How we test, and what we earn

What we earn, brand by brand

the actual rates

All commissions come through the Travelpayouts network. The rate never changes your price, and it has never changed the order of a recommendation. The test we apply is simple: strip the commission out and ask whether the reasoning still holds. On this site the top pick pays the least and the second pick pays the most, and both of those facts are printed next to the picks.

Where do the prices come from?

and why they carry a date

Plan prices come from each provider's own Korea page, opened live, in USD, before any promotional code. Where a page renders its plans by script we read the data the page itself loads. We do not take prices from aggregator sites any more; they are hints at best. The last check covers Airalo, Yesim, Ubigi, Holafly and Nomad plan by plan, Airalo's Asialink regional plans, SK Telecom's tourist eSIM through krsim, and Saily and GigSky read by hand in a browser.

The gaps, named rather than hidden. LG U+'s tourist-eSIM page blocks automated reads, so LG U+ figures carry an earlier 2026 check. Saily's and GigSky's Korea pages defeat our reader too, so we read them by hand in a browser: every Saily and GigSky plan, fixed and unlimited, is current, as are Saily's cap, slow-lane speed and midnight reset. GigSky's 3.5GB daily cap and 24-hour reset are current too; GigSky does not publish the speed after the cap. KT's tourist eSIM prices do not render on KT's site, so the KT figures on the carrier page come from a 2026 reseller listing and are labelled as such. Airalo shows Canadian dollars from our connection by default; we read its USD prices from Airalo's own page with the currency set to USD.

Every table carries the year it was checked. Prices in this category move by a dollar or two a month and occasionally more when a brand restructures, and won prices move with the exchange rate, which we quote at roughly ₩1,380 to the dollar and round. If a number on your screen does not match a number here, trust your screen and tell us.

Where do the network claims come from?

the provider, or we say not published

Every claim about which Korean carrier a provider rides comes from that provider's own Korea page or the plan data that page loads. Today that gives SK Telecom for Airalo and Yesim, SK Telecom and KT for GigSky, SK Telecom and LG U+ for Ubigi and Holafly, and a plan-by-plan list for Nomad. Where the provider does not disclose its network, the tables say so. Of the brands we link, that is Saily: no operator on its Korea page, FAQ or Terms, which reserve its right to select network operators.

We do not fill those cells from blogs, database entries or other comparison sites, because those claims propagate and cannot be traced. Saily is the clear case: several guides say SK Telecom and KT, Saily itself names none, and every table here says not disclosed. Airalo is the opposite case: a 2025 traveler review reported it on LG U+ with LTE only, Airalo's page now shows SK Telecom with 5G, and we quote the page as it reads today while recording the earlier report. A published network tells you the agreement; it does not promise which tower your phone picks on a given ridge.

Carrier quality figures come from two sources and we name them every time: the Korean Ministry of Science and ICT's official 2025 quality evaluation, and Opensignal's December 2025 South Korea report. Where a widely repeated claim has no measurement behind it, the claim that SK Telecom is best in the mountains being the obvious one, we call it a reputation.

What we have not done

said plainly

What we have done: read live prices on each provider's own Korea page, read the network each provider publishes, read every fair-use text in the provider's own words, checked every Trustpilot profile live, including the review notice on Holafly's, read the Korean government's own briefings on the December 2025 and June 2026 changes to line registration rather than an English summary of them, read Naver's June 2026 press release and the Korean press on Baemin's August 2026 change, and priced the carriers' tourist eSIMs from the carriers' own pages where they could be read.

Those are different kinds of work and we do not blur them. A price we pulled is a fact. A coverage note is a well-sourced judgement. A speed test we did not run is not evidence and will not appear here dressed as one.

The five rules

the ones that cost us money

1. Unmonetised providers appear in every table. Ubigi is cheaper than everything we sell at 10GB and names two networks, SK Telecom and LG U+. It is in every comparison on this site with the reason next to it, and so are the three Korean carriers.
2. One real drawback per recommendation. Every pick card names a genuine reason not to buy it. Airalo's is a price gap and a low cap; GigSky's is a 10GB ceiling on fixed plans, an unprinted slow-lane speed and our highest rate; Saily's is an undisclosed network and a higher price than GigSky's Unlimited.
3. Fair-use caps are published or marked missing. "Unlimited" is a daily allowance on every travel eSIM sold for Korea, and where a brand will not give the number the table says so rather than leaving the cell empty. Where the Korean carriers sell genuinely uncapped data for less, the table says that too.
4. Every price carries a date. No exceptions, including in the FAQ answers and including the won figures.
5. We say when the answer is not to buy anything from us. Buy the carrier eSIM if you need a 010 number or more than 3GB a day. Buy Ubigi if you want the cheapest 10GB. Those pages exist and they cost us the sale.

Corrections

and what happens to them

If a price here is stale, a network claim is wrong, an app has started or stopped demanding a Korean number, or your experience on a Korean network contradicts our coverage table, we want to hear it. The app table on the phone-number page and the counter hours on the carrier page are the two things most likely to have moved since our last check in 2026.

Verified corrections ship in the next update and we note what changed. Send them here.