Published by Gigs | April 2026

Managing employee phone plans across a distributed workforce is one of the most consistently underestimated IT problems in enterprise operations. Most organizations treat it as a procurement task, but in practice it touches security, compliance, HR automation, and real-time offboarding controls across every country where employees work. That is why the platform you choose matters.

Gigs for Work and Telgea are two of the leading platforms in the race for enterprise employee mobile connectivity. This article compares them across the dimensions that matter most to CIOs, CTOs, CISOs, and IT leaders: coverage, security, automation, pricing, and proven scale.

TL;DR: Three Things to Know Before You Read On

1. If you need phone plan management to integrate into your existing IT and HR systems, Gigs for Work is purpose-built for exactly that. It connects to leading HR and payroll systems, MDM platforms, and business communication tools, and auto-provisions and auto-terminates eSIMs tied to the employee lifecycle. Telgea integrates with select HRM platforms and positions that as a core feature, but integrations are built individually, and setup can get complicated depending on which systems you run.

2. If enterprise security is on your evaluation checklist, the two platforms are not equivalent. Gigs, launched in 2020, is SOC 2 Type II certified, GDPR and CCPA compliant, and supports SAML SSO. Telgea launched in November 2024 and has not published comparable security certifications or compliance documentation.

3. If coverage across your entire workforce matters, Gigs for Work supports local phone plans in 50+ countries with roaming in 195+ countries. Telgea is active in 8 markets. For enterprises with employees outside that footprint, the gap is not a roadmap item to wait on.

Side-by-Side Comparison

The table below covers the categories that matter most when evaluating an enterprise phone plan management platform. For a deeper look at each, see the section-by-section breakdown that follows.

What Is Enterprise Employee Connectivity?

Enterprise employee connectivity covers the systems organizations use to provision, manage, and secure corporate mobile phone lines for their workforce. In 2026, that means eSIM provisioning, roaming management, security controls, automated offboarding, and integration with the HR and IT tools enterprises already run.

The average enterprise spends over $1,200 per employee annually just to maintain connectivity. Traditional carriers like AT&T Business and Verizon Business offer strong domestic coverage but were not designed for multi-country automation, HR system integration, or programmatic eSIM provisioning. That is the gap Gigs and Telgea were built to fill.

What Is Gigs for Work, and Why Do Fortune 500 Companies Choose It?

Gigs is the connectivity OS for mobile services, founded in 2020 and backed by Ribbit Capital, Google, and Y Combinator. It operates as a software-defined telecom provider, partnering directly with top-tier carriers in each country and delivering mobile connectivity through a single API, so any organization can provision and manage phone plans without building or maintaining carrier relationships themselves.

Gigs for Work is the enterprise phone plan management platform built on Gigs' connectivity OS, designed for IT and security teams managing employee eSIM provisioning across global workforces. Gigs is trusted by the fastest-scaling companies including Revolut, Nubank, Klarna, NETGEAR, and LATAM Airlines.

Gigs for Work automates eSIM provisioning, management, and termination across the full employment lifecycle. When a new hire joins, their eSIM activates automatically. When they leave, their plan terminates automatically, using the same trigger that cuts off email and device access. No manual IT steps. No orphaned lines.

What makes Gigs stand out to Fortune 500 companies in 2026? The platform is SOC 2 Type II certified, GDPR and CCPA compliant, PCI DSS SAQ A certified, and supports SAML SSO. It charges a flat $35 per employee per month for unlimited local talk, text, and data across 50+ countries: a single invoice, no pooled data models, no pricing that shifts as teams grow or travel. The platform runs on greater than 99.99% API uptime, backed by the same infrastructure that powers connectivity for enterprises with hundreds of millions of users worldwide.

Most importantly, it is proven at scale. Klarna deployed Gigs for Work in under three weeks with two engineers, consolidating more than 20 carrier contracts into a single platform, reducing IT support headcount from 10 to 1, and cutting phone plan costs by $2M in the first year.

What Is Telgea?

Telgea is a mobile plan management platform for businesses. Headquartered in Delaware, its founding team is based in Stockholm and Copenhagen, and it has raised $2.7M across a pre-seed and a venture round.

Telgea's core value proposition is carrier consolidation. It is eSIM-only and currently active in 8 countries, primarily in Europe. Key features include integrations with HRM platforms to trigger eSIM provisioning and termination as part of employee onboarding and offboarding, and a CRM call-logging integration for sales teams.

The company's data model is a shared pool: rather than allocating data per employee, the entire team draws from a single shared bucket. For companies concentrated in Telgea's active markets with teams that have uneven data usage patterns, the shared data pool model can deliver genuine cost efficiency compared to per-line pricing.

Telgea claims 24/7 customer support with a 4.9 CSAT score and markets AI-assisted onboarding and support through its platform. The company has signed customers including Acast, Teamtailor, PinMeTo, Normain, and Legora.

When is Telgea a good fit? If your employees are based exclusively in the 8 markets where Telgea operates, you are comfortable managing connectivity through a manual HRIS integration and have the development capacity to configure it, security and compliance certifications are not a hard requirement for your business, and you are not overly concerned about network quality — Telgea may deliver enough for your needs at a competitive price point.

Where Telgea has limitations for enterprise IT teams:

• Coverage gaps. Active in 8 countries, primarily in Europe. Local plans are not available across Asia-Pacific, Latin America, the Middle East, or Africa.

• No published security certifications. SOC 2, GDPR, CCPA, and equivalent compliance documentation are not publicly available, which is a material gap for regulated industries.

• Manual roaming activation. Roaming must be activated manually, creating friction for teams with frequent international travel.

• Integrations built one by one. HRM integrations are built individually without a unified middleware layer. Enterprises on unsupported systems may wait for a bespoke build.

• No third-party review presence. No listings on G2, Capterra, or Trustpilot, making independent validation of the user experience difficult for enterprise buyers conducting due diligence.

Where the Platforms Differ: A Closer Look

Geographic Coverage

For a global enterprise, coverage breadth in 2026 is not a nice-to-have. It is table stakes.

Gigs for Work supports local phone plans in 50+ countries and international roaming in 195+ countries. Enterprise organizations can provision an eSIM for an employee in the US, Germany, Singapore, and Brazil under the same contract and at the same price. There are no exceptions for specific markets, no phased rollouts, and no waiting for a new country to become available.

Telgea is active in 8 countries. Expansion is ongoing, and the company has described a roadmap for adding new markets. For enterprises with employees in countries outside its current footprint, these coverage gaps are a practical constraint to strongly consider.

Roaming

For enterprises with internationally mobile employees, roaming is one of the fastest-growing cost and complexity categories in IT operations.

Gigs for Work covers international roaming in 195+ countries. Roaming eSIMs are provisioned and terminated through the same automated workflows as local plans, with no additional IT overhead. Employees traveling internationally are connected automatically, with no manual activation steps and no separate process for IT to manage.

The depth of Gigs' roaming infrastructure is reflected in the scale of its consumer deployments. Nubank, Wealthsimple, and LATAM Airlines have all launched consumer travel eSIM products built on the same Gigs roaming infrastructure that underpins its enterprise offering, a useful proxy for reliability at scale.

Telgea offers roaming via its partnership with 3 World. However, roaming activation is a manual process, meaning IT teams or employees must take additional steps to enable coverage before travel. For enterprises with frequent international travel across multiple markets, manual roaming activation creates operational friction and unpredictable cost exposure.

Security and Compliance

This is the sharpest point of differentiation for enterprise buyers.

Gigs has completed a SOC 2 Type II audit, is GDPR and CCPA compliant, holds PCI DSS SAQ A certification, and supports SAML SSO. The Gigs Trust Center is publicly accessible and documents the full control set.

Telgea does not publicly document equivalent security certifications. For CISOs and compliance-focused IT leaders, the absence of independently verified security documentation is a meaningful gap, particularly for regulated industries such as financial services, healthcare, and legal.

According to IBM's 2024 Cost of a Data Breach Report, the average cost of a data breach reached $4.88M in 2024, the highest on record. Mobile attack vectors, including unauthorized access through active lines tied to former employees, are among the fastest-growing entry points. Security certification is not a formality. It is risk management.

Automation and System Integration

Gigs for Work connects to leading HR and payroll systems via a unified API layer, enabling fully automated eSIM provisioning and termination based on HR events. It also integrates with MDM platforms and delivers eSIMs through Slack, Teams, WhatsApp, and email, with single-tap activation that requires no IT involvement.

Telgea builds HRM integrations individually, without a unified middleware layer. The HiBob integration is confirmed and publicly documented. Other integrations are listed on its website but their availability and depth may vary. For enterprises that rely on HR systems not yet supported by Telgea, waiting for a bespoke integration to be built is a real operational constraint.

Pricing and Budget Predictability

Gigs for Work charges a flat $35 per employee per month, globally, regardless of market or data usage. A single line item. A single invoice. No surprises.

Telgea uses a shared data pool model, with pricing starting from $24/month for US plans. Enterprise pricing is customized. The shared pool model can deliver cost efficiency when usage is uneven across a team, but it adds complexity to budget forecasting, especially for organizations with distributed, mobile-heavy workforces.

Proven Scale and Track Record

Gigs was founded in 2020, has been operating at scale for five years, and powers connectivity for enterprises with hundreds of millions of users, including Revolut, Nubank, Klarna, NETGEAR, and LATAM Airlines. Gigs for Work customers have cut IT overhead by up to 90% and reduced eSIM provisioning time from 48 hours to 30 seconds per plan. No competitor in this space can point to results like these.

Telgea launched its platform in November 2024. It is early-stage, with approximately 23 employees and $1M in ARR. Its customers include fast-growing European tech companies, a good signal for product-market fit in that segment. However, Telgea has no published listings on G2, Capterra, or Trustpilot, meaning there is no independent customer record to evaluate. For larger enterprises selecting a long-term connectivity partner, the combination of limited operating history, a small team, and no third-party validation is a meaningful risk factor.

Why Gigs Is the Best Employee Phone Plan Provider for Enterprises in 2026

The best enterprise phone plan provider is the one that eliminates manual IT work, enforces security automatically, covers every country your employees are in, and holds up under audit. Gigs for Work does all four.

It is the only platform in this comparison with SOC 2 Type II certification, coverage across 50+ countries from a single contract, fully automated eSIM lifecycle management tied to HR events, and a flat per-employee price that does not change as teams grow or travel. It is built on direct carrier partnerships, not aggregators, and is trusted by enterprises including Revolut, Nubank, Klarna, NETGEAR, and LATAM Airlines to run connectivity at scale.

For CIOs and CISOs evaluating enterprise connectivity in 2026, Gigs for Work is the infrastructure-grade answer. Not a workaround. Not a stopgap. The platform built for the job.

Gigs for Work is available to enterprise organizations globally. More information, including pricing, coverage maps, security documentation, and API references, is available at gigs.com/products/gigs-for-work.

Sources: Samsung Business — Maximizing Mobile Value (2022) | Lookout Mobile Threat Landscape Report (2024) | IBM Cost of a Data Breach Report (2024) | Gigs Trust Center