Unlimited, decoded: what you actually get after the throttle

"Unlimited data": two words that sell, covering very different contracts. Behind the vast majority of unlimited eSIM plans sits a Fair Use Policy: a full-speed data quota, daily or total, beyond which your speed drops, sometimes to 128 kbps, a speed at which a modern web page struggles to load. The connection never cuts off; in that narrow sense, "unlimited" holds. Your actual usage, however, is bounded.

This study does what no reseller does: it lines up, destination by destination, the real FUP clauses of 15 resellers, quoted word for word from their own product pages and terms, surveyed on July 11 and 12, 2026 and archived. From those clauses it derives the one number marketing never gives you: the price per truly usable GB.

Method

Panel. 44 plans from 15 resellers across nine destinations: Thailand, Japan, the United States, multi-country Europe, Turkey, Morocco, Mexico, Brazil and Canada. Panel built from the independent comparator esimdb, plus the major consumer brands. Inclusion rule: the plan is marketed as "unlimited".

Primary sources only. Every quota, speed and price comes from the reseller's own product page or terms, never from an aggregator. When a reseller publishes no figure, we record it as "undisclosed": that is a finding, not missing data.

Prices in USD. EUR and THB prices converted at the 2026-07-12 interbank rate (1 EUR = 1.14 USD; 1 USD = 33.32 THB), original price shown in brackets. Usable GB = daily quota × validity days; $/usable GB = price ÷ usable GB. Plans with no published quota get no $/GB: we do not compute on the unsaid.

Results, destination by destination

Tables contain only primary-source-verified data. "n/s" = not surveyed by us; "undisclosed" = not published by the reseller. The badge rates disclosure: published vague undisclosed speed cap

EUROPE (MULTI-COUNTRY)

TURKEY

MOROCCO

UNITED STATES

MEXICO

BRAZIL

CANADA

THAILAND

JAPAN

The disclosure index

Perhaps the most important finding: 27% of the plans in the panel publish no quota figure at all. The quota is the essential characteristic of the product: buying "unlimited" without knowing its throttle threshold is buying a plan without knowing its volume.

THE CLAUSES, WORD FOR WORD

"8.3. If you purchase an 'unlimited' Data Subscription please note that your data coverage and speed may be subject to a network service provider's fair use policy. This means that in order to ensure a high quality of service for all users, the network service provider reserves its right to impose restrictions or limitations on data usage or speed if your usage is deemed excessive..."HOLAFLY · GENERAL TERMS 8.3 · 2026-07-12 · no figure on any destination · archived source

"...when you use more than 3GB in a day, we'll slow down (or 'throttle') your internet speed to 1 Mbps for the rest of that day. [...] 'day' means each 24-hour period that begins when you activate your eSIM and resets every 24 hours from that activation time."AIRALO · UNLIMITED FAIR USE POLICY · 2026-07-12 · the most complete clause in the panel · archived source

"If the network receives reports of a high level of usage within a short time frame (usually in excess of 3GB of usage per day), the network may apply their fair usage policy and restrict your connection speed for 24 - 48 hours. [...] if 500MB of data or more is used during this day (while the connection speed is restricted), this restriction may be applied the next day as well."MOBAL · HELP CENTER · 2026-07-12 · the only mechanism where using data during the throttle extends the throttle · archived source

THE RESET CYCLE NOBODY COMPARES

When does your quota refill? Clauses diverge, and the difference is concrete. At Airalo, a "day" is a rolling 24-hour window starting at eSIM activation: activate at 10pm on arrival and your quota refills every evening at 10pm. At Saily and Jetpac, it is also a 24-hour cycle. At eTravelSim and Ohayu, the clause says "the next day", without naming a timezone. That detail, which timezone and which hour, is part of our field-test protocol.

The real price of a GB

Reduced to what it actually allows, full-speed data, "unlimited" has a perfectly computable price per GB whenever the reseller publishes its quota. Across the 27 computable plans it runs from $0.33 (eTravelSim Europe) to $2.25 (Ubigi Mexico): a 7x spread for products sold under the same promise. And the computation is structurally impossible for 27% of the panel, including some of its most expensive plans.

What it means for you

Reading rule: when an unlimited seller does not publish its quota, assume the market median, 3 GB/day, and compare prices on that basis. If the seller believes its quota is more generous, nothing stops it from publishing it.

When unlimited is worth it: long stays with steady daily usage. 3 GB/day at full speed comfortably covers browsing, social apps and occasional video calls, and unlimited buys peace of mind: no counter to watch.

When a fixed-volume plan is objectively better: spiky, intense usage. A daily quota is a constraint that fixed volume does not have: 20 fixed GB can be spent on the one day you need them, while a 3 GB/day unlimited throttles you precisely that day. Run the math in $/usable GB: on several destinations, fixed wins.

How to cite this study

Cerisola, E. (2026). Unlimited, decoded: real quotas and throttled speeds of "unlimited data" eSIMs. Drift Data Index. https://drifteuropa.com/data-index/unlimited-decoded/

Full dataset (open, citable): data-unlimited-decoded.json or CSV. Drift Europa's original data and analysis are reusable under CC BY 4.0 with attribution and a link; underlying operator terms remain the property of their publishers. Press contact: [email protected].

Panel via the independent comparator esimdb (July 8 to 12, 2026). Prices in USD. All trademarks belong to their owners. This study is an objective comparison of essential, verifiable characteristics based on the resellers' public documents. Errors reported to [email protected] will be corrected with a timestamped note.