application was declined, and we kept it in the comparison anyway. Tracking applies only where an approved partner link exists. Saily and Nomad links are the tracking URLs their own feeds hand back; Klook links carry an id appended to the same product page you’d reach anyway. Any link we could earn on is marked rel=“sponsored” in the page source. You should know that Nomad currently comes out cheapest on 18 of our 20 destinations, and Nomad is one of the three we earn from. Two things make that less flattering than it sounds. Nomad quotes US dollars, which we convert at the Bank of England spot rate, so what your card actually charges will be a little more — at a rate three pence in the pound worse, Airalo wins several of those destinations instead. And a cheaper list price is not the same as a better plan: check the hotspot rules, speed caps and fair-use limits beside each one. Commission never changes the order, and never makes a plan eligible that would not otherwise be.
Where our numbers come from
Saily and Nomad prices come from each provider’s own feed, refreshed at least every few hours. Saily quotes real pounds; Nomad quotes US dollars, which we convert at a rounded Bank of England rate and label as an estimate. If a feed stops answering we fall back to our dated hand-checked prices for that provider and label them with the date we checked. Airalo prices are checked by hand and dated on screen, already in pounds; if one has not been rechecked within seven days we stop ranking it rather than quietly show you a stale number. Roaming costs are worked out from each network’s published charges, and the date we checked them is shown in the methodology — always confirm in your own network’s checker before you travel. Phone compatibility comes from manufacturer information recorded on 16 Aug 2026, and links to its source rather than guessing about regional versions. We never scrape sites that ask us not to, and we never invent a price we cannot verify — which is why Klook shows “check price” instead of a number.
This is a working build
RoamCompare is not open to the public yet. Prices are already rechecked on a schedule — a daily job flags anything overdue. A contact address and monitoring for the provider feeds will be in place before launch.