Four plans, two published caps
Unlimited eSIM for Costa Rica
Every unlimited plan sold for Costa Rica has a limit. Two brands print theirs and two do not. This page turns all four into a price per gigabyte you can actually use.
What each unlimited plan actually caps the numbers the buy button hides
| "Unlimited" plan | Real daily high-speed cap | After the cap |
|---|---|---|
| GigSky daily bundle | 3.5GB/day | Data stops for the day rather than crawling. Not marketed as unlimited, which is exactly why it is honest. The full allowance is available to hotspot. |
| Airalo Unlimited (Hot Telecom) | 3GB/day | Speed drops for the rest of the day, resets at midnight. Printed on the product page. Hotspot draws from the same 3GB. |
| Holafly Unlimited | none published | No daily figure anywhere in the Costa Rica terms. The fair-use text allows the local operator to reduce speed temporarily, described as up to one day. Hotspot is separately capped at 1GB/day. |
| Yesim Unlimited | none published | Yesim publishes no Costa Rica fair-use figure at all, and its plans cost more than Airalo's at every length. We do not recommend it. |
| Saily | no unlimited sold | Saily does not offer an unlimited plan for Costa Rica. Its global unlimited bundles carry a 30GB ceiling and are a different product. |
Every figure read from the brand's own published terms on September 2, 2026. Where we write "none published" it means we looked and there was nothing to find, not that the plan is uncapped in reality.
Price per gigabyte you can actually use caps applied
| Plan | Price | Usable data at the cap | Per GB |
|---|---|---|---|
| GigSky 3.5GB/day, 7 days | $26.49 | 24.5GB | $1.08 |
| Airalo Unlimited, 7 days | $36.50 | 21GB | $1.74 |
| Holafly, 7 days | $36.50 | not published | — |
| Yesim Unlimited, 7 days | $40.58 | not published | — |
| GigSky 3.5GB/day, 15 days | $36.49 | 52.5GB | $0.70 |
| Airalo Unlimited, 15 days | $49.00 | 45GB | $1.09 |
| Holafly, 15 days | $50.50 | not published | — |
| Yesim Unlimited, 15 days | $56.81 | not published | — |
| Airalo Unlimited, 30 days | $89.00 | 90GB | $0.99 |
| Holafly, 30 days | $95.90 | not published | — |
| Yesim Unlimited, 30 days | $91.59 | not published | — |
Usable data is the published daily cap multiplied by the plan length. It is a ceiling, not a promise, and almost nobody uses all of it. The point of the column is comparison: at every length, the plan that prints its cap is cheaper per gigabyte than the plans that do not.
Two things fall out of that table. First, GigSky's daily bundles are not just competitive with the unlimited plans, they beat all of them on price and on allowance, and they are the only ones in the group that stop rather than throttle. Second, the plans that publish nothing are also the most expensive, which is a pattern worth noticing across the whole eSIM market.
There is one case where an unpublished cap still wins, and it is Holafly's: if you use data only on the phone and you want to never think about it, an uncapped-in-practice plan has value that a spreadsheet cannot express. We reviewed Holafly in full even though we earn nothing from it.
What 3GB a day actually buys you in Costa Rica in hours, not gigabytes
| What you are doing | Roughly per hour | Hours inside a 3GB day | Hours inside 3.5GB |
|---|---|---|---|
| Maps while driving | 5–10MB | all day, easily | all day, easily |
| WhatsApp messages and voice notes | 10–20MB | all day | all day |
| Instagram or TikTok scrolling | 0.7GB | about 4 hours | about 5 hours |
| Video call to family | 0.9GB | about 3 hours | about 3.5 hours |
| Laptop hotspot, ordinary work | 0.4GB | about 7 hours | about 8 hours |
| Netflix, standard definition | 0.7GB | about 4 hours | about 5 hours |
| Netflix, high definition | 3GB | about 1 hour | about 1 hour |
Approximate figures for planning, not measurements. The practical read: 3GB a day is comfortably enough for a working day plus an evening call, and not enough for HD streaming. In Costa Rica specifically, add a margin, because you will reload maps far more often on roads where the signal keeps dropping.
The hotspot rules matter more than the headline if a laptop is involved
| Plan | Hotspot allowance | Verdict for remote work |
|---|---|---|
| GigSky daily 3.5GB | the full 3.5GB/day | Best in class. Seven days for $26.49 covers a working week with room over. |
| Airalo Unlimited | the full 3GB/day | Works. $10.01 more than GigSky for half a gigabyte less per day. |
| Yesim Unlimited | allowed, no figure published | Unknowable, and the most expensive. Skip. |
| Holafly Unlimited | 1GB/day, hard cap | Disqualifying. A tethered working day uses two to three times that. |
If you are coming to Costa Rica to work from Santa Teresa, Nosara, Tamarindo or Puerto Viejo, that table is the whole decision. An ordinary tethered working day, meaning email, a couple of video calls, a cloud sync and a browser full of tabs, runs 2 to 3GB. Holafly gives you one. Everything else here gives you three or more.
For a hotspot week, GigSky's 3.5GB daily bundle at $26.49 is the cheapest and the most generous. For unlimited with a printed cap and a single purchase, Airalo is $36.50.
See GigSky daily plans See Airalo Unlimited Work out your own numberWhich unlimited plan to actually buy by trip type
Buy GigSky daily if
You are hotspotting a laptop at all. 3.5GB a day, all of it shareable, $26.49 for a week.
You are here two weeks and using data heavily: 15 days at $36.49 works out to $0.70 per gigabyte, the lowest number on this site.
You want a plan that stops instead of throttling, so you know where you stand.
Buy Airalo Unlimited if
You want one purchase and no daily thinking, with a cap that is actually written down.
You are here a full month: $89.00 for thirty days is $6.90 less than Holafly and comes with a number attached to it.
You value a company with a published review record: 4.1 from 41,238 reviews.
And the case against all of them: most Costa Rica trips do not need unlimited at all. Two weeks of ordinary use lands around 8 to 11GB, which is $24.35 on Yesim or $34.00 on Airalo, less than half the price of any plan on this page. Work out your number before you buy the big one.
Unlimited questions answered straight
Is there a truly unlimited eSIM for Costa Rica?
Holafly comes closest: it publishes no daily cap on phone data for Costa Rica, though its fair-use text allows the local operator to reduce speed temporarily. Everything else has a limit, and the two that print theirs are Airalo at 3GB a day and GigSky at 3.5GB.
What is the cheapest unlimited eSIM for Costa Rica?
GigSky's daily 3.5GB bundles, if you count usable data rather than marketing: $26.49 for seven days and $36.49 for fifteen, which works out to $1.08 and $0.70 per gigabyte. Among plans actually labelled unlimited, Airalo at $36.50 for seven days is the cheapest.
Can I hotspot on an unlimited Costa Rica eSIM?
On Airalo and GigSky, yes, drawing from the same daily allowance. On Holafly, only 1GB per day, which is roughly a third of a tethered working day. That single line decides the plan for anyone travelling with a laptop.
Does unlimited data get me better coverage in Costa Rica?
No. Every unlimited plan sold for Costa Rica runs on Claro and Liberty, the same networks as the cheapest fixed plan. It does not reach the Kölbi-only areas of the Osa, Sarapiquí or Tortuguero. That gap needs a different fix.
Do I even need unlimited for a two-week Costa Rica trip?
Probably not. Two weeks of maps, messaging, photos and social use lands around 8 to 11GB, which costs $24.35 to $34.00 as a fixed plan. Unlimited makes sense for hotspot-heavy remote work or for travelers who genuinely refuse to count. Our calculator gives you a number in about a minute.
What happens when I hit the daily cap?
On Airalo the speed drops until midnight, then resets. On GigSky the data stops for the day rather than crawling, which sounds worse and is often better because you know immediately. On Holafly and Yesim there is no published figure, so there is no honest answer to give you.
The best unlimited plan is not called unlimited
GigSky sells 3.5GB a day, all of it shareable to a laptop, for $26.49 a week or $36.49 for fifteen days. It publishes the cap, it beats every unlimited plan on price per gigabyte, and it stops rather than throttling.
See GigSky's daily plansSources & freshness: Caps and hotspot rules read from each brand's published Costa Rica terms on September 2, 2026. Prices in USD before promo codes. Per-hour data figures are planning estimates from typical app consumption, not measurements. Compare all five providers: best eSIM for Costa Rica.