The methodology and the money
How we test and what we earn
Every number on this site comes from somewhere we can name. Where we have not tested something ourselves, this page says so plainly.
What we actually verify and how
| Claim on this site | How it is verified | How often |
|---|---|---|
| Plan prices in USD | Pulled from esimdb.com and cross-checked against the brand's own checkout page. USD, before promo codes. | Monthly, and the date is printed on every table |
| Which Vietnamese network a brand uses | Only from the brand's own product page. If it publishes nothing, we write "not published" rather than repeating a travel blog. | Monthly |
| Fair-use caps on unlimited plans | Read out of the brand's published terms. "None published" means we looked and it is not there. | Monthly |
| Trustpilot scores and review counts | Read directly from trustpilot.com, including whether a rating has been suspended. | Monthly |
| Vietnamese network coverage by region | Operator coverage maps, published Vietnamese carrier coverage figures, and traveler reports. Explicitly not our own driving. | Quarterly |
| SIM registration law and airport counters | The decree itself, carrier store information and current traveler reports. | Quarterly |
Every page carries the date of its last check in the text, not just in a schema field nobody sees. If a date looks old, the numbers are old, and you should assume the price has moved.
What we have not done the part most sites leave out
We have not run speed tests across Vietnam with five eSIMs in five handsets. Nobody producing a page like this at this scale has, and the ones who imply otherwise are usually showing you one screenshot from one cafe.
So we do not print speed numbers we did not measure, we do not claim a plan "held 4G over the Ma Pi Leng pass" unless we watched it happen, and we do not invent test dates. Where our coverage information comes from operator maps and aggregated traveler reports, the page says so in the source line, every time.
What we do instead is verify the things that can be verified from a desk and that nobody else bothers to check: which network each brand actually publishes, what the fair-use caps really say, whether a Trustpilot score exists at all, and whether the airport counter people keep recommending is still open. Those turn out to matter more than a speed test taken on a different day in a different district.
As we run our own tests, they will appear here with dates, and they will replace the aggregated material rather than sitting alongside it.
How this site makes money with the rates written down
Affiliate commissions, through the Travelpayouts network, and nothing else. No display advertising, no sponsored posts, no paid placements, no guest articles. A provider cannot buy a position in any table here, and none has ever asked.
| Brand | What we earn | Where it ranks on this site |
|---|---|---|
| Airalo | 12% | Top pick. The lowest rate of the four. |
| Saily | 15% | Third pick, for support and hotspotting. |
| Yesim | 18% | Fourth, flagged for a suspended Trustpilot rating in every table. |
| GigSky | 20% | Second pick, on price. |
| Holafly | nothing | Reviewed in full and linked nowhere. |
| Viettel | nothing | Recommended outright for the northern mountains. |
Read the first and last rows together. The brand we recommend most pays us least, and two of the six things we recommend pay us nothing at all. That is the only test of an affiliate site's ranking that means anything, and it is why we publish the rates.
Buying through a link here never changes your price. It also never changes the order of the picks, which is a promise that is only worth anything alongside the table above.
How the picks are ordered the criteria, weighted
In rough order of weight:
1. Does the brand tell you which network you get? In Vietnam this is decisive, because VNPT and Viettel diverge sharply north of Hanoi. It is why Airalo leads despite never being the cheapest.
2. Price at the sizes people actually buy, which for Vietnam is 5 and 10GB. It is why GigSky is second.
3. Whether the review record is intact. A suspended Trustpilot rating is not a low score, it is the absence of a score, and we treat it as disqualifying for the default pick rather than for inclusion.
4. Whether "unlimited" comes with a published number. A cap you can read beats a bigger cap you cannot.
5. Practical restrictions that only appear in the terms: hotspot ceilings, validity windows, regional exclusions.
Commission rate is not on this list, and the table in the previous section is how you can check that.
When we get it wrong and how to tell us
Prices move, brands change networks, airport counters close, and coverage improves. Some of what is on this site will be wrong within a few months, which is why every table carries its own date.
Corrections are the most useful mail we get, particularly a coverage experience that contradicts our table, and most particularly from the far north where our information rests on maps and reports rather than on our own riding. The contact page has the address. Verified corrections ship in the next update and we note what changed.
We are an independent guide. We are not a mobile operator, we do not sell eSIMs, and we are not affiliated with any provider we review.