I’m looking for a prepaid cell phone simcard in Canada, with min. 1GB of data/week. I’m staying only 6 weeks (Ontario and British Columbia), so I am interested in only short-term options. My budget for this is up to €60 (i.e. max. €10/week). Can anyone recommend something?
Apparently there are no many prepaid options in Canada. I picked this one:
https://www.chatrwireless.com/
The plan I costs C$40/month + tax, and includes 4GB of data @ roughly 2.5Mbps up, 1 Mbps down and unlimited text + calls in Canada. The simcard is charged extra, and I paid for it C$10. They sell these simcards in many places, e.g. at a “Batteries N Gadgets Ins” stores. For C$10/month extra you can get a plan with 10GB of data.
It’s what I use when I am in Canada.
@amadeann - I looked into this one before: https://www.speakout7eleven.ca/ and supposedly sold in any 7-Eleven stores in Canada (except Quebec). Their rate is pretty good and in addition to C$35/mo for 2GB + unlimited text+calls, they also have Pay-As-You-Go plans.
I found a guy who was willing to sell it via eBay until I found out that none of Canadian prepaid SIMs would roam outside of Canada. (I kindof like to be able to test a SIM - at least incoming/outgoing SMS before I travel).
Good luck!
Expat Canadian here, I use Knowroaming globally and when back in Canada. Easy with an esim mobile (great support also) and the rates are decent. I’ve tried Chatter in the past and it was OK if you need a local number. My wife has used Airalo and was happy with the esim and rates. We use the esim for data and keep our primary sim for phone.
Gary
I had a very similar situation on a longer trip in Canada last year and ended up comparing a few travel eSIM options based on roughly the same requirements (about 1 GB per week for ~6 weeks, so ~6 GB total).
Some rough examples from when I looked at plans:
- Nomad – around $28 for 10 GB / 30 days, which is fine but not the cheapest option.
- Ubigi – usually somewhere around $20–25 for about 10 GB / 30 days, also a decent choice.
- Skyalo – about $19 for 10 GB / 30 days, which ended up being the lowest price when I compared them, and it worked well while moving between cities since it can switch between local networks automatically.
For your trip (~6 GB total) a single 10 GB plan would probably cover most of the stay, and even if you needed a small top-up later you’d still be well under the €60 budget.
Personally I stopped buying physical SIM cards for trips like this. Installing the eSIM before the flight and having data immediately when landing in Toronto or Vancouver is just much easier.