# Questions about the method

The questions from https://esimradar.com/faq, in the words that page uses. Nothing here is condensed.

They are short by design. The ranking rule is written out in full — the usable-data cap, the tie-break, what a commercial relationship buys — in [How we rank plans](https://esimradar.com/md/how-we-rank.md), and where the two disagree in tone, that one is the specification.

The page also carries the site's small print below these questions: where prices come from, what a converted figure means, what "unlimited" usually means in practice. That is not repeated here; see [About eSIMradar](https://esimradar.com/md/about.md) and the page itself.

## What decides the order plans appear in?

Price per gigabyte you could actually use: the plan's own price divided by its data allowance, capped at what its validity allows. A 100 GB plan that expires tomorrow is ranked on the two gigabytes a day can hold, not on a hundred, because nobody moves 100 GB in a day and dividing by a number the plan cannot deliver buys the top of the board for nothing. Plans sized for their own duration are unaffected. Unlimited plans are ranked the same way, on their daily high-speed allowance. None of it is a score we assign, and the ordering itself is never bought: a commercial relationship can decide which plans a view puts forward, never where a plan lands once it is in one.

## Do you earn money from these links?

On some providers, yes. Those links are marked as sponsored and we say on the provider's page that we earn a commission. It does not move a plan up the list — the ordering is computed before we know who pays us.

## Then what does a commission change?

Which plans we put in front of you, never the order they come in. A partnership decides four things: eligibility for the gradient "top pick" marker, the "Our picks" shelf above a board, a place on the labelled partner row, and which plans the "Recommended" tab of a destination board lists. A provider without one is ranked on identical maths, and its plans appear in full under "Cheapest first", "Most data" and "Longest validity". We would rather explain that rule than hide it.

## How current are these prices?

We re-check every provider daily and record a price point whenever one actually changes. The pulse at the top of each page states when the data behind that page was last refreshed.

## Is "unlimited" really unlimited?

Usually not. Most unlimited plans slow down sharply after a daily allowance. Where a provider publishes that cap we show it next to the word unlimited, because it is the number that decides whether the plan suits you — and it is also the number we rank the plan on, so an unlimited plan competes on what it delivers rather than on the word.

## Why rank on price per GB rather than price?

Because the cheapest plan is often the worst value. A $4 plan with 1 GB costs four times as much per gigabyte as a $8 plan with 5 GB. Per-GB is the figure that compares plans of different sizes honestly — as long as the gigabytes are real, which is why the figure we rank on is capped at what the plan's validity lets you use.

## A provider I know is not here. Why?

Either we have not added them yet or their catalog is not machine-readable. Any provider can list themselves — the process is automated and free.