Rules · 8 min read

Saily, Nomad, Holafly, Ubigi: 3 Clauses Compared

Saily mentions ID checks 35 times; Nomad, Holafly and Ubigi never do. Refund triggers and "unlimited" compared across four contracts read in full.

Nadezhda Semenova · updated 23 Oct 2026

What’s actually being compared?

An eSIM terms comparison is a side-by-side reading of what four sellers' own contracts actually say, not a fifth summary of four separate reviews. This site has already read four such documents in full: Saily, Nomad, Holafly, and Ubigi. None of those four pages compares itself to the other three. This page does, on three questions only, and every finding below links back to the page where the underlying text is already quoted in full.

A fifth seller belongs in this picture and isn’t one of the four above. Its absence is this page’s opening finding, not an empty column left for symmetry. Airalo is the seller this site resells. Its own review reads a Reddit thread instead of a contract, since no saved Airalo terms document exists here. All four sellers compared here get read as a written document. The seller this site actually sells gets read as a documented pattern of customer experience instead. The biggest name in this group is the one whose terms this project has not saved or compared. Those terms are public: its General Terms, last updated September 2025, were open to read on 22 October 2026 and point to a separate Refund Policy.

Saily’s Consumer Terms of Service run 93,052 characters, read 22 August 2026. Nomad’s Terms and Conditions run 36,316 characters, version dated 19 March 2026, read 3 September 2026. Holafly’s Terms and Conditions run 30,447 characters, read 3 September 2026. Ubigi’s run 29,524, read the same day. Saily’s document alone runs more than double Nomad’s, and more than triple Holafly’s or Ubigi’s. Re-read on 22 October 2026: refund and identity rows corrected against the live Holafly and Nomad terms and the newest Saily text we could open, dated 15 July 2026, since the live Saily page refused our request; the fifth seller’s general terms turned out to be public.

Three questions decide what you actually owe, or are owed — the three axes this eSIM terms comparison turns on. No two of the four sellers answer all three the same way.

What voids the refund?

Each contract voids its refund at one specific moment, and the four sellers don’t pick the same moment. Ubigi’s condition is a single action. Once you scan the QR code on a preloaded profile, the refund closes.

“If you have already scanned the received QR code, your refund request will be denied.”

That’s Ubigi’s own terms, in one line. Holafly’s change-of-mind refund needs three separate conditions to hold together, and losing any one closes the window.

“the eSIM must have been purchased from Holafly via the Application (i.e., not from Third Parties); the eSIM must not have been activated; and the purchase of the eSIM must have been made no more than 6 months prior to the request for a refund.”

Full text on Holafly’s own terms. Nomad draws its own line at a step, not a fixed date. You may request a refund before the eSIM is installed and activated; after that, only a known Nomad-side fault keeps the window open. The same clause sends you to your plan’s own description to check whether the plan is eligible for a refund at all.

“Customers may request a refund or a change prior to the installation and activation of the E-sim or there is a known technical problem originating from NOMAD after activation of E-sim.”

That’s clause 4.2 of Nomad’s own terms. The clause never says who decides a problem counts as “known,” or how you prove it — checked by search, not assumed. Saily’s plain data eSIM carries no change-of-mind refund once the period you paid for simply runs out.

“any remaining Services will be lost, and no refund will be payable for those unused Services.”

That’s Saily’s own terms. Airalo’s contract text sits outside this comparison entirely — no such document exists in this project’s files. What actually moved money in the one documented case was not a clause.

“No account in this record cites the written refund policy; what worked was pressure, not policy.”

That’s the Airalo review, describing three levers in order: stating in writing an intent to post a public review, then persistent email, then a chargeback as the last resort.

Put plainly, your Ubigi refund closes the moment the code is scanned, not the moment the data is used. A Holafly change-of-mind refund needs all three conditions to still hold on the day you ask, not just the day you bought; remedies for a service that does not conform apply whatever the activation status. Nomad’s window closes at install; after that, you rely on Nomad’s own support team to agree the fault was Nomad’s. Saily’s plain eSIM can get a full refund on request before its Data Plan is activated, provided no included Extra has been used; after activation, Saily may consider a refund if more than 99% of the data is unused, no complimentary Extras have been used, and you ask within 30 calendar days of purchase, with separate 14-day rules for subscriptions, and nothing is refunded once the plan’s validity period expires. A longer policy on the phone-number add-on sits outside this page’s scope. Airalo’s General Terms point to a separate Refund Policy that this page has not read, so the only thing on record here is the one documented case above. Nothing on record says what a clean denial there would look like.

What does “unlimited” actually mean?

Holafly’s Terms and Conditions use the word “unlimited” exactly once. That single sentence defines it against you, not for you.

“there is no fixed data allowance that automatically stops data use, but your data coverage and speed may be subject to a network service provider’s fair use policy... if your usage is deemed excessive”

No number attaches to “excessive” anywhere in that document. The same clause adds a second limit: “Holafly does not guarantee network capacity, network quality or connection availability of the Trip Service.” Saily’s Consumer Terms of Service use “unlimited” 14 times, in a section headed “Unlimited Data Plans.” The published Saily review doesn’t examine that section; it reads a different part of the same document. That’s a known gap, not a reading of what the clause says. Nomad’s Terms and Conditions also use “unlimited” exactly once, and not about data at all. The only occurrence sits inside clause 11, the Contribution License, granting Nomad an “unrestricted, unlimited, irrevocable” license to anything a customer posts inside the app. That’s a license about content, not coverage. On the question this axis asks — whether a Nomad plan sold as unlimited data hides an undisclosed cap — the contract has nothing to say. It makes no unlimited-data claim in the first place. Ubigi’s Terms and Conditions are silent on the word altogether — zero occurrences, confirmed against the saved file. Airalo’s own contract isn’t on file at all, and the published Airalo review never raises the term either.

Who has to prove who they are?

Saily’s Consumer Terms of Service use “KYC” 35 times, confirmed by three separate counting methods in the published Saily review. But the check sits entirely inside one optional add-on, “Phone Number Functionality.” It has nothing to do with the plain data eSIM most Saily buyers actually purchase.

Nomad’s contract never uses the word “KYC” at all, matching Holafly and Ubigi. Clause 2.1.2 comes closer in substance. It requires the customer to “provide accurate, complete, and verifiable identity information during the registration process,” and lets Nomad suspend service if that data turns out to be “fictitious or fraudulent.” Nothing in that clause ties identity to a refund the way Saily’s does — Nomad’s suspension power stands alone, with no automatic cancel-and-refund attached. Holafly’s and Ubigi’s contracts are silent on the term altogether — zero occurrences, confirmed directly against both saved files. Airalo has no contract on file to check.

None of this comes from a regulator. A separate reading of the actual ID rules by country found zero of 370 catalogued operator profiles asking for ID at signup. Nine of 27 checked countries require it by law for a local SIM instead. Saily’s 35 mentions and Nomad’s clause 2.1.2 are each seller’s own contract language, not a rule any government wrote, though both present themselves as compliance: Nomad heads 2.1.2 “Statutory Accuracy” and cites data protection, privacy and telecommunications regulations, and Saily’s KYC definition cites applicable telecommunications, anti-money-laundering and consumer-protection laws. Neither names a specific statute.

A separate clause, in Saily’s refund policy, ties the money to the same check. If Saily’s identity check doesn’t clear in time, the contract cancels the plan and returns the payment on its own.

“Saily will: (i) automatically cancel the Phone Plan; (ii) initiate a refund; and (iii) notify you of such cancellation and refund through the App and/or by email.”

You do not have to invoke Saily’s refund clause by hand in that one scenario. The refund clause names the KYC check in its own sentence, on the one add-on this axis actually governs; the clause that makes KYC a precondition to activation sits elsewhere, in the Phone Number terms.

No winner here

This site resells Airalo’s own operator catalogue, a relationship disclosed in full on the about page. That’s exactly why this page doesn’t rank Saily, Nomad, Holafly, and Ubigi against each other, or against the seller it resells. This eSIM terms comparison compares triggers and conditions, not price, because a contract’s own wording is the one axis it can quote without guessing.

The grid above compresses each contract down to one clause per axis; every document behind it carries more exceptions than fit in one cell. The full text, with the date it was read, sits on each seller’s own page: Saily, Nomad, Holafly, Ubigi. The seller with no such document to point to is Airalo — read the one you’re actually using before you rely on any row above.

Sources cited only — expert review pending. For individualized advice, consult a licensed professional.

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