With all of their advantages, eSIMs have arrived and at TEE we think they are here to stay. Over time, some brands have become “mainstream” and more household names thanks to sponsorships, adverts and more.

Airalo is one of those brands that you might just have heard of, at this point even our older family members are asking us about them. Compare them with Jetpac on Google Trends and it’s simply night and day in favor of Airalo, but does that make Airalo better than Jetpac? Let’s breakdown this head to head fight and call a winner – Airalo or Jetpac.

The key facts

Airalo

Airalo, established in 2019 in Singapore, proudly claims to be the world’s first eSIM store. With more than 20 million users and coverage across 200+ countries, it has firmly positioned itself as a leading player in the travel eSIM industry.

At TEE, we’ve tested a whole range of eSIMs from a wide range of apps and providers. Some have impressed us, while others have fallen short. Airalo was among the first providers we tried out, being an early innovator and bigger name in this space. After thoroughly testing its service, we score Airalo quite highly. Here’s a quick summary of our Airalo review:

Airalo has scored well for its reliability, network speeds, and coverage quality, alongside secondary factors like app design and its impressive loyalty rewards. Really the main knock and its achilles heel is the pricing. In our review, we rated it 4 out of 5. Nevertheless, public opinion across major review platforms shows some quite significant variation:

App Store score: 4.6/5
Play Store score: 4.4/5
TrustPilot score: 2.6/5

Jetpac

Singapore seems to be an eSIM provider hotspot and Jetpac is another hailing from our favorite green city/state. Launched in 2022 by a global telco company called Circles and winner of countless awards, Jetpac offers over 200 plans to its users and a number of unique perks too.

Generally we like Jetpac, so much so that we gave it 4/5 stars, but as you can see, it’s probably a 4.25. However scores around the internet are a mixed bag:

• iOS App Store: 3.8/5
• Google Play Store: 3.5/5
• TrustPilot: 4.7/5

Airalo vs Jetpac: Full Plan and live pricing comparison

Check out the full price list of Airalo and Jetpac, filter by the country you’re heading to and compare.

Price per GB of data is often the best way of comparing eSIM plans. Let’s take a look at the pricing in the 5 countries that we’ve tried both services in:

UK: Jetpac is cheaper per GB at every level of data, aside from Airalo’s free 1 GB for 1 day plan.

USA: Once again, Jetpac is cheaper per GB for all levels of data. Once again that also excludes Airalo’s 1 GB/1 day plan

Colombia: Airalo is the cheaper option in Colombia by a substantial amount. An example in the pricing, Airalo offers 10 GB of data for $28, Jetpac offers 10 GB for $35.

Portugal: We find Jetpac to be cheaper at every data level. If you are looking for high data amounts however, Airalo does offer some great value.

UAE: Airalo is cheaper almost across the board.

In conclusion, as always, pricing is location dependent. Jetpac is generally cheaper in many Western countries, Airalo tends to have an edge where prices for eSIMS are generally higher like South America and UAE.

Airalo vs Jetpac: Speed test scores (Mbps)

Speed test scores can vary depending on a number of factors but in our speed tests, Jetpac is the faster eSIM in 4 of the 5 countries we’ve tested and in the UK, USA and Portugal, it is not close. In the UAE and Colombia however, scores are very similar, you won’t see much of a functional speed difference.

The breakdown: Airalo eSIM vs Jetpac eSIM

Note: We award the winner of each key factor with this medal.

Our opinion: Jetpac is a better choice than Airalo.

By the numbers, this was a close one, our final score shows a 6-4 win for Jetpac.

However, our 3 key factors in judging an eSIMs are signal, speed and price/value. In these factors, Jetpac is clearly ahead of Airalo, winning 3-1. Jetpac is faster in 4 of the 5 countries we tested and it’s generally cheaper in most countries, as we showed above. In terms of signal, both have been very reliable for us.

Airalo offers a great loyalty scheme, but you do have to be loyal in order to get that 10% cashback rate. Meanwhile Jetpac offers fun perks for users revolving around lounge and fast lane access (albeit for a fee).

While Airalo’s app is more polished and functional, we found Jetpac’s customer service to be quicker and more effective overall.

In conclusion, we think that Jetpac offers a better eSIM experience than Airalo.