Pricing an eSIM plan comes down to three costs and one decision: what the provider charges you, what the payment costs, your share of the platform fee, and how much cash you want to keep on every order. This guide works through one plan from end to end, with illustrative numbers you can replace with your own.
What the traveller pays for
The traveller pays for one number: the price of data at their destination, set against the roaming charge they want to avoid and the first marketplace result they find. They never see your cost structure. Your job is to make that number competitive and still keep enough of it once everyone else is paid.
Which means the question is not "what can I charge". It is "what do I keep once everyone else has been paid". Those are different numbers, and the gap between them is where most of the disappointment in this business lives.
What the traveller does notice is the shape of the offer: the destination, the number of days, the amount of data and a price in a currency they recognise. Get those four right and the price only has to be reasonable, not the lowest on the internet. Get them wrong and no margin calculation will save the sale.
The three costs behind one sale
Every eSIM sale carries three costs: the provider's price for the plan, the payment processing fee, which is a percentage plus a fixed amount per transaction, and your platform fee, a flat monthly cost spread across the month's orders. Only the provider's price is worth negotiating, and only as your volume grows.
- The provider's price. What your supplier charges you for that plan, under your own agreement with them. This is the big one and it moves with volume.
- Payment processing. A percentage plus a fixed amount per transaction, set by your payment provider. The fixed part matters far more on cheap plans than people expect.
- Your platform fee. A flat monthly cost that does not move with volume, which means it gets cheaper per order the more you sell.
Notice what is not on that list: a commission on the sale. If someone is taking a cut of each order on top of the above, that is a fourth cost and it scales with your success rather than against it.
The three behave differently as you grow. The provider's price falls slowly, if at all, as you negotiate better terms. The payment fee stays the same share of every order forever. The platform fee shrinks per order with every sale you add. That is why the same plan can be marginal in your first month and comfortable in your sixth.
Working an example
Take two plans with the same 75% markup: one bought for $12 and sold for $21, one bought for $2 and sold for $3.50. After an illustrative card fee and platform share, the first keeps $7.59 per order and the second keeps $0.60. The markup is identical; the cash is not.
The figures in this example are illustrative. They are not eSIMLab prices or any provider's real rates. The card fee used is 2.9% + $0.30 per payment and the platform fee is assumed to work out at $0.50 per order. Your real payment fee depends on your provider, your country and your customers' cards.
| Per order | Plan A | Plan B |
|---|---|---|
| Provider's price | $12.00 | $2.00 |
| Selling price, 75% markup | $21.00 | $3.50 |
| Card fee, 2.9% + $0.30 | $0.91 | $0.40 |
| Platform fee share | $0.50 | $0.50 |
| What you keep | $7.59 | $0.60 |
| Kept as a share of the price | 36% | 17% |
On plan A, 2.9% of $21 is $0.61, and the fixed $0.30 brings the card fee to $0.91. Take away the provider's $12 and the $0.50 platform share, and $7.59 is left. On plan B, 2.9% of $3.50 is $0.10, so the card fee is $0.40. Take away $2 and $0.50, and you keep $0.60.
The difference is almost entirely the fixed part of the card fee. The same $0.30 is 1.4% of the price of plan A and 8.6% of the price of plan B. The platform share does the same thing: $0.50 is a rounding error on a $21 sale and a seventh of a $3.50 one.
The fixed part of a payment fee is invisible on a $40 plan and brutal on a $4 one. Cheap plans are where thin margins go to die.
The lesson is not "avoid cheap plans". Cheap plans bring people in. The lesson is that a single margin percentage across your whole catalogue quietly loses money at the bottom end and leaves money behind at the top.
Where margin quietly disappears
Margin leaks in places a spreadsheet does not show: refunds concentrated on destinations with patchy coverage, currency conversion between the price a traveller sees and the currency you are paid in, and discount codes applied to plans that were already thin. Each costs little per order and a lot over a quarter.
Refunds
Refunds are the obvious one, and they are not evenly spread. A destination with patchy coverage generates refunds at a rate that can erase the margin on every other sale in that region. If your reporting shows refund reasons next to margin, this is visible within a month. If it does not, it takes a quarter and a bad feeling.
Check whether your payment provider returns its processing fee when you refund a payment. If it does not, a refunded plan costs you the fee on top of the margin you never made.
Currency
If you show a price in one currency and are paid out in another, the conversion is a cost you did not choose, and it is charged on every order. Know which currency your payment account pays out in and whether a conversion fee applies, then price with that fee included rather than discovering it on a statement.
Discounts
A 20% discount code on a plan that keeps 17% of its price is a sale you pay for. Before you publish a code, work it through your cheapest plans, not your best-selling one. If the cheap plans go negative, either leave them out of the offer or make the code a fixed amount off rather than a percentage.
A rule you can actually apply
Set a floor in cash, not in percent: the minimum you are willing to keep on any order after the provider and the payment fee. Price cheap plans up to that floor and let the percentage fall where it lands. Then review it against one period of real sales and raise the busy, thin-margin destinations first.
On a $4 plan that floor may mean a markup that looks aggressive; on a $40 plan it will look modest. Both are correct, because the floor protects the cash and the market sets the ceiling.
In the example above, a floor of $1.50 moves plan B from $3.50 to $4.50. The card fee becomes $0.43, the platform share stays at $0.50, and you keep $1.57. That is a 125% markup, and it is still a price the traveller compares with roaming, not with your cost.
Then review it against one period of real sales rather than a forecast. The destinations that sell constantly at a thin margin are the ones to raise first, because the volume proves the demand is not price-sensitive at that level. Everything else is guessing with extra steps.
How it works with eSIMLab
- Read in the catalogue Your provider's packages arrive with what each one costs you, under your own provider account.
- Set one margin A percentage or a fixed amount, added on top of what each package costs you.
- Hand-set the exceptions Type a price on any plan that needs one. Re-applying the margin leaves hand-set prices alone.
- Keep what you charge Payments go to your own Stripe account. There is no commission, only a flat plan fee.
An agency counter can carry its own margin, so a desk sale can charge for the assistant's time while the website stays competitive. A price below the smallest amount Stripe will charge in your currency is refused, so a plan can never be listed at a price nobody can pay. You can show prices in more currencies: eSIMLab converts once, when the page is shown, rounds up, and charges the traveller exactly the figure they saw.
Frequently asked questions
What is a good margin on an eSIM plan?
There is no single right percentage. A cheap plan needs a high markup just to cover the fixed part of the card fee, while an expensive plan can carry a modest one. Decide the minimum cash you want to keep on each order, price to that floor, and adjust destination by destination against real sales.
Should I use a percentage margin or a fixed amount?
A percentage scales with the plan's cost but leaves too little on cheap plans. A fixed amount protects cheap plans but can overprice large ones. A practical approach is to use one as the default and hand-set the plans where it gives the wrong answer. eSIMLab supports both kinds of margin and hand-set prices.
Does eSIMLab take a commission on each sale?
No. eSIMLab charges a flat monthly plan fee and takes no commission and no per-order fee. Customer payments go straight to your own Stripe account, so the only costs on each order are the provider's price and your payment fee.
How do payment fees affect cheap eSIM plans?
Card fees usually combine a percentage with a fixed amount per payment. The fixed part is a small share of an expensive plan and a large share of a cheap one: in this article's illustrative example, $0.30 is 1.4% of a $21 plan and 8.6% of a $3.50 plan.
