Travel eSIM provider Holafly has published a self-commissioned benchmark study, the Travel eSIM Value Index 2026, ranking itself first among travel eSIM providers ahead of rivals Saily and Airalo. Holafly created, funded and distributed the report itself, a detail worth noting given the company also came out on top.
The index scores three providers, Holafly, Saily and Airalo, across five weighted categories: Pricing Efficiency at 35 percent, Included Benefits at 25 percent, Customer Experience at 15 percent, Travel Flexibility at 15 percent and Connection Readiness at 10 percent. Holafly finished with 91.1 points overall, ahead of Saily’s 86.7 and Airalo’s 78.6.
Pricing Efficiency, the category carrying the most weight in the overall score, is also where Holafly’s product has a structural edge over its rivals. Holafly sells eSIMs priced for the exact number of days a traveller needs, while Saily and Airalo generally sell fixed-duration blocks that can leave travellers paying for unused days. The study measured cost using the median price across trips of one to 30 days rather than a single advertised plan, and under that method Holafly scored 100 against 96.3 for Saily and 91.6 for Airalo.
In the remaining categories, the picture was closer. Holafly and Saily tied for the top score in Included Benefits, both offering six of eight measured features, while all three providers scored identically on Connection Readiness and Travel Flexibility, each offering different but equally weighted forms of flexibility.
“Value is no longer defined by coverage alone,” Holafly Head of Strategy Alfonso Mata said, arguing that network quality has become similar enough across providers that pricing structure and customer support now separate the leaders.
The report follows a similar pattern set by an earlier Holafly-branded study. In May, the company published the Holafly Global eSIM Index in partnership with the industry publication TeleSemana.com, ranking 50 countries by eSIM readiness, another self-branded benchmark distributed as a press release rather than produced by an independent research body.
Independent reviews of Holafly outside the company’s own materials give it generally positive marks but flag trade-offs the index does not address, including data speeds that throttle after a daily threshold and a higher effective cost per gigabyte for travellers who use only light amounts of data compared with pay-as-you-go alternatives.
