The short answer
O2 Travel lets your UK plan run in Thailand at £7 a day (about $9), billed only on the days you use it. Ringo Light covers the whole stay in one payment, 2 weeks at $22.99 or 30 days at $32.99, with unlimited data at full speed. O2 offers the comforts of your own line: your number, calls and texts, nothing to set up, and I would not dismiss that.
Two weeks is $22.99 and thirty days $32.99, paid once, with full speed on an island ferry or a laptop at a cafe. O2 Travel charges £7 for every day the phone is used in Thailand and limits data to 2Mbps.
Your own number keeps working, texts land, and the cost arrives on the O2 bill you already pay. There is nothing to install before you leave, and a phone without an eSIM slot will do. Ringo Light is data alone.
Prices read on 31 October 2026: O2, Ringo Light, European Central Bank on their own sites or listings, Ringo Light from its catalogue. All in US dollars unless stated. Treat every number as a snapshot.
See the full price index for every country.
Travelling further? Compare the best eSIM for Asia and the eSIM for Asia-Pacific.
The prices, charted
US dollars, 31 October 2026. Fourteen daily charges is the ceiling for a Thai fortnight on O2. Dollars come from the ECB reference rate dated 30 October 2026, the newest by 31 October, £1 = $1.34.
The O2 page lists no monthly bolt-on, so a month in Thailand is thirty days at £7. Rate: ECB reference of 30 October 2026, with £1 = $1.34. Ringo Light is a single payment for thirty days.
Side by side
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Head to head
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Get Ringo Light for Thailand, from $6.99.
Installed once, next to your own SIM. Your eSIM arrives by email in seconds.
- 7 days $6.99
- 2 weeks $22.99
- 30 days $32.99
- 90 days $71.99
We sell data eSIMs for now to fund the full Ringo service. Ringo is self funded. Every plan bought here pays for the build of one plan that works everywhere.
Want to keep your own number abroad?
That is the full Ringo service: one plan that works everywhere, with your own number included.
It is a separate product from Ringo Light and it is still being built, so it is not on sale yet. Join the waitlist to hear when it opens.
O2 Travel vs Ringo Light in one paragraph
I find Ringo Light wins on cost in Thailand at either length: $22.99 against about $131 for two weeks and $32.99 against about $281 for a month. O2 Travel wins where its plan always wins, in being your own line. The same number, calls and texts that need no workaround, and no eSIM to install. For a night in Bangkok I would buy O2. For island hopping or a month in Chiang Mai I would buy Ringo Light, which costs far less and runs faster.
Price: the same trip at each
I read O2's travel page on 31 October 2026. It counts Thailand among 75 destinations for a fixed £7 a day, with each charge running 24 hours from first use. Fourteen days is £98, about $131, and thirty is £210, about $281. The page shows no monthly alternative. Conversion uses the ECB reference rate of 30 October 2026, the latest to appear by 31 October, £1 = $1.34.
Ringo Light is sold in US dollars, and the buyer gets the amount in their own currency on the checkout screen before paying. It is $22.99 for two weeks and $32.99 for 30 days. The saving over the bolt-on is $108.01 on a fortnight and $248.01 on a month. A single £7 O2 day is already a notable share of the trip price, so O2 wins on convenience and not on cost.
Data and speed at each
The bolt-on is described as having no usage limit but roaming speed is held at 2Mbps, and O2 mentions no fair use policy. Grab rides, maps in a Bangkok soi and Line chats should cope at that rate, as I read it. A day of video, large uploads of dive photos or a laptop on a tether at a Chiang Mai cafe will crawl. Ringo Light is unlimited data at full speed with no daily quota. I would read the fair use policy in the Terms before buying.
Calls, texts and your own number
O2 Travel keeps the UK number live, and the page states that calls to the UK and within Thailand are unlimited. A call to a third country is billed at standard roaming rates. Receiving calls and texts does not trigger the daily charge. Your UK bank code still lands, which I count as a plus for O2. Ringo Light carries no number, so calls go through data apps, and your number stays on your own SIM next to it.
Setup and billing
Switch the bolt-on on with TRAVEL to 23336 or in My O2, checking there that it is not already on your account. The £7 begins at your first call, text or data use and is outside any Spend Cap. I would do it before the flight, so the taxi queue at Suvarnabhumi is painless. Ringo Light is emailed after payment and takes one QR scan on home Wi-Fi; turn data on at arrival. Only eSIM phones can use it.
What Ringo Light is, and what it is not
I write for Ringo, so weigh this part accordingly. Ringo Light is Ringo's own data-only eSIM, sold to pay for the full Ringo, one plan for the whole world. For Thailand it sells three trips, 7 days at $6.99, 2 weeks at $22.99 and 30 days at $32.99, all unlimited data at full speed, paid once, nothing renews.
There is no phone number attached, so it does not stand in for the O2 line, and the handset needs an eSIM slot. O2 is the tidier route to a single bill, and I say so plainly; Ringo Light is the cheaper cover for the same days in Thailand.
The comparison of the travel eSIM brands for Thailand is at /blog/best-esim-for-thailand. The card to buy Ringo Light is further up this page, just after the side-by-side table.
Which to pick
- ✓Ringo Light, for any Thai trip beyond a few days. It is $22.99 or $32.99 once for full speed, against £7 on every day of use at O2.
- ✓O2 Travel, for one night in transit. A single £7 day, nothing to buy first.
- ✓O2 Travel, when the phone lacks an eSIM slot. It uses the plan already in the handset.
- ✓Both, for a long posting. Ringo Light carries data, your SIM carries the calls.
Pick by trip
Ringo Light, $22.99, unlimited at full speed. Fourteen O2 days come to £98, about $131.
Ringo Light, $32.99, with the laptop on a tether. O2 would be £210, about $281 at 2Mbps.
Ringo Light, because map apps and booking pages stay quick on every hop.
O2 Travel: one £7 day and your own number.
Choose O2 Travel, as Ringo Light needs eSIM support.
Frequently asked questions
How we compared, and our sources
O2, Ringo Light, European Central Bank, Ringo Light
We priced O2 and Ringo Light for Thailand on 31 October 2026, all on the same day, in US dollars. Each rival's price comes from its own website where it showed dollars, otherwise from an esimdb.com listing, and every source and its date is listed below. Ringo Light's prices come from the catalogue our checkout charges.
We compare the trips people actually book: a week, two weeks and a month of unlimited data, and a 10 GB bucket. We read each brand's fair use and speed rules and quote them as the brands state them. We did not run speed tests, so this page makes no speed claims for any brand.
Ringo Light is our own product. We put it in the table on the same terms as everyone else, and where a rival is the better buy the page says so.
Left out: Other eSIM brands. Airalo, Holafly, Saily, Nomad and Ubigi cover Thailand too, ranked at /blog/best-esim-for-thailand. Only O2 and Ringo Light face each other here. Left out: Other O2 roaming. Different O2 terms apply across Europe, and standard rates apply outside the list, and I have not priced any of that on this page. Thailand is on the Travel bolt-on list, so that is what I compared. The O2 roaming overview did not load that day.
- O2: www.o2.co.uk/international/o2-travel, O2 Travel bolt-on page, read 31 October 2026: £7 a day, charged for the 24 hours from first use, unlimited data capped at 2Mbps while roaming, unlimited calls to the UK and within the destination; the destination is on the page's list of 75 countries. The roaming page at o2.co.uk/international/roaming returned not found on the same day
- Ringo Light: ringoesim.com/thailand, the catalogue the checkout charges, read the same day
- European Central Bank: www.ecb.europa.eu/stats/eurofxref/eurofxref-daily.xml, euro reference rates of 30 October 2026, the latest published on 31 October 2026, used for the dollar figures (£1 = $1.34)
- Ringo Light: our own catalogue, the prices the checkout charges on 31 October 2026.
Written and priced by the Ringo team. Prices change often; if you spot one that has moved, tell us through the contact page and we will update the table.
