Published by Gigs | June 2026

Not all eSIM providers are built for the same job. This article compares Gigs, Airalo, and Holafly for enterprise organizations evaluating eSIM solutions for their workforce in 2026.

This comparison is written for CIOs, CTOs, CISOs, and IT leaders evaluating local and travel eSIM and employee connectivity options for their global workforce.

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

1. If your employees need more than travel data eSIMs, Gigs for Work is the best option. Gigs for Work provides both local eSIM phone plans with unlimited talk, text, and data in 50+ countries, plus travel eSIMs covering 195+ countries. Airalo and Holafly do not offer local phone plans. They only have travel eSIM options.

2. If automated eSIM lifecycle management matters to your IT team, Gigs for Work is the only platform of the three built to sync eSIM provisioning and termination with HR and IT workflows. Neither Airalo nor Holafly offer this kind of employee lifecycle integration.

3. If network quality is non-negotiable, Gigs for Work connects directly to market-leading carriers in each country with no aggregators in between. Airalo and Holafly use marketplace network models, meaning the quality of your employees' connection varies by destination and the third-party operator they land on.

Side-by-Side Comparison

The table below covers the categories that matter most when evaluating an eSIM provider for enterprise employees. For a deeper look at each, see the section-by-section breakdown that follows.

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 employee phone plans without building or maintaining carrier relationships themselves.

Gigs for Work is the enterprise phone plan management platform built on Gigs' connectivity OS. It is designed for IT and security teams managing eSIM provisioning across global workforces, and trusted by some of the world's fastest-scaling companies including Klarna, Bending Spoons, Wayflyer, ICEYE, and Multiverse Computing.

Why do Fortune 500 companies choose Gigs for Work?

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 using the same trigger that cuts off email and device access. No manual IT steps. No orphaned lines. eSIM installation is delivered via Slack, Teams, WhatsApp, or email, with a single tap to activate.

The platform is SOC 2 Type II certified, GDPR and CCPA compliant, PCI DSS SAQ A certified, and supports SAML SSO. Coverage spans local eSIM phone plans in 50+ countries and travel eSIMs in 195+ countries, all under a single invoice and a single API, running on greater than 99.99% API uptime.

What Is Airalo for Business?

Airalo is a leading consumer eSIM marketplace with coverage across 200+ countries. Airalo for Business extends the core marketplace to enterprise use cases, allowing IT teams to centrally assign travel data eSIMs to employees, set spending limits, and consolidate invoicing. It also supports a self-purchase feature allowing employees to buy eSIMs directly through its app using corporate or personal cards.

Its platform carries the necessary enterprise security credentials: SOC 2 Type II compliance, GDPR and PCI DSS alignment, and SSO and SCIM support.

Where Airalo for Business has limitations for enterprise IT teams:

• Travel data only. Airalo does not offer local phone plans. All eSIMs are travel data packages. Domestic employee phone lines are not covered.

• Marketplace network model. Airalo aggregates network access from third-party operators. Network quality varies by destination, with no guaranteed prioritized access to top-tier carriers.

• No HR lifecycle integration. SCIM manages platform access but does not trigger eSIM deactivation when an employee leaves the organization.

• Consumer-first architecture. Airalo was built as a B2C platform and expanded into B2B. The enterprise product inherits that foundation, including a support model designed around individual consumer troubleshooting rather than IT team workflows.

What Is Holafly for Business?

Holafly is one of the largest travel eSIM providers globally, with millions of users and more than 78,000 Trustpilot reviews. In January 2026, it launched Holafly Plans for Business, an enterprise offering with three tiered plans. The platform's Business Center provides centralized plan assignment, usage analytics, and monthly invoicing. Notable enterprise customers include Nike, Deloitte, Airbnb, and Volvo.

Where Holafly for Business has limitations for enterprise IT teams:

• Travel data only. Holafly does not offer local eSIM phone plans. All plans are data-only and travel-focused, with no voice or SMS on the local network.

• Undisclosed Fair Use Policy. Unlimited plans are subject to throttling, but the data threshold is not publicly disclosed. Independent testing shows speeds dropping from approximately 7 MB/s to under 1 MB/s around 4.5GB of daily usage.

• Tethering caps. Unlimited plans cap hotspot tethering at 500MB to 1GB per day depending on destination, a meaningful constraint for employees who need to connect a laptop while traveling.

• No independently certified security standards. Holafly references GDPR compliance publicly but does not document SOC 2, ISO 27001, PCI DSS, or equivalent independently audited certifications anywhere on its site.

• No HR lifecycle integration. Holafly for Business does not document eSIM lifecycle management tied to employee onboarding or offboarding.

Where the Platforms Differ

Local Plans vs. Travel Data

A travel data eSIM gives an employee mobile internet access in a foreign country. It does not give them a local phone number, and it does not replace a domestic phone plan. It sits on top of a device that already has a primary line, adding a data layer for the duration of a trip.

Most enterprises still manage their primary employee phone lines through legacy carrier contracts: country-by-country agreements, physical SIM card provisioning, and manual IT overhead. According to Samsung's enterprise mobility research, the average company spends over $1,200 per employee annually just to maintain connectivity, while IT teams lose more than a third of their time managing mobile devices.

Airalo and Holafly address the travel data layer only. Gigs for Work provisions full eSIM phone plans: a dedicated business number, unlimited local talk, text, and data from prioritized carrier networks across 50+ countries, plus travel eSIMs covering 195+ countries, all under a single global invoice.

Data Quality and What "Unlimited" Actually Means

Both Airalo and Holafly now offer unlimited data packages for business travelers. But unlimited is not a uniform standard.

Airalo's unlimited plans deliver 3GB of full-speed data per 24-hour period, then throttle to 1Mbps until midnight. Airalo discloses this clearly before purchase. Hotspot tethering is unrestricted on unlimited plans, which is a genuine advantage over Holafly.

Holafly's unlimited plans are subject to a Fair Use Policy with an undisclosed threshold. Independent testing shows throttling kicking in around 4.5GB of daily usage, with speeds dropping to under 1Mbps. Tethering is capped at 500MB to 1GB per day depending on destination.

Gigs for Work takes a different approach. Local eSIM phone plans include fully unlimited talk, text, and data on prioritized carrier networks, delivered directly from top-tier carriers with no aggregators in between. That means no throttling and no slow downs. Travel eSIMs covering 195+ countries are available as an add-on, with hotspot data included across all plans.

Security and Automated Offboarding

When an employee leaves an organization, active phone lines rarely receive the same offboarding treatment as email accounts or SSO credentials. An active eSIM tied to a former employee is an unauthorized access vector: phone numbers underpin multi-factor authentication and account recovery flows across virtually every enterprise system.

The 2024 Verizon Mobile Security Index found that more than half of organizations experienced a significant security incident involving mobile devices in the preceding year.

Gigs for Work addresses this with automated eSIM lifecycle management. When an employee leaves, their eSIM deactivates automatically. No manual IT intervention, no termination fees, no gap between the HR event and the network action. The platform is SOC 2 Type II certified, GDPR and CCPA compliant, PCI DSS SAQ A certified, and supports SAML SSO.

Airalo for Business supports SCIM for platform access management but does not automatically deactivate a travel eSIM when an employee exits the organization. Holafly for Business references GDPR compliance but does not publicly document SOC 2, ISO 27001, PCI DSS, or equivalent independently audited certifications, and does not offer HR lifecycle integration at the enterprise level.

Platform Architecture

Airalo and Holafly are marketplace-native platforms. They aggregate eSIM packages from third-party networks and distribute them to consumers and businesses. For enterprise IT, that model introduces dependencies on third-party network quality and limits how deeply the connectivity layer can integrate with internal systems.

Gigs operates as a connectivity OS and software-defined telecom provider, connecting directly to market-leading carriers in each country with no aggregators in between. Because Gigs acts as Carrier of Record, it absorbs telecom regulatory complexity on behalf of its customers: no MVNO licensing, no carrier negotiations per market, no compliance burden passed back to IT.

Proven Track Record: What Users Are Saying

Enterprise track record matters. 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.

The user review picture for Airalo and Holafly is more mixed, and the documented complaint patterns are worth understanding before deploying either across an enterprise workforce.

Airalo holds a 3.9/5 Trustpilot rating across more than 22,000 reviews as of early 2026. Recurring complaints are directly relevant to enterprise use: eSIMs failing on arrival with no fallback, sudden data cutoffs without warning, and bot-only support cycling through scripted responses. One reviewer described landing in Panama, being charged twice while the eSIM failed to install, and spending hours without data. A Product Hunt review summary documents the most frequent complaint categories: poor customer support (28 documented cases), connectivity issues (13), and slow refund process (9). For a traveling employee depending on their connection for business-critical tasks, these are operational failures, not minor inconveniences.

Holafly's higher Trustpilot rating of 4.6/5 across 78,000+ reviews reflects a large and mostly satisfied user base. The enterprise-relevant complaints center on undisclosed throttling and tethering limits. One reviewer described service in Thailand as "very sparse" with "signal dropouts consistently, even when sitting in one place in the city." Another reported an eSIM stopping entirely after three days of a 23-day unlimited Asia plan. Independent testing by Yesim corroborates the pattern: speeds dropping from approximately 7 MB/s to under 1 MB/s once the undisclosed daily limit is reached.

Who Is Each Platform Right For?

Beyond Travel Data: The Case for a Complete Enterprise Connectivity OS

Airalo and Holafly made travel eSIMs accessible. That is a real contribution to the market. But in 2026, for enterprises managing a globally distributed workforce, travel data eSIMs are a partial solution to a larger problem.

Most organizations still run employee phone plan management through fragmented carrier contracts, manual SIM card provisioning, and IT processes disconnected from HR systems. Local plans and travel coverage managed separately. Roaming costs that arrive as surprises. Lines that stay active after employees leave.

Gigs for Work is the only platform of the three that treats employee connectivity as a complete system: local eSIM plans and travel eSIMs, automated lifecycle management synced with HR workflows, and a single global invoice covering 50+ countries, built on direct carrier partnerships rather than a marketplace layer. Proven at scale by companies like Klarna, Bending Spoons, and Wayflyer.

That is the difference between a travel data add-on and an enterprise connectivity OS.

To learn more about Gigs for Work, visit gigs.com/products/gigs-for-work.

Frequently Asked Questions

Does Gigs for Work support employees who already have carrier contracts in their home country?

Yes. With a Letter of Authorization (LOA), Gigs can take over management of existing lines, consolidate them into a single account, and handle carriers on your behalf. Enterprises do not need to wait for existing contracts to expire to migrate to Gigs for Work.

Do employees need a new device to use Gigs for Work SIMs?

No. Gigs for Work uses eSIM technology, which means employees install their plan digitally on their existing device. There is no physical SIM card to ship, no device swap required, and no IT team involvement at the employee level. Employees receive an installation link via Slack, Teams, WhatsApp, or email and activate with a single tap.

How does Gigs for Work compare to other enterprise phone plan platforms like Telgea or 1Global?

The short answer: Gigs for Work offers broader country coverage, direct carrier partnerships with no aggregators, and deeper HR system integration than either platform. For a full comparison, get all the details at Gigs vs. Telgea and Gigs vs. 1Global.

Sources: Samsung Business — Maximizing Mobile Value (2022) | Verizon Mobile Security Index (2024) | GSMA Intelligence — Roaming Market Overview | Airalo for Business | Airalo customer reviews — Trustpilot | Airalo product reviews — Product Hunt | Holafly for Business | Holafly Plans for Business launch announcement (January 2026) | Holafly customer reviews — Trustpilot | Holafly independent speed testing — Yesim (2025) | Airalo Self-Purchase feature announcement (March 2026) | Gigs Trust Center | Gigs.com