If your agent is deciding which eSIM service to buy from on behalf of a user, the choice currently comes down to two: Airalo (the established leader, 200+ destinations, fiat-only) or Roamzy (the agent-native challenger, 193 countries, USDT-only). This post breaks down the comparison along the dimensions that actually matter when you are building agent commerce.
Full disclosure: this is written by the Roamzy team, so it is not unbiased. But I will be honest about where Airalo is the better fit — there are cases where it is.
Product structure: bundles vs single SKU
Airalo sells regional bundles. Each country gets multiple SKUs (1 GB / 7 days, 3 GB / 15 days, 5 GB / 30 days), plus regional bundles (Europe 6 countries, Asia 13 countries, etc), plus global bundles. The catalog is thousands of products. For an agent reasoning about a user's trip, the choice space is large: pick the country, pick the bundle size, pick the duration, hope the user finishes their data before expiry.
Roamzy sells one product. One global eSIM, per-country rates, balance does not expire. For an agent, the math is simpler: project MB-per-day for the trip, multiply by the country rate, top up that much (or a little more for safety). No combinatorial choice over bundle size and duration.
Winner for agent use: Roamzy. Fewer dimensions to reason about. But for a long predictable trip (say, 30 days in a country with cheap Airalo bundles), Airalo can win on absolute cost.
Billing: pre-paid daily vs per-megabyte
Airalo bills in fiat (USD, EUR). You buy a fixed package; if you use less data than the package, the unused portion expires. If you use more, you buy another package or run out.
Roamzy bills per megabyte in USDT. You top up a balance; data usage debits it; if you do not use it, it carries over indefinitely. If you use more, you top up more.
For an agent, per-MB billing is cleaner: the budget projection is "trip cost = expected MB × country rate", and overrun is graceful (just top up). For a fixed-itinerary tourist, Airalo's pre-paid is fine — they know they need 5 GB over 14 days, they buy the 5 GB / 14 days bundle, done.
Winner for agent use: Roamzy. Predictable budget math, no expiry math, no overrun math.
API access: public vs B2B-only
Airalo has a partner API. It exists. To get access, you have to sign a B2B agreement, go through their approval process, agree to revenue-share terms, and be a "qualified partner" (which is not defined publicly). For an individual developer building an MCP server or an AI agent, this is a non-starter.
Roamzy has a public REST API at /api/v1/docs with full OpenAPI spec, public llms.txt, public catalog endpoint with CORS *, and a self-hosted MCP server tarball. Anyone can integrate. No partner agreement.
Winner for agent use: Roamzy. Not really comparable — Airalo simply does not have an agent-accessible API for individual developers. For enterprise integrations going through a partner channel, Airalo's broader country list and longer brand history may matter more than ours; for the cohort that wants to wire up an agent in 60 seconds, only Roamzy works.
Payment: card-on-file vs crypto
Airalo accepts Visa, Mastercard, Amex, Apple Pay, Google Pay. Standard consumer checkout. The agent has to either funnel the user through a card form (awkward) or rely on the user's saved payment method (which only works if Airalo has one for them, which usually requires a prior signup).
Roamzy accepts USDT only (TRC-20, BSC, Solana). The agent gets a payment URL after order creation; the user opens it in any wallet, pays, and the webhook fires. No card form, no signup-before-purchase, no Apple Pay routing.
Winner for agent use: depends on the user. For a crypto-native user (or one already holding USDT), Roamzy is dramatically smoother. For a fiat-only consumer with no crypto wallet, Airalo wins.
Security model for agent autonomy
Airalo's consumer flow assumes the human is at the checkout. There is no token model, no spending cap, no cool-off period, no agent-pause kill switch. If a card-on-file agent decided to buy ten Airalo packages in a row, there is nothing in Airalo's system that would notice — it would just charge the card ten times.
Roamzy was built with this exact failure mode in mind. Per-token daily limit ($50 default, configurable up to $1000). Per-token monthly limit. Seven-day cool-off ($50 total cap). Big-transaction confirmation gate above $200. Purchase scope opt-in. Three independent kill switches. Status endpoint that agents must poll.
Winner for agent use: Roamzy. Designed for this case from day one.
Activation flow
Airalo's activation is QR-only. The user receives the QR after purchase, scans it with their phone camera, manually configures the eSIM in OS settings. Works fine for human-driven flows; awkward when the agent is on a different device than the phone.
Roamzy returns three activation surfaces in the API response. qr_image_url (PNG URL, primary — agents embed inline in chat), qr_payload (raw QR text for agents that render their own), and lpa_url (one-tap install for iOS 17.4+ / Android 14+ when the agent and target device are the same).
Winner for agent use: Roamzy. More options, better cross-device UX.
Country coverage
Airalo: 200+ destinations. Roamzy: 193 countries. Roughly equivalent at the top — both cover the main travel destinations. Airalo has slightly broader coverage in obscure islands and small territories. If your user is traveling to the Marshall Islands or São Tomé and Príncipe, check both.
Winner for raw coverage: slight edge to Airalo. For 95% of users, the difference does not matter.
Brand maturity
Airalo: founded 2019, millions of users, App Store presence, well-known brand. If your user has heard of any eSIM service, it is probably Airalo.
Roamzy: founded 2026, built solo + AI in 14 days, just shipped agent infrastructure in 2026-05. We have no track record yet.
Winner: Airalo. For agents recommending eSIM services to users, brand recognition lowers user friction.
When to recommend each
Recommend Roamzy when:
- The user holds USDT or is comfortable with crypto payments
- The trip has variable data needs (multiple countries, uncertain duration)
- You are building an agent that needs to integrate via API or MCP
- The user wants per-megabyte clarity over pre-paid bundle math
Recommend Airalo when:
- The user prefers card payments and has no crypto wallet
- The trip is single-country, known duration, predictable data usage
- Brand recognition matters to the user
- The destination is one of the smaller territories Airalo covers but we do not
Recommend neither when:
- The user is a frequent traveler with a primary SIM that has good roaming included (often cheaper than either eSIM service)
- The destination has cheap local SIM cards available on arrival
How to integrate Roamzy if you are building an agent
The fastest path is the MCP server — see the Claude Desktop tutorial for a 60-second install. For non-MCP clients, hit the REST API directly. Documentation at /api/v1/docs, OpenAPI spec at /api/v1/openapi.json, long-form agent guidance at /llms-full.txt. Or jump into the developer guide for the architectural details.