“Roam” is not a hardware product. That confusion is the source of most bad Starlink purchasing decisions, and clearing it up before comparing options saves money.
Starlink sells two main dishes: the Standard and the Mini. Both connect to the same satellite network. Both run on the same basic service. The difference between them is form factor, power draw, and price. Roam is a service plan – a billing configuration that lets you use a Starlink dish without a fixed registered address. You can run a Roam plan on either a Standard dish or a Mini. What you cannot do is “buy a Roam” separately from hardware.
With that clarified, the decision for an EU buyer has two stages: which dish, and which plan.
The hardware: Standard vs Mini
The Starlink Standard dish is the original residential terminal. It is a circular panel approximately 59 cm in diameter, designed to be permanently mounted – on a roof, on a pole mount, or on a Starlink’s optional tilt mount – and connected to a router indoors via a proprietary cable. Hardware cost in Finland is EUR 349. Monthly service on the standard residential plan is EUR 50 in Finland and EUR 50 in Germany.
The Standard dish draws 50 to 75W while operating. For a grid-connected home, this is negligible. For a cabin running on a solar and battery setup, it is a significant continuous load – equivalent to a small refrigerator running at the same time. Plan for 400 to 600Wh of daily energy consumption from the dish alone if you intend to run it through daylight hours.
The Starlink Mini is a smaller panel, roughly 30 cm on each side, with an integrated handle and a USB-C power input that can accept 100W delivery from a compatible power bank or station. Hardware price dropped significantly in 2026 to approximately EUR 199 to EUR 230 (down from EUR 599 at launch). The Mini draws 20 to 40W – roughly half to a third of the Standard. For off-grid use, this matters considerably. A 160W solar panel can sustain the Mini’s power draw through most Finnish summer days without depleting battery reserves.
The Mini’s reduced form factor also means reduced performance in marginal conditions: in heavy rain, snow, or at low elevation angles (relevant further north), the Mini’s smaller receive area captures less signal than the Standard. For typical cabin-weekend use in southern Finland and Scandinavia, the performance difference is not material. For remote northern use in winter, the Standard’s extra aperture helps.
The plans: Residential vs Roam
The Residential plan is tied to a registered service address. You can move the dish within about 20 km of that address, but using it consistently at a different address – a cabin 200 km away, for example – violates the service terms and will trigger a deprioritisation notice.
The Roam plan removes the address restriction. You can use the dish anywhere within the service region (EU-wide, in practice), move it between locations freely, and pause or resume service monthly. Roam comes in two tiers: 50GB priority data per month (approximately EUR 40 to EUR 44/month in Finland and Germany) or unlimited priority data (approximately EUR 72/month). Data beyond the 50GB priority limit on the lower tier is throttled rather than cut off.
For most cabin-weekend users, 50GB per month is more than adequate. The cabin is not a streaming hub. Email, navigation, voice calls, occasional video calls, and basic work tasks will not consume 50GB across a month of weekend visits.
The practical implication: a buyer who wants satellite connectivity at both a primary home and a cabin should run the Standard dish at home on a Residential plan, and buy a Mini for the cabin on a Roam plan. This costs EUR 50 plus EUR 40 to EUR 44 per month in service – EUR 90 to EUR 94 total – plus EUR 349 for the Standard hardware and EUR 199 to EUR 230 for the Mini.
A buyer who only needs connectivity at a cabin, or wants a portable setup, should buy the Mini on a Roam plan: EUR 199 to EUR 230 hardware plus EUR 40 to EUR 44/month.
The recommendation
For a single-location cabin or portable emergency comms setup: Starlink Mini on a Roam plan. Hardware at approximately EUR 220, service at EUR 40 to EUR 44/month, power draw compatible with a modest solar and battery setup. The Roam plan can be paused during months the cabin is not in use – Starlink allows monthly pausing. Over a six-month summer season, the service cost is EUR 240 to EUR 264 for the year. That is the only recurring cost. Hardware lasts as long as you keep it from physical damage.
For a primary residence with occasional cabin use: Standard Residential dish at the home address, Mini on a Roam plan for the cabin. Two dishes, two plans, maximum flexibility. The total first-year cost (Standard EUR 349 hardware plus EUR 600/year service, Mini EUR 220 hardware plus EUR 264 summer service) is approximately EUR 1,433. After the first year, it is EUR 864 annually in service. This is competitive with what many rural households pay for significantly slower fixed-line or 4G home broadband with added resilience and coverage that no terrestrial ISP can match in remote areas.
For rural areas where terrestrial broadband is below 25 Mbps: the Standard Residential plan at EUR 349 hardware plus EUR 50/month is a straightforward replacement. Starlink residential provides 100 to 300 Mbps download speeds at low latency. The hardware cost pays back within one to two years compared to the productivity cost of working on a slow connection.
Power requirements and off-grid compatibility
The Mini’s USB-C power input is compatible with USB-C Power Delivery at 100W. Any power station with a 100W USB-C output port can run the Mini directly, without an inverter. The EcoFlow DELTA 2, Bluetti AC200MAX, and most other portable power stations in the 1 kWh and above range include a 100W USB-C output.
The Standard dish requires 230V AC mains (or an inverter). Running it from a portable power station is possible but requires an inverter capable of sustaining 75W – any power station with a mains AC output socket handles this, but the efficiency loss through the inverter and the 50 to 75W draw means it consumes battery reserves faster than the Mini. For cabin use, the Mini is the correct hardware choice if the cabin runs on solar and battery.
What you are actually buying
Satellite internet connectivity independent of ground-based infrastructure is a category of service that did not exist at consumer price points three years ago. Starlink at EUR 220 hardware plus EUR 40 to EUR 44 monthly is accessible to any household that can absorb a modest recurring cost.
For a broader overview of Starlink kit options including the Flat High Performance dish and the Garmin inReach as a non-internet satellite fallback, see Which Starlink Kit to Own Before You Need It. For the energy sovereignty framing this site applies to physical infrastructure: communications is a layer of sovereignty alongside power and water. Grid electricity can fail. Mobile cell sites can fail or congest during emergencies. Satellite connectivity operating from a wholly separate infrastructure stack is not redundant to a cell phone – it is genuinely different. The Mini at EUR 220 is the lowest-cost entry to that layer of redundancy that has ever been available.
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