What would a Spanish fleet of 500 devices at 10 MB/month each cost?

On Soracom's global plan (plan01s): 500 SIMs × $0.06/day ≈ $915/month in basic fees + 5,000 MB × $0.02/MB = $100 in data → ~$1,015/month (≈€935). On iot.cards: 5,000 MB × €0.005/MB = €25/month in data plus the platform's monthly fees. The per-day fee per active SIM is what drives most of the gap. Honest nuance: Soracom's planX3-EU bundles (from €0.32/month for 25 MB) would come out considerably cheaper than their global plan for this profile, but they are ordered through sales and work as fixed per-SIM bundles.

Is Soracom's platform richer than iot.cards'?

For cloud services, yes, and there's no point denying it: Canal, Door, Gate, Napter, Beam, Funnel, Funk and Arc form a toolkit few competitors match. If your architecture needs managed protocol conversion or direct VPC peering as a platform service, Soracom plays in another league. If what you need is solid connectivity with a REST API, webhooks and a private APN, iot.cards covers it without paying for services you won't use.

My project includes Japan or APAC — which one do I pick?

Soracom, with nuance. It's a Japanese company backed by KDDI since 2017, with native plans in Japan that no European MVNO can match. If Japan or APAC is a meaningful part of the deployment, that's their home turf. If Japan is marginal (a handful of devices) and the bulk is in Spain or Europe, it's worth comparing total cost including roaming.

Is Soracom's bill predictable?

It's transparent (rates are published in their fee schedule) but hard to predict: a per-day basic fee per active SIM, different data tiers per country, and each platform service metered separately (Beam at $0.09 per 10,000 requests, Arc at $0.80/month + $0.20/GB…). With large fleets and several services active, projecting cost requires modelling it. On iot.cards the invoice is consumption × one published rate plus a flat monthly fee, and it fits in a spreadsheet.

Does Soracom have good coverage in Spain?

Yes. Its global plan uses Orange, Telefónica and Vodafone in Spain, and it even publishes the rate ($0.02/MB), which deserves credit. The difference isn't coverage but price (€0.005/MB on iot.cards, roughly 4 times less per MB at current exchange rates) and the $0.06/day fee per active SIM that stacks on top of the global plan.

How does each one handle static IP and remote access?

Soracom solves it via platform: Napter gives on-demand remote access without a static IP, and the Virtual Private Gateway offers Fixed Global IP and per-SIM routing (the VPG is billed by size tier, pricing on request). Powerful and flexible. iot.cards solves it more directly: static IPv4 per SIM and a private APN with an IPSec/WireGuard tunnel into your VPC as the standard offer, no gateway sizing. If you want occasional remote access without infrastructure, Napter is elegant; if you want permanent, simple fixed addressing, iot.cards.

Can I run a pilot before deciding, or migrate later?

Yes, and that's what we recommend: migrating later means a physical SIM swap (the IMSI is different), so sizing correctly upfront saves field time. Soracom lets you start self-service by buying SIMs online. On iot.cards the pilot costs €15: a SIM Test Kit with 5 SIMs and 1 GB to use over 12 months, no lock-in. Test both with your real traffic and compare invoices.

Commercial comparison

Soracom vs iot.cards

How to choose between Soracom's cloud connectivity platform and iot.cards' multi-carrier IoT SIM. Not a brand war: Soracom is a platform with genuinely powerful cloud services; iot.cards is multi-carrier connectivity with simple pricing and local support. We explain when each one fits, without half-truths.

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Quick summary

Soracom is a great choice if your project needs its platform services (peering into your VPC, protocol conversion, Napter remote access, virtual SIM over WiFi) or touches Japan/APAC, where KDDI's backing is unmatched. iot.cards is the reasonable choice if you deploy in Spain and want one published rate (€0.005/MB versus Soracom's $0.02/MB on the global plan plus $0.06/day per active SIM), a predictable bill without per-service metering, private APN and static IP as the standard offer, and Spanish-language engineering support.

Side-by-side feature comparison

Same device, two different philosophies: a rich cloud platform versus simple, local connectivity. What changes is what you need behind the SIM.

	Soracom	iot.cards
Commercial model	Self-service with published but complex pricing: $0.06/day basic fee per active SIM on the global plan (≈$1.83/month) + tiered data rates per country + platform services metered separately. Large deployments go through custom enterprise pricing.	Pooled fleet tariff (€0.005/MB at low usage, €1.50/GB at high usage) plus a flat monthly fee. No lock-in.
Data price in Spain	Global plan (plan01s): $0.02/MB on Orange, Telefónica and Vodafone — a published rate, credit where due — plus the $0.06/day per active SIM.	€0.005/MB at low usage or €1.50/GB at high usage. One published rate, no per-day fee.
Global coverage	Marketing says 200+ countries, but actual coverage depends on the plan: ~170+ on plan01s, 100+ on planX3. Plan fragmentation forces you to choose carefully upfront.	190+ countries and 750+ networks under a single commercial profile.
Coverage in Spain	Yes: Orange, Telefónica and Vodafone on the global plan, with per-country published rates.	Movistar, Vodafone and Orange with multi-IMSI and automatic switching across all three.
Cloud platform services	Well above average: Canal (AWS VPC peering), Door (site-to-site VPN), Gate, Napter (on-demand remote access without a static IP), Beam/Funnel/Funk (protocol conversion and cloud pipelines), Arc (virtual SIM over WiFi). If you need them, this is their strongest card.	Platform focused on connectivity management: documented REST API with HMAC-signed webhooks and ICCID idempotency, no separately metered cloud services layer.
Private APN and static IP	Virtual Private Gateway with Fixed Global IP and per-SIM routing; the VPG is billed by size tier (pricing on request).	Dedicated APN with your CIDR range + IPSec/WireGuard tunnel and static IPv4 per SIM, in the standard offer with no gateway sizing.
Billing predictability	Per-day fee + per-country tiers + per-service metering (Beam at $0.09/10,000 requests, Arc at $0.80/month + $0.20/GB…). The bill is transparent but hard to predict.	Monthly invoice for actual pooled consumption at one per-MB rate. Easy to project in a spreadsheet.
eSIM and multi-IMSI	Multi-IMSI and eUICC available. No public commitment on SGP.32.	eUICC eSIM with SGP.02 and SGP.32, multi-IMSI.
Japan and APAC	Home turf: Japanese company backed by KDDI, with native plans in Japan. Hard to match.	Coverage in Japan via roaming agreements, without KDDI's native depth.
Technical support	Free Basic plan (docs + tickets), paid Standard, and 24/7 Enterprise with custom SLA (pricing unpublished). English and Japanese; no Spanish-language support advertised.	Engineering team in Seville, in Spanish and English, with 24/7 SLA on enterprise plans. Technical onboarding from day one.

When to choose which

Choose Soracom if…

Your architecture needs their cloud services: VPC peering (Canal), protocol conversion (Beam/Funnel/Funk) or on-demand remote access (Napter).
You want a virtual SIM over WiFi (Arc) to extend the platform beyond cellular.
Your project touches Japan or APAC: native KDDI backing is unmatched.
Your European fleet is steady and low-data and fits the planX3-EU bundles (overage at €0.008–0.01/MB, genuinely competitive), and you don't mind ordering them through sales.
Your team is comfortable in English with a self-service developer culture.
You want to cap bandwidth by design with their speed classes.

Choose iot.cards if…

You deploy in Spain and want all three national networks (Movistar, Vodafone and Orange) with automatic switching.
You prefer one published rate (€0.005/MB) with no per-day per-SIM fee and no per-service metering.
You need a private APN with IPSec/WireGuard and static IP as the standard offer, without sizing a gateway.
You want to project the fleet's invoice in a spreadsheet.
You want engineering support in Spanish, by phone and email, from Seville.
You need eUICC eSIM with SGP.32 confirmed today.
You want a cheap pilot: €15 SIM Test Kit with 5 SIMs and 1 GB over 12 months.

Frequently asked questions

What would a Spanish fleet of 500 devices at 10 MB/month each cost?: On Soracom's global plan (plan01s): 500 SIMs × $0.06/day ≈ $915/month in basic fees + 5,000 MB × $0.02/MB = $100 in data → ~$1,015/month (≈€935). On iot.cards: 5,000 MB × €0.005/MB = €25/month in data plus the platform's monthly fees. The per-day fee per active SIM is what drives most of the gap. Honest nuance: Soracom's planX3-EU bundles (from €0.32/month for 25 MB) would come out considerably cheaper than their global plan for this profile, but they are ordered through sales and work as fixed per-SIM bundles.
Is Soracom's platform richer than iot.cards'?: For cloud services, yes, and there's no point denying it: Canal, Door, Gate, Napter, Beam, Funnel, Funk and Arc form a toolkit few competitors match. If your architecture needs managed protocol conversion or direct VPC peering as a platform service, Soracom plays in another league. If what you need is solid connectivity with a REST API, webhooks and a private APN, iot.cards covers it without paying for services you won't use.
My project includes Japan or APAC — which one do I pick?: Soracom, with nuance. It's a Japanese company backed by KDDI since 2017, with native plans in Japan that no European MVNO can match. If Japan or APAC is a meaningful part of the deployment, that's their home turf. If Japan is marginal (a handful of devices) and the bulk is in Spain or Europe, it's worth comparing total cost including roaming.
Is Soracom's bill predictable?: It's transparent (rates are published in their fee schedule) but hard to predict: a per-day basic fee per active SIM, different data tiers per country, and each platform service metered separately (Beam at $0.09 per 10,000 requests, Arc at $0.80/month + $0.20/GB…). With large fleets and several services active, projecting cost requires modelling it. On iot.cards the invoice is consumption × one published rate plus a flat monthly fee, and it fits in a spreadsheet.
Does Soracom have good coverage in Spain?: Yes. Its global plan uses Orange, Telefónica and Vodafone in Spain, and it even publishes the rate ($0.02/MB), which deserves credit. The difference isn't coverage but price (€0.005/MB on iot.cards, roughly 4 times less per MB at current exchange rates) and the $0.06/day fee per active SIM that stacks on top of the global plan.
How does each one handle static IP and remote access?: Soracom solves it via platform: Napter gives on-demand remote access without a static IP, and the Virtual Private Gateway offers Fixed Global IP and per-SIM routing (the VPG is billed by size tier, pricing on request). Powerful and flexible. iot.cards solves it more directly: static IPv4 per SIM and a private APN with an IPSec/WireGuard tunnel into your VPC as the standard offer, no gateway sizing. If you want occasional remote access without infrastructure, Napter is elegant; if you want permanent, simple fixed addressing, iot.cards.
Can I run a pilot before deciding, or migrate later?: Yes, and that's what we recommend: migrating later means a physical SIM swap (the IMSI is different), so sizing correctly upfront saves field time. Soracom lets you start self-service by buying SIMs online. On iot.cards the pilot costs €15: a SIM Test Kit with 5 SIMs and 1 GB to use over 12 months, no lock-in. Test both with your real traffic and compare invoices.

Want us to size your case?

Tell us how many devices, what they consume, in which countries, and whether you need Soracom-style platform services (VPC peering, protocol conversion, remote access). We'll honestly tell you which one fits — even if the answer is "go with Soracom".