VPN prices can be confusing. Here’s how to cut through the fog and determine the true cost of your VPN

The massive discounts you see advertised when you buy a virtual private network are often not exactly what they seem. It’s not uncommon to see VPN companies touting seemingly incredible savings of 80% or more off the “normal” subscription price. But there’s usually a lot of smoke and mirrors in calculating these high percentages. There’s a reason advertised savings seem too good to be true: they often are.

It takes a lot of time to build and run a VPN company, and all the technical, payroll, legal, compliance, marketing, and server infrastructure costs add up quickly. It is therefore understandable that a VPN subscription involves a monetary commitment from the end user. But many VPN companies employ various tricks to make it appear, at first glance, that you can get their services for less than they actually cost in the long run.

VPN companies are far from the only ones doing this. Price deception is commonplace in virtually every industry. Just think about how often you see something priced at $9.99 or $19.99, which seems more profitable than $10 or $20, when in reality the difference is minimal. Yet VPN companies can often be particularly sneaky in the way they set their subscription prices, sometimes even to the point of being downright misleading. But if you know their tactics and where to look for relevant pricing information, then you can determine how much you’ll actually pay for your VPN and avoid being blindsided at checkout or when renewing your subscription.

Navigating the Messy Jumble of VPN Prices

VPN pricing structures are often far more complicated than they need to be, which in many cases is almost certainly intentional. They are all meticulously designed and exhaustively tested to funnel customers into specific subscription plans that generate optimal gains for the business, while minimizing the actual cost of the service to the end user. VPN companies do everything they can to reduce friction by offering money-back guarantees and presenting long-term subscription plans as being worth much more than they really are. Ultimately, they want to make it as easy as possible for you to click the “Buy” button without thinking too much about the actual cost of the service.

When you go to a VPN provider’s pricing page, you’ll typically see a few subscription options depending on the subscription length or, if the VPN offers additional services. bundled serviceswhich tools are offered with each subscription level. Usually, you’ll see the different subscriptions broken down into monthly, annual, and biennial increments, with some VPN companies offering other options like six-month, three-year, or even lifetime subscriptions.

VPN companies want you to commit for the long term and use various tactics to try to steer customers toward annual or biennial plans rather than monthly subscriptions. You’ll often see a specific selection highlighted on the pricing page, with a bit of text saying something like “Best Value,” “Most Popular,” “Exclusive Offer,” or “Additional Months Free.”

Sometimes, if you click on a “lesser” plan, you’ll get a pop-up that pushes you more towards the plan the VPN company really wants you to buy, mentioning something about the popularity or greater savings associated with the long-term plan. Invariably, long-term prices shown in big, bold letters are presented as monthly rates, even if you have to pay for a full year or two in advance. Seeing a price of $1.99 per month seems a lot friendlier than seeing that you have to pay $55 up front.

To be fair, I also recommend opting for an annual subscription plan to get the best value for your money while minimizing the risks associated with overly long commitment. I don’t recommend signing up for more than a year at a time, given how quickly things can change in the VPN industry. Businesses can be bought and soldnetwork performance and quality may fluctuate, streaming capabilities may change, policies may change, and features may come and go from year to year.

While VPN companies try to make deals seem more attractive than they are, long-term plans offer greater savings.

With a few rare exceptions, it’s almost never worth it to purchase a monthly VPN subscription. Most monthly VPN subscription plans range from around $12 to over $15 per month, although they should actually cost around half that price. I suspect that one of the main reasons many VPN providers offer monthly plans has less to do with giving customers options and more to do with keeping prices at an exorbitant monthly rate – a tactic that helps inflate the percentage savings they can claim on the introductory prices of their plans in the longer term.

For example, Surfshark’s $15.45 monthly subscription is absurdly overpriced: no one should pay that much for a VPN. But this monthly price allows Surfshark claim you save 87% off the “regular” price when you purchase the two-year plan for $54 that includes three additional months free.

Of course, no one would pay around $417 for a two-year VPN subscription, but Surfshark presents the “87% savings” on the two-year plan as if you were paying $15.45 for 27 months. While you’d pay around $417 if you signed up for a monthly plan and stayed subscribed for 27 months, most people would upgrade to a one or two year plan well before that, so Surfshark’s advertised savings are incredibly misleading. This is an artificially inflated number to give the illusion that you are getting the VPN for free. Surfshark isn’t the only one doing this, but it’s one of the most egregious examples.

Auto-renewal price hikes make convoluted subscription deals even more complicated

Worse yet, Surfshark doesn’t clearly state on its initial pricing page that the annual price more than doubles upon renewal after the subscription’s introductory term. It’s only when you get to the payment page that the company mentions in the fine print that the subscription renews “at the then applicable renewal price,” which you have to click to go to a separate page to see. Other VPNs use similar schemes, but I’m specifically highlighting Surfshark here because it’s less transparent than most in this regard. Sister company of Surfshark, NordVPNdisplays the renewal rate directly on the initial pricing page without requiring you to click. ExpressVPN And Proton VPN do that too.

Offering introductory pricing is common in many industries and is a user-friendly practice that can give new users the ability to easily access a service without a large financial commitment. But VPN providers need to be much more transparent about the actual terms of the subscription and how much users should expect to pay upon renewal. Some VPN providers offer you the option to “stack” subscriptions to avoid high renewal rates. For example, NordVPN lets you add additional years over the course of your subscription, allowing you to avoid paying its exorbitant $140 annual renewal rate. But this requires you to manually manage your subscription and potentially commit to longer periods, which is not ideal in many cases.

VPN price transparency is less common than it should be, but it exists

To be fair, not all VPNs are guilty of using tricky pricing tactics. Mullvad has perhaps the most transparent, fair and simple pricing structure in the entire industry. Mullvad costs a flat rate of five euros (about $6) per month, whether you use it for a month, a year, or 10 years. This is one of the most cost-effective VPNs to get on a monthly basis, and I like that this model offers maximum flexibility. Simply pay $6 per month whenever you need it and add a few months or up to a year at a time. You’re never limited to a recurring subscription, and there are no sneaky, costly renewal price hikes. Mullvad makes things as fair as possible.

Windscribe is another example. It costs $9 per month or $69 per year. There’s no price increase upon renewal and no fake “savings” messages, just a sardonic “Cool badge” icon plastered on its annual plan. Windscribe even lets you create your own custom plan for as little as $3 per month if you don’t need full access to its entire server network.

Examples like Mullvad and Windscribe illustrate that VPN pricing doesn’t need to be manipulative and deliberately underhanded. They can be fair and transparent. In an industry that relies so heavily on trust and transparencyI find it surprising to see many otherwise respectable providers still relying on these borderline shady tactics. No one should feel blindsided by skyrocketing renewal rates or in any way tricked into paying more than expected.