Why We're Not on eSIM Guide (and What It Says About Cheap eSIMs)

What happened

We're a small eSIM shop, and a few weeks ago we applied to be listed on eSIM Guide, one of the bigger comparison sites. They were quick and friendly about it. Their terms are 10% commission per sale, with a minimum of $1.00 per order. They also asked for our whole catalogue in the feed, not just some of it.

That's a completely normal deal for most of the market. For us it didn't work, and when we looked into why, it turned out to say something about which eSIMs travellers get to see on comparison sites. So here are our notes.

Why a $1 minimum matters so much on cheap plans

On a $20 plan, 10% is $2, so the $1 minimum never comes into it. On cheap plans, the minimum fee is what you actually pay:

Plan price	Commission (10%, min $1)	Share of the price
$1.99	$1.00	50%
$2.99	$1.00	33%
$4.99	$1.00	20%
$5.99	$1.00	17%
$10.00	$1.00	10%
$20.00	$2.00	10%

A lot of what we sell is in the $2–6 range: one-day passes, small packs, 10 GB for a month in Turkey for $5.99. On a $1.99 plan we pay the wholesale data cost, then card fees (about 3.5% plus $0.30). Once $1 goes to the comparison site on top of that, we lose money on every sale that comes through it.

The options we had

Raise prices so the $1 fits. Our $1.99 plan would have become something like $3.49, and the traveller pays the difference.
Only send our bigger plans. That would have been fine for us, but eSIM Guide wanted the full catalogue, and we understand why: partial feeds make a comparison site less complete.
Not list for now.

We went with 3. We'd rather keep the prices low than pay for the listing by charging travellers more.

"But I see $0 plans on comparison sites"

Yes, and that surprised us too. When we checked eSIM Guide, eSIMDB and esims.io on 30 September 2026 and sorted by price, the cheapest listings were Turkey plans from $0.00 and $0.23 and Japan from $0.44. Most of these are 100 MB trial packs. The provider treats them as marketing and hopes you'll top up later.

So cheap plans do appear. But when a site takes at least $1 per sale, the plans that make sense to list at the low end tend to be:

small trial packs, paid for out of a marketing budget,
plans too small for a real trip (100 MB is roughly one afternoon of maps), or
pricier plans, where $1 doesn't matter.

What's hard to list is the boring middle: a normal plan like 1 GB a day or 10 GB for a month, sold at a small margin.

Is anyone doing anything wrong?

Honestly, no. eSIM Guide has costs, a minimum fee stops them doing work for sales worth a few cents, and asking for the full catalogue is fair. From what we saw, the comparison sites we looked at sort by price honestly and label their ads.

It's just a rule built for $15–30 plans that ends up shaping what travellers see at $2–6. If comparison sites wanted to fix it, a percentage-only rate for plans under $5 would do it. We'd sign up straight away.

How to find the cheapest eSIM yourself

Look at price per GB, not the "from" price. A free 100 MB plan costs more per GB than 10 GB for $6.
Work out how much data you need. Maps, messaging and some social media is roughly 0.5–1 GB a day.
Check the validity. 7 days and 30 days for the same price aren't the same deal.
Search outside the comparison sites too. Try "[country] eSIM" and look at smaller providers' own sites.
Read the "unlimited" small print. Most of these plans slow down a lot after a daily limit.
Check reviews on Trustpilot or Reddit, not just rankings.

Where we are now

We price from what the data costs us plus a small margin, and every plan page shows the network and what happens to your speed after the limit. We're still open to listing on eSIM Guide or anywhere else if the terms can work for cheap plans. In the meantime, our Turkey, Japan and Switzerland guides compare our live prices with the big brands, with the date we checked each one.

Prices checked 29–30 September 2026. eSIM Guide's terms are as they were offered to us in September 2026 and may have changed since.