Airalo for Business vs. traditional mobile roaming plans: What's the best fit for your business?

Business travel is constantly evolving. But is your company still relying on outdated traditional roaming models?

We know that successful international travel requires strong connectivity. Traditional roaming plans offer some comfort. However, technology has moved forward. It's time to use new, smarter ways to keep your employees connected abroad.

Say goodbye to piles of invoices, juggling different currencies, lack of visibility, and lengthy reimbursement processes. Instead, choose a business eSIM solution that centralizes and streamlines travel connectivity.

In this post, we will compare traditional mobile roaming plans with Airalo for Business. Our goal is to help you decide which solution best fits your company, empowers your employees, and positively impacts your bottom line.

What is Airalo for Business?

Before we compare, let's start with a quick overview of Airalo for Business. Airalo for Business is an eSIM solution made for companies with traveling employees. It's an all-in-one platform that centralizes eSIM management and reduces connectivity costs by up to 90%.

With Airalo for Business, you can:

• Keep your employees connected with eSIMs for 200+ destinations.
• Centralize all billing and payment management and operations
• Manage your team automatically through SSO and SCIM configuration
• Set spending limits and manage your budget 
• Monitor cost and data usage with the analytics dashboard

6 questions to consider when comparing business eSIMs to traditional roaming plans

We've broken down this article into six key questions to consider when choosing between a business eSIM and a traditional mobile roaming plan.

Here' a little overview of the concepts we will be covering

1. How do you manage connectivity costs?

Understanding the differences in bill consolidation and plan structures between business eSIM solutions and traditional roaming can positively impact your business's bottom line.

Why is this important? Effective cost management saves both time and money for your company. Understanding how bills, invoices, and costs are centralized will reveal potential time and cost savings. And, effective cost management is crucial for financial predictability and avoiding unexpected expenses.

Traditional mobile roaming: Lower bill predictability and cost visibility

Traditional mobile roaming allows your employees to use their home carrier's services (calls, texts, data) internationally through agreements with foreign networks. While seemingly convenient, this approach doesn't automatically grant full visibility into the final cost of roaming abroad.

Costs are typically higher and less predictable, as each employee's data usage will vary, along with coverage and rates per country. You often face high, unpredictable per-MB charges, daily access fees, and dreaded "bill shock." Rates also vary widely by country and carrier, turning budgeting into a guessing game.

Airalo for Business: Predictable and impactful savings

Airalo for Business leverages eSIM technology to provide packages for various durations and data, voice, and text needs. This means you get full visibility into costs upfront. Our eSIM packages benefit from local network prices to avoid inflated international fees and offer businesses an exclusive corporate discount.

You only pay for what you purchase upfront, eliminating hidden fees, subscriptions, and surprise charges. This leads to predictable budgeting and substantial savings.

Airalo for Business scenario:

Meet Sarah. She's traveling from Germany to Singapore for a trade show. As the travel administrator, you log in to the Airalo for Business dashboard, select a 10 GB data package for Singapore at a fixed rate, and assign it directly to Sarah’s device. She activates it upon arrival and can immediately access data services.. At month-end, you receive one consolidated monthly invoice for all your traveling employees. No surprises, just seamless, transparent budget reconciliation.

2. How do you handle team administration and management?

Managing traveling employees often involves a series of administrative tasks and paperwork to ensure your team remains connected abroad. Whether it's starting a phone contract or processing billing reimbursements, business travel typically requires administrative support. However, the time spent on this support and management varies greatly depending on the solution you choose.

Why is this important? Efficient management ensures consistent connectivity and frees up valuable administrative time. You need to consider a solution that streamlines team administration, automates repetitive tasks, and can scale easily as your company grows.

Traditional mobile roaming: A web of manual work

Managing mobile connectivity with traditional roaming is often decentralized and labor-intensive. Employees might use personal plans or company agreements that are hard to track. This typically means:

• Manually managing multiple employee roaming plans.
• Tracking individual usage.
• Processing numerous expense reports for reimbursement.

This approach is time-consuming, error-prone, and lacks real-time visibility. Additionally, discrepancies in currencies, inaccurate forecasts, and reimbursement delays can pull your team away from higher-priority tasks.

Managing a team with employees joining, leaving, or requiring different plans often means more manual processes — like removing users from phone contracts or adding new ones — to maintain compliance and ensure secure, reliable connectivity abroad.

Traditional roaming scenario:

Your company sends 20 employees from Canada to an international conference in Barcelona. As the travel administrator, you face collecting 20 separate roaming expense reports. Each report has varying data usage, call logs, and SMS charges. Some receipts are in foreign currencies, while others show activated daily passes or unexpected overage fees. The reconciliation takes weeks, delaying expense payouts and tying up valuable administrative time.

Airalo for Business: Centralized, streamlined, and in control

Airalo for Business transforms this administrative burden. It offers a single, centralized platform where you can easily buy, distribute, manage, and monitor eSIMs for your entire workforce. Plus, with SSO and SCIM configuration, Airalo for Business integrates seamlessly with your Identity Providers (IdPs) like Google, Okta, etc., to automatically add, remove, and enable different levels of access for each employee.

Key benefits include:

• Centralized and automated team management: Airalo for Business offers SSO integration and SCIM configuration to help automate team management, access, and secure logins.
• Centralized billing: All purchases are consolidated into one clear invoice, drastically reducing administrative workload and eliminating individual employee reimbursements for data.
• Budget controls: You can set spending limits at the company, branch, or individual employee level, allowing for proactive and precise cost management and preventing overspending.

Airalo for Business scenario:

For that same Barcelona conference, you log in to your Airalo for Business dashboard. You pre-purchase 20 eSIM data packages for Spain and digitally distribute them to each attendee before they leave. Employees automatically receive their eSIM for Spain in their Airalo account. At month-end, you receive one consolidated invoice for all 20 eSIMs, simplifying your accounting.

3. How do you ensure security and data protection?

Keeping your employees safe and upholding trust for your business is paramount.

Why is security and data protection important? Protecting sensitive company data and employee information is crucial for data protection and compliance. You need to look for a solution that complies with the best industry security and data protection standards to reduce risk and keep your employees safely connected.

Traditional mobile roaming: Unseen risks and physical vulnerabilities

With traditional mobile roaming, connections can often be less secure. Employees might frequently use public Wi-Fi in airports or cafes to avoid high roaming charges. These networks are often unencrypted and vulnerable to hackers, potentially exposing sensitive company data.

Physical SIM cards also pose a risk. They can be lost or stolen, potentially compromising phone numbers or allowing unauthorized access if devices aren't properly secured.

Traditional roaming scenario:

David, an employee from Germany, is on a business trip in London. To save money, he uses free Wi-Fi at coffee shops for emails and cloud documents. A hacker on the same network intercepts his data, exposing David's login credentials for a company platform because his connection wasn't encrypted. Separately, another employee misplaces their company phone with its physical SIM card, creating a potential security breach.

Airalo for Business: Digital security and robust compliance

Airalo for Business significantly enhances security and data protection. As digital solutions, eSIMs are inherently less susceptible to physical theft or damage.

Airalo for Business adheres to stringent global security and privacy standards, including SOC 2 Type II, GDPR, and PCI DSS. This commitment ensures the highest standards of data and payment security. Furthermore, Single Sign-On (SSO) integration strengthens access security for your team members.

Airalo for Business scenario:

David, on his London trip, uses his Airalo eSIM for all data needs. He maintains a secure, direct connection to local mobile networks, no longer relying on risky public Wi-Fi for sensitive work, as his prepaid data is reliable and cost-effective. The eSIM is embedded digitally, so there's no physical card to lose. Your IT department is also reassured by Airalo's SOC 2 Type II compliance, knowing the platform meets strict security controls for safeguarding company data and payment information.

4. How flexible is your global coverage?

You can't always choose where business takes your team. That's why it's important to look for a solution that provides global coverage and offers visibility into connectivity costs per destination.

Why is global coverage important? Seamless global coverage ensures your employees are always connected, regardless of their itinerary.

Traditional mobile roaming: Limited reach, unexpected gaps

Traditional mobile roaming is limited by your home carrier's specific agreements. Major destinations might be covered, but niche markets or remote regions often have patchy or no service. This can leave employees scrambling to find local SIM cards upon arrival or, worse, completely disconnected in critical situations. Coverage is dictated by your provider, not by your travelers' diverse itineraries.

Traditional roaming scenario:

Your team visits several countries in Southeast Asia, including parts of Laos and Cambodia, followed by a conference in Thailand. Your current carrier's roaming is decent in Thailand, but nonexistent or very expensive in Laos and Cambodia. This inconvenience forces your team to buy separate local SIM cards in each country, wasting valuable time and causing connectivity headaches.

Airalo for Business: Global reach, tailored to every trip

Airalo for Business offers unparalleled flexibility and global coverage. With over 900+ data packages across 200+ countries and regions, your employees will always have reliable connectivity.

Travelers can choose:

• Local plans: For single-country visits.
• Regional plans: For multi-country tours (like Europe or Asia).
• Global plans: For frequent international travel.

This flexibility extends to various data allowances and validities, ensuring optimal coverage and cost-efficiency for any itinerary, including options for voice and text where needed.

Airalo for Business scenario:

For that same Southeast Asia trip, you easily provide regional eSIMs. A single "Asia 15-day" regional eSIM provides seamless connectivity across all planned countries, including Laos, Cambodia, and Thailand. Your team arrives ready to connect — no hunting for local SIMs or worrying about coverage gaps. They can focus entirely on their business goals.

5. What about employee experience and productivity?

For a standard process to work across your team when traveling, it needs to be well-organized and easy for employees to use.

Why is this important? A positive employee experience directly impacts adoption, engagement, and ultimately, your team's productivity.

Traditional mobile roaming: Frustration, disconnection, and lost time

Nothing reduces productivity faster than an employee struggling with poor connectivity. Slow speeds, unreliable connections, or constant worry about roaming costs cause significant frustration and can lead to:

• Inefficient communication.
• Inability to access critical cloud resources.
• Reliance on insecure public Wi-Fi.

This stress and wasted time result in lost productivity and a negative travel experience.

Traditional roaming scenario:

Anna, your Mexico City-based marketing manager, is in Berlin for a product launch. Her traditional roaming plan has a low-speed cap after a small daily allowance. Video calls with HQ are pixelated and frequently disconnect. She wastes time searching for Wi-Fi and constantly monitors data usage, diverting her focus from the launch.

Airalo for Business: Seamless connectivity, focused productivity

Airalo for Business integrates with the Airalo app, which is trusted by over 20 million users worldwide. Its ease of use makes it simple for your team to adopt eSIM technology.

With Airalo for Business, companies can either assign eSIMs directly to employees’ devices for instant use abroad, or activate a “self-purchase” option with spending limits, letting employees buy their own eSIMs in the Airalo app, with costs billed straight to the company.

This direct access to connectivity frees your team to:

• Concentrate on their tasks.
• Participate in uninterrupted video conferences.
• Access cloud-based documents.
• Stay in touch with colleagues and clients.

Happy, connected employees are more productive. Their seamless experience ensures they fully utilize the connectivity you've provided.

Airalo for Business scenario:

Chloe lands in Berlin for her product launch and is connected to a local Singapore network in minutes using an Airalo for Business eSIM. There's zero downtime, allowing her to fully focus on the launch.

6. How does your connectivity impact sustainability?

Understanding the impact of single-use plastics and distribution can help companies align with their sustainability values.

Why is this important? Embracing sustainable practices is increasingly vital for corporate responsibility and stakeholder expectations.

Traditional mobile roaming: A hidden environmental footprint

Traditional mobile roaming relies heavily on physical SIM cards. Each card requires plastic manufacturing, packaging, and a complex global distribution network. This contributes to plastic waste and a notable carbon footprint. For companies focused on ESG (Environmental, Social, and Governance) responsibilities, relying on physical components for travel infrastructure can be a significant concern.

Traditional roaming scenario:

Your company hosts an annual global leadership summit for hundreds of executives. Each executive, if using traditional roaming, either uses their physical home SIM or is issued a new local physical SIM. This results in hundreds of plastic SIM cards and their packaging being produced, shipped, and eventually disposed of each year, adding to your company's environmental impact.

Airalo for Business: A digital step towards sustainability

Embracing Airalo eSIMs is a clear step towards a greener future. As a 100% digital solution, eSIMs eliminate the need for physical SIM cards entirely. This also removes their associated packaging and the transportation emissions from distribution.

A key feature of the Airalo analytics dashboard is the "carbon footprint reduction" metric. The ability to see the direct environmental impact of eSIM adoption can help companies integrate this into their broader sustainability reports and marketing efforts, appealing to environmentally conscious stakeholders and customers.

It aligns perfectly with your company's CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility) and sustainability goals. It's a simple, impactful change that shows a commitment to environmental stewardship without compromising connectivity.

Airalo for Business scenario:

For the same global leadership summit, your travel department digitally distributes Airalo eSIMs to all attendees before they arrive. That means no physical SIM cards to procure, ship, or discard. This simplifies logistics and reduces the event's environmental footprint. Your company can proudly report this initiative as part of its commitment to reducing plastic waste and embracing sustainable digital solutions.

FAQs

How does Airalo for Business support decentralized teams?

Airalo for Business allows companies to mimic their multi-layered organizational structure by setting up different branches or departments. This means that even with teams spread across various countries or regions, each local or regional manager can oversee their specific team's connectivity needs without impacting the entire global account.

For decentralized teams, this setup promotes autonomy and responsiveness. Each team can manage its own connectivity needs based on regional travel patterns.

Companies can also enable a self-purchase option, allowing employees in different regions to buy eSIMs directly through the Airalo app. These purchases are automatically billed to the organization’s central account. Even with self-purchase enabled, admins can control spending through budget limits and maintain full visibility into purchases. 

This eliminates administrative delays and gives employees immediate access to connectivity — no need to wait for manual distribution or central approval. The result is a more agile, self-sufficient team.

Does Airalo for Business offer voice and text plans?

Yes, Airalo for Business offers a range of plans, including those with data, voice, and text services, ensuring employees have comprehensive communication options abroad.