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Your Own eSIM Store vs eSIM Affiliate Links: Which Earns More?
eSIM affiliate links pay a small commission on each sale and need no setup, but the customer, the brand and the price belong to someone else. Your own eSIM store costs a monthly fee, but you set the price, keep the whole margin above wholesale and get paid directly. Once you sell more than a handful of eSIMs a month, your own store usually earns more.
In this article
Travel bloggers, agencies and communities have two simple ways to earn from eSIMs: share an affiliate link, or run their own store. This guide compares them honestly.
The short answer
- Affiliate links suit you if you sell rarely, have no customer relationship to protect, and want zero setup.
- Your own store suits you if you have regular traffic or clients, want your brand on the product, and want to keep the margin and the customer.
Side by side
| Affiliate link | Your own eSIM store | |
|---|---|---|
| Setup | Minutes | Minutes to hours, no code |
| Monthly cost | None | From €50 |
| What you earn | A commission set by the brand | Your price minus wholesale |
| Who sets the price | The brand | You |
| When you get paid | After a payout threshold | At once, into your Stripe |
| Brand the customer sees | The brand's | Yours |
| Who owns the customer | The brand | You |
| Repeat purchases | Often lost (cookie windows) | Yours |
A worked example
The numbers below are an illustration, not a quote: check your actual wholesale prices in the partner panel.
Say a customer buys a 10 GB Europe plan that retails around €20.
- Affiliate: a typical commission might be 10% to 15%, so around €2 to €3 per sale.
- Own store: if your wholesale cost were €9 and you sell at €19, your gross margin is €10, before Stripe's card fee.
At 100 sales a month, that is roughly €250 in commissions against roughly €1,000 in margin, minus a €150 Growth package. The gap grows with every sale, and repeat customers come back to your store rather than the brand's app.
The things affiliate links can't give you
- Customer data: you can't email an affiliate customer before their next trip.
- Pricing freedom: you can't run your own bundle or promotion.
- Brand trust: your audience trusts you; sending them to another brand spends that trust on someone else.
More on the business models: eSIM reseller vs affiliate.
FAQ
Do eSIM affiliate programs pay well?
They pay a fixed share of each sale, usually a small one, after a payout threshold. They are fine for occasional sales and need no setup.
Can I run an affiliate link and my own store at the same time?
Yes, but most businesses move their audience to their own store once it is live, because each sale earns more there.
How many sales a month make a store worth it?
It depends on your margin, but once your monthly margin is clearly above the package fee, usually from a few dozen eSIMs a month on Growth, the store earns more than commissions.
