We checked every plan in our own catalog sold as unlimited data. On 8 October 2026 there were 43, and every one has a limit. 29 slow down every day after 1 or 3 GB of full-speed data. The other 14 have no daily cap, but drop to 2 Mbps once you have used 30, 60 or 90 GB in total.
That is not a criticism of any one supplier, it is how the word works across this entire industry. This article breaks down exactly what “unlimited” means on the plans we sell today: the daily cap, the speed you get after it, whether hotspot use gets its own stricter limit, and what regulators have actually said about the word. Plan details change, so treat the live listing on each product page as the source of truth before you buy.
Updated 27 September 2026: we rechecked every plan against the live catalog. The 45-day Montenegro plan that was our one unrestricted exception when we first published this is no longer on sale, and the daily-capped Dubai plans have been replaced by eSIM Go’s UAE Premium Unlimited, which uses a total cap instead. The counts were refreshed again on 8 October 2026, after four Airalo Europe unlimited plans were added on 28 September: the total went from 39 to 43.
We Checked Every “Unlimited” Plan We Sell. How Many Have No Cap?
On 8 October 2026, 43 of the 937 plans in our catalog that come with a new eSIM (top-ups not counted) were sold as unlimited data. That is under 5%. The rest are sold with a stated gigabyte allowance instead. Two more plans, Bouygues’ EU 60 GB and 120 GB, have “Unlimited” in the name, but the word refers to calls and their data is a fixed allowance, so we left them out.
| Plans | Share of “Unlimited” plans | |
|---|---|---|
| Daily high-speed cap, then throttled for the rest of the day | 29 | 67.4% |
| Total high-speed allowance, then 2 Mbps for the rest of the plan | 14 | 32.6% |
| No cap, no throttle, genuinely unrestricted | 0 | 0% |
| Total “Unlimited” plans (8 October 2026) | 43 | 100% |
Nothing on our shelf today is unrestricted. The daily-capped plans slow down once you pass 1 or 3 GB in a day and return to full speed at the next 24-hour reset. The Premium Unlimited plans from eSIM Go have no daily limit, but give you a fixed total of full-speed data, 30 GB for 5 days, 60 GB for 10 days or 90 GB for 15 days, and drop to 2 Mbps after that for the rest of the plan. That averages 6 GB a day, twice Airalo’s daily allowance, and you can spend it unevenly.
Every “Unlimited” plan we sell has one of these limits. This is not a hidden defect. It is how the underlying wholesale carriers price the product, and it is disclosed on the plan page. But “disclosed” and “obvious from the name” are two different things, and that gap is what this article exists to close.
The Three Limit Rules on Our Shelf
The plans follow three rules. Airalo uses one. eSIM Go uses two, depending on the product line.
| Supplier | Destinations | Plans | Full-speed allowance | Speed after it | Resets |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Airalo | Australia, China, Japan, Monaco, Oman, Singapore, Europe (regional, 28 countries) | 26 | 3 GB/day (up to 20 Mbps on most listings) | 1 Mbps | Every 24 hours |
| eSIM Go (Latin America) | Latin America (regional, 11 destinations) | 3 | 1 GB/day | 512 Kbps | Every 24 hours |
| eSIM Go (Premium Unlimited) | Australia, New Zealand, UAE, USA, Europe (regional, 35 destinations) | 14 | 30, 60 or 90 GB in total (5, 10 or 15 days), no daily limit | 2 Mbps | Does not reset: 2 Mbps for the rest of the plan |
Airalo’s own published fair use policy matches what we list: “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,” resetting every 24 hours from the time you activated the eSIM. That is exactly what appears on our Airalo-supplied plan pages, so in this case the retail listing and the underlying carrier’s own policy agree.
eSIM Go is different. Its own public Acceptable Use Policy (version 3, revised May 2026) requires compliance with “any fair use policy applicable to your use of the Services” but never states a number, no gigabyte figure and no throttle speed anywhere in that document. The 1 GB and 512 Kbps figures on our Latin America plans, and the 30, 60 and 90 GB totals and 2 Mbps figure on the Premium Unlimited plans, come from the specific product data for those plans, not from anything you can independently look up on eSIM Go’s own policy page. Treat the number on the plan page as the operative one for that SKU.
What Can You Actually Do at 2 Mbps, 1 Mbps or 512 Kbps?
The FCC’s Broadband Speed Guide gives a rough, activity-by-activity baseline for how much speed different things need when you are only doing one of them at a time:
| Activity | Speed needed |
|---|---|
| Messaging, email, basic web browsing | 1 Mbps |
| Standard video call | 1 Mbps |
| HD video call | 1.5 Mbps |
| HD video teleconferencing | 6 Mbps |
| Streaming SD video | 3 to 4 Mbps |
| Streaming HD video | 5 to 8 Mbps |
| Streaming 4K video | 25 Mbps |
Line that up against our three limit rules and the picture is uneven. Airalo’s 1 Mbps floor sits right at the edge of what a standard video call and basic messaging need, so those keep working, just without margin for anything else running at the same time. An independent review of European eSIM plans put it plainly: a 1 Mbps throttle is “enough for WhatsApp messages and basic Google Maps navigation but won’t support video calls, social media uploads, or streaming comfortably.”
The 2 Mbps floor on eSIM Go’s Premium Unlimited plans clears the FCC’s 1.5 Mbps figure for an HD video call, though not the 3 to 4 Mbps it gives for SD streaming. The 512 Kbps floor on eSIM Go’s Latin America plans is half of Airalo’s. It sits below the FCC’s own benchmark for a standard video call, so a throttled Latin America “Unlimited” plan is not a safe bet for a call once you cross 1 GB in a day, even though messaging and maps still work.
Does Hotspot Use Get Its Own, Stricter Limit?
This is where the fine print gets inconsistent across the industry, and it is worth checking before you plan to share your eSIM’s connection with a laptop.
In our own catalog, every “Unlimited” plan shows hotspot as allowed, and we do not carry a separate hotspot-specific speed or cap field distinct from the daily high-speed allowance. Practically, that means hotspot use draws from the same allowance described above, daily or total. It does not open up extra data.
That matches how the two suppliers behind our plans describe it. Airalo’s fair use policy states directly, “there is no limit on tethering or the number of devices you connect.” Saily, a large competitor not currently in our catalog, runs a more generous 5 GB/day allowance before its own 1 Mbps throttle, and prohibits “excessive tethering/hotspots” without publishing a separate number for it either.
Holafly is the one major provider that breaks this pattern. It does not publish an official on-device daily cap at all, but it does publish a hard, separate hotspot allowance of up to 1 GB per day on its travel eSIM day plans, a limit that cannot be recharged or extended mid-trip. That is the opposite of what most shoppers assume: the plan with no visible on-device cap is the one with the tightest, most explicit hotspot ceiling.
The takeaway: do not assume hotspot is unlimited just because the plan is. Read the specific line about tethering, not just the headline word. If you are weighing an unlimited plan against a longer stay, our long-stay eSIM comparison covers the same fair use trade-off for 30, 60 and 90-day trips.
A Smaller Daily Cap Doesn’t Mean a Cheaper Plan
You might expect the smaller 1 GB daily cap on eSIM Go’s Latin America plans to come with a lower price than Airalo’s 3 GB cap. Matched at the same length of stay, it does not.
| Plan | Days | Daily cap | Price | Price per day |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Airalo Singapore Unlimited | 3 | 3 GB | $11.99 | $4.00 |
| eSIM Go LatAm Unlimited | 3 | 1 GB | $24.99 | $8.33 |
| Airalo Singapore Unlimited | 5 | 3 GB | $17.99 | $3.60 |
| eSIM Go LatAm Unlimited | 5 | 1 GB | $39.99 | $8.00 |
At the 5-day mark, the plan with a third of the daily high-speed data (eSIM Go’s Latin America pack) costs more than double, per day, than the plan with three times the allowance. The gap is not explained by the daily cap. It reflects where the destination sits on the wider cost of data in that region, which is a separate factor from what “Unlimited” promises you. The lesson is simple: a smaller stated cap is not a signal of a cheaper plan, check the price per day directly.
Australia is one of two places where we sell both kinds of limit (Europe is the other), so it gives a like-for-like comparison:
| Plan | Days | Full-speed data | Price | Price per day |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Airalo Australia Unlimited | 5 | 3 GB a day (15 GB at most) | $15.99 | $3.20 |
| eSIM Go Australia Premium Unlimited | 5 | 30 GB in total | $25.99 | $5.20 |
| Airalo Australia Unlimited | 10 | 3 GB a day (30 GB at most) | $26.99 | $2.70 |
| eSIM Go Australia Premium Unlimited | 10 | 60 GB in total | $38.99 | $3.90 |
The Premium plan costs $1.20 to $2.00 more a day and gives twice the full-speed data with no daily limit, so one heavy day of photo backups does not throttle you for the rest of it. If you use under 3 GB on most days, Airalo’s daily cap never bites and it is the cheaper plan.
When Regulators Say “Unlimited” Crosses the Line
The travel eSIM industry is not regulated the way home broadband is, but the underlying question, what can a company call “unlimited” when a fair use policy applies, has already been tested in mobile advertising, and the answer is instructive.
The UK’s Advertising Standards Authority has a standing rule for this: an “unlimited” claim is acceptable only if a legitimate user faces no extra charge or service suspension for crossing a usage threshold, and if any speed or usage restriction is “moderate only and clearly explained in the marketing communication.” In July 2026, the ASA ruled against Utility Warehouse over an “unlimited” mobile ad. Notably, the ASA did not object to the 500 GB threshold itself, it ruled the ad misleading because that limit was buried inside an expandable “the legal bit” section instead of appearing alongside the unlimited claim. The cap was fine. The hiding was not.
In the US, the FTC took a harder line against AT&T in 2014, alleging the company throttled “unlimited” data customers’ speeds by 80 to 90 percent without adequately disclosing it, a case AT&T eventually settled for $60 million in consumer refunds.
Neither regulator has ever said a fair use cap makes “unlimited” untrue. Both have said the opposite: hiding the cap, or not explaining it clearly, is the actual problem. That is the same standard worth applying to any eSIM plan before you buy it. The cap is normal. Not being able to find it is the warning sign.
How to Read an “Unlimited” Listing Before You Buy
Before you buy, confirm
- Find the stated high-speed allowance in GB, per day or in total, not just the word “Unlimited” in the name
- Find the throttled speed you drop to afterward, in Mbps or Kbps
- Confirm whether and when the allowance resets (daily caps usually reset every 24 hours from activation, not at midnight; total caps do not reset)
- Check whether hotspot draws from the same allowance or has its own, separate limit
- If none of the above is stated anywhere, treat it as undisclosed rather than assuming the best case
- Check how the price compares to the same destination on other providers on our price comparison page, which lines us up against Airalo, Saily and Holafly
Soft next step
Every plan page in our catalog lists the daily cap, the throttled speed and the hotspot terms alongside price and validity, so you can compare them the way this article does. Plan details change, so treat the live listing on each product page as the source of truth before you buy.
FAQ
Does “unlimited” ever mean truly no cap at all?
Not on our shelf. On 8 October 2026 all 43 plans we sold as unlimited data had a limit. 29 slow down every day after 1 or 3 GB of full-speed data, then return to full speed on the next 24-hour reset. The other 14 have no daily cap, but drop to 2 Mbps once you have used 30, 60 or 90 GB in total.
What actually happens when I hit the daily cap?
Your connection does not stop. It slows to the throttled speed listed on the plan for the rest of that 24-hour period: 1 Mbps on our Airalo plans, 512 Kbps on our eSIM Go Latin America plans. eSIM Go’s Premium Unlimited plans have no daily cap; after the total allowance they drop to 2 Mbps for the rest of the plan. Messaging, maps and basic browsing generally keep working at these speeds. Streaming usually does not.
Can I still use maps and messaging after being throttled?
Yes, at 1 Mbps. That speed sits right at the FCC’s stated floor for standard video calls and basic browsing, so simple apps keep working. At 512 Kbps, which is the throttled speed on our eSIM Go Latin America plans, expect messaging and maps to work but calls to be unreliable.
Does hotspot use a separate data allowance from on-device use?
Usually not. On our own plans, hotspot draws from the same allowance as on-device use, and Airalo’s fair use policy explicitly states there is no separate tethering limit. Holafly is a notable exception among competitors, publishing a hard 1 GB per day hotspot cap on its travel eSIM plans, separate from on-device data.
Is it against the rules to call a throttled plan “unlimited”?
No, and regulators in both the UK and US have addressed this directly. A fair use cap does not make “unlimited” false, as long as it does not cut off legitimate use and is clearly disclosed. What has gotten providers in trouble, in rulings against companies like Utility Warehouse and AT&T, is failing to explain the cap clearly, not having one in the first place.