Simify charges the same for Bali and Berlin. Here’s what that costs you

The price comparison

Ten gigabytes over thirty days, in Australian dollars.

The 35-area plan does not include France. If Paris or anywhere else in France is on your itinerary, take Europe 30+ Areas instead: it covers 34 destinations including France and Turkey, and 10GB over 30 days is A$29.95. The 35-area list also leaves out Turkey, Serbia, North Macedonia, Gibraltar and the Channel Islands.

Two rows go to Simify, and the global row goes to them by a lot.

Their full ladder, verified from their own public product feed and identical across all sixteen destination handles:

Against ours at 20GB: A$24.95 in Indonesia, A$29.95 in Japan and Thailand, A$34.95 in the USA, the UK, Vietnam and New Zealand. Their A$75 is roughly triple ours on the cheap end.

Our full ladder for every destination is in travel eSIM prices in Australia. The SIM Shop is not registered for GST, so GST is not charged. The checkout total is the amount we charge you.

Where the flat rate genuinely wins

We promised this in the meta description, so here it is properly rather than as a token paragraph.

Global and multi-region trips. Our global plan at 10GB is A$89.95 and theirs is A$49. If you are crossing several regions on one trip, a flat plan that covers everything can beat buying three regional ones, and it removes the risk of getting the coverage list wrong.

Expensive destinations. Flat pricing means you pay the Thailand price everywhere. That is bad value in Thailand and reasonable value in places where wholesale data is expensive and everybody else’s price jumps.

Europe. They beat our 41-destination plan by ninety-five cents, which is not a meaningful gap but it is on the correct side of zero. Europe 30+ Areas includes France and Turkey at A$29.95, while our 35-area plan is A$24.95 without France. Both are well below Simify; only our 41-destination plan is higher.

Not having to think. There is a real cost to comparison shopping. Some people will pay a premium to buy the same thing every trip and never check a table again, and Simify’s model serves that customer honestly.

Where Simify beats us

Four things.

1. Their throttled speed is the fastest in the category. Their help centre publishes it:

“Once you use around 1-1.5GB of high-speed data within a single day, your connection may slow down for the rest of that day. This is called throttling. When throttled, your speed is reduced to around 3 Mbps.”

Three megabits is faster than anyone else we have measured, including Ubigi’s 2 Mbps and well ahead of the 1 Mbps that most of this category drops to.

The catch, and it is a real one, is that 1 to 1.5GB a day is by far the lowest trigger in the category. Maps, messaging and a couple of videos will reach it. And a separate Simify article contradicts that one, saying unlimited plans have “no hard data cap” with slowdowns only from “very high usage in a short time.” Quote the article with the number in it.

2. Their help centre refund policy is genuinely well written. It is eSIM-aware, it is generous, and its conditions are reasonable:

“eSIMs are digital products and cannot be physically returned. There is no traditional ‘return’ process.”

“If your travel plans change and you no longer need your eSIM, you may qualify for a full refund if: The eSIM was purchased directly from the Simify website; The eSIM has not been activated; The purchase was made within the last 6 months (180 days).”

One hundred and eighty days on an unactivated plan is more generous than ours.

3. The clause we copied. Buried in that same policy:

“If you are unable to contact us whilst abroad, try to take screenshots of the error and your APN settings so that we can assist you as soon as you return.”

Nearly everyone in this category, us included until we read that line, requires you to report a fault while it is happening. That is a rule written for the seller’s convenience: the person most likely to need a refund is the person whose phone cannot get online, and telling them to contact you from the phone that does not work is not a policy.

Simify is the only company we found that publishes a way out of it. We have since put the same fallback in our own refund policy, in close to the same words. They wrote the better rule and they deserve the credit for it.

4. They are Australian, and they have been at it since 2018. Sydney-founded, selling to Australians, and they publish hotspot troubleshooting guides for iPhone, Samsung and Pixel that are more detailed than most of this category manages.

Simify publishes two complete refund policies simultaneously, on two live pages. The help centre one quoted above is good. The other, on their Shopify policies page, says:

“Our policy lasts 30 days. If 30 days have gone by since your purchase, unfortunately we can’t offer you a refund or exchange.”

“To be eligible for a return, your item must be unused and in the same condition that you received it. It must also be in the original packaging.”

“To return your product, you should mail your product to: 302A/30 Innesdale Rd Wolli Creek, NSW 2205.”

“Only regular priced items may be refunded, unfortunately sale items cannot be refunded.”

The two disagree on three things that matter.

The window. Thirty days against one hundred and eighty. Buy in January for a July trip, cancel in March, and you are refundable under one policy and time-barred under the other. Nothing on either page says which governs.

Physical return. One says post it back to Wolli Creek at your own cost with return shipping deducted from your refund. The other says eSIMs cannot be returned and no return is required.

Sale items. One excludes them outright. The other does not mention them. Simify runs seasonal offers, bundle deals, app-exclusive pricing, a first-purchase discount and a referral programme, so a large share of their orders are arguably sale items.

There is also a third intake route, a Google Form linked from their money back guarantee page, and a fourth document covering cancellations.

4. Published support hours that make sense. Simify publishes “We are responsive between 10AM to 5PM.” No time zone. No days of the week. If you are in Rome working out when someone will answer, that sentence does not help.
5. Our governing law clause names a body of law. Simify’s Terms of Service, Section 18, reads:

“These Terms of Service and any separate agreements whereby we provide you Services shall be governed by and construed in accordance with the laws of 715 South Curley St., Baltimore, Maryland 21224, United States.”

That is the unedited placeholder from Shopify’s sample terms template, and it appears on two of their pages. A street address is not a body of law, so the clause does not do anything.

We are not suggesting Simify is trying to move your rights to Maryland. Nobody is. It is an unedited template on an Australian company’s live terms page. What it means for you in practice is very little, because Australian consumer guarantees apply to services supplied to Australian consumers regardless of what a contract says. What it tells you is something about how closely the paperwork has been read, on a site that also publishes two contradictory refund policies and still lists pre-rebrand email addresses.

Full detail on the underlying rights: travel eSIM refunds and Australian Consumer Law.

Where we are the same

Both Australian. Both of us sit inside the Australian Consumer Law in a way that Airalo, Holafly, Ubigi and Nomad, contracting through Singapore, Ireland, France and nowhere in particular, do not.

Neither of us publishes a phone number. Both email and chat.

Both permit hotspot with no published device limit and no surcharge.

Neither of us dates our policy pages. Simify publishes no last-updated date on any policy, help centre article or terms page. Neither do we, and we should.

The verdict

Buy from Simify if you are buying a global or multi-region plan, where their A$49 beats our A$89.95 by a wide margin. Or if you want one price and no decisions across sixteen destinations. Or if you buy unlimited and would rather be throttled to 3 Mbps than to 1 Mbps, accepting the much lower trigger.

Buy from us if you are going to any single Asian destination, the UK, New Zealand or China, where we are twenty-four to thirty-two dollars cheaper on the same amount of data. Or if you want one refund policy instead of two that contradict each other. Or if you want support hours with a time zone attached.

Both of us are Australian companies, which genuinely narrows the field from about twenty options to a handful, and is the reason this comparison is worth doing.

We have also compared Simify against the other Australian retailer in this market, without us in the picture, in SimCorner vs Simify.

Questions people actually ask

Is Simify or The SIM Shop cheaper?

We are cheaper on every destination we compared except global. On Europe we are lower on the 35-area and Europe 30+ Areas plans, while Simify beats our 41-destination plan by ninety-five cents. On single Asian destinations the gap runs to about thirty dollars on the same 10GB.

Why is Simify the same price for every country?

They run one flat price list shared across sixteen destination handles, so 10GB over 30 days is A$49 whether you are going to Bali or Berlin. It is poor value in cheap destinations and reasonable value on global and multi-region trips.

Is Simify Australian?

Yes. They trade as SimsDirect Pty Ltd, started in Sydney in 2018, and their return address is in Wolli Creek, NSW. Their published governing law clause, however, names a street address in Baltimore, Maryland, which is unedited boilerplate from a Shopify template.

What is Simify’s refund policy?

There are two live ones and they disagree. Their help centre policy allows 180 days for an unactivated eSIM with no return required. Their Shopify policies page allows 30 days, requires physical return in original packaging, and excludes sale items. Nothing says which governs.

How fast is Simify’s throttled speed?

Around 3 Mbps, which is the fastest in this category. The trigger is around 1 to 1.5GB of high speed data per day, which is the lowest in the category, so most travellers will reach it on a normal day.

Does Simify offer phone support?

No. Neither do we. Simify publishes “We are responsive between 10AM to 5PM” without stating a time zone or which days.

Can I use a hotspot on Simify?

Yes, with no published cap or surcharge, and they publish detailed hotspot troubleshooting for iPhone, Samsung and Pixel. On any provider, an iPhone hotspot failure is usually the Personal Hotspot APN field.

Which is better for a multi-country trip?

Simify, if the trip crosses several regions. Their flat A$49 global plan beats our A$89.95, and one plan removes the risk of getting a regional coverage list wrong.

Sources

Our own prices from our live product pages. Simify prices from their Australian store and their public product feed. Simify policy quotes from their refund policy, their help centre money back guarantee and refund policy, their money back guarantee page, their Terms of Service and their help centre articles on throttling and hotspot. Simify publishes no last-updated date on any policy page, so all quotes are recorded as retrieved 17 to 20 August 2026. We re-check every price in this article monthly.

Written by Lachlan, who runs The SIM Shop from Brisbane and answers the support email himself.