KnowRoaming vs Lotsotravel: The Sticker Pioneer Went eSIM-Only (2026)

In October 2013, a Toronto company announced a sticker. You peeled it off a sheet, pressed it onto your existing SIM card, and your phone would reroute onto local networks the moment you landed somewhere new. No swap, no second number. The first units shipped in February 2014, and for a while it was the most interesting thing happening in travel connectivity.

That product is gone. KnowRoaming's site sells eSIMs and nothing else now. The sticker's product pages return errors, the storefront that used to sell it no longer resolves, and the company saw customers off with account credit and a discount toward eSIM plans. We're leading with this because a lot of writing about KnowRoaming, including an earlier draft of this post, still treats the sticker as a live product and a reason to pick them. It isn't one.

What's left is a straightforward question: KnowRoaming sells travel eSIMs and so do we, so how do the plans compare? We priced them across the USA, Europe and Japan. The answer isn't uniform, which is the interesting part.

A note on where our prices come from

Our figures below are referral prices, the rate you get arriving through a link on this site. Our public list prices run higher. We're flagging it rather than burying it, because a comparison that quotes a number you'd never actually be charged isn't much of a comparison. If you land on our destinations page from this post, the referral price is what you'll see.

KnowRoaming's figures are guest prices, read off its live product pages with no account or code applied.

The scorecard

What you'd actually pay

We matched KnowRoaming's published plans against our closest equivalent by data size and validity window.

The shape of that table matters more than any single row. On small single-country plans, the two catalogues are close. A dollar on a Japan 3GB plan is a rounding error, and if you prefer KnowRoaming's app or its refund terms, that dollar is not a reason to switch. On regional Europe plans, the gap is wide enough to change what you buy: three times the price for the same 20GB across a month.

If your trip is one country and a few gigabytes, price is not the deciding factor between us. If your trip is a European itinerary with real data use, it is.

Where the earlier version of this post got it wrong

We'd rather correct this in public than quietly fix the number.

An earlier draft cited KnowRoaming's Europe 20GB/30-day plan at roughly $60 and built a headline around KnowRoaming running "2 to 2.5 times higher" across the board. Both were wrong. The Europe plan is $46.50. The $60.00 figure is real, but it's the price of KnowRoaming's Global 20GB/30-day plan, a different product with much broader coverage, and quoting it as the Europe price made a fair gap look like a larger one.

The draft also carried a note admitting its prices came from cross-referenced search snippets rather than live pages, because the session that wrote it couldn't reach the sites. That note was doing real work and we should have treated it as a blocker rather than a disclaimer. Every figure in this version was read off the live page.

The one thing KnowRoaming does that we don't

KnowRoaming's Global Unlimited eSIM is one plan spanning 133 countries with no action at any border. Land in Portugal, train to Spain, fly to Morocco the following week, same eSIM throughout.

We have no equivalent. Our unlimited tiers are sold per region or country, Europe+ unlimited, Asia+ unlimited, and so on, not as one plan that follows you across continents. If your itinerary spans multiple regions back to back and you'd rather not think about connectivity once, that's a real reason to buy KnowRoaming instead of stacking two or three of ours.

Read the fair-use terms before you commit to a long multi-region trip on it, though, because the global plan is the least generous in KnowRoaming's own catalogue. Global Unlimited publishes 2GB of high-speed data per 24 hours before dropping to 256 kbps. Its Europe Unlimited plan publishes 5GB/day before dropping to 512 kbps. At 256 kbps you can message and load a map slowly; you cannot work.

Data-only, both of us

Neither company's eSIM carries voice calls or text messages, which KnowRoaming states plainly in its own FAQ. If your phone supports dual SIM, and most sold since 2018 do, the setup is identical whichever data eSIM you pick: keep your home SIM active for calls and texts, let the travel eSIM carry data. Anyone presenting this as a flaw in a competitor without mentioning it applies to them too is not being straight with you.

When KnowRoaming is the right call

• Your trip crosses several regions in one continuous run. The Global Unlimited plan removes friction we can't remove, as long as 2GB/day at full speed covers you.
• You want an app. KnowRoaming has maintained iOS and Android apps; we're website-only. If you like watching a usage meter, that's theirs to win.
• You want more refund headroom. Their published policy survives installation and even limited use at their discretion, within 90 days. Ours stops at activation. On a plan you might not end up needing, that's a genuine advantage.
• You're buying a small single-country plan and prefer their product. At a dollar of difference on a Japan 3GB plan, pick on whatever else matters to you.

In any of those cases, buy KnowRoaming.

What we didn't measure

• Real-world network speed by country. We compared published plan terms, not throughput on either company's carrier partners.
• App quality and support. KnowRoaming's apps are actively maintained, and beyond that we have no controlled way to compare either app quality or support against a website-only product, so we left both alone.
• Coverage list accuracy. KnowRoaming's Europe page is internally inconsistent on how many countries the regional plan covers, with product cards, body copy and marketing text giving three different numbers. We priced the plans rather than adjudicating the count, but check the current list against your itinerary before buying.
• Promotional pricing. KnowRoaming's Global plans carry limited-time discounts as we publish. Those may end.

Bottom line

For a European trip with real data use, we're the cheaper buy by a wide margin, and the 20GB comparison is the clearest version of that: $15 against $46.50 for the same allowance over the same month.

For a single country and a few gigabytes, the two are close enough that price shouldn't decide it. Buy on refund terms, or the app, or which checkout you find less annoying.

For an itinerary crossing several regions without a break, KnowRoaming has a product we don't sell, and 2GB a day at full speed may well be enough for you.

What none of those cases turn on is the sticker. It was a clever piece of hardware and it is no longer for sale, so if that's what brought you to KnowRoaming, it's worth knowing before you start comparing plans.