Top 5 Cheapest VPNs
If you want to keep your internet traffic safe and secure you need a VPN. Without one, you can be spied on, hacked, robbed and have your traffic throttled. Getting a VPN puts you back in control.
VPNs can vary a lot in price. And you don’t always ‘get what you pay for’ — there are some great deals on low-cost, high-value VPNs, while other services can be overpriced for what they deliver.
Sometimes that’s just because they have to charge more to survive. Sometimes a VPN that offers one special benefit will be more expensive than others, but still the best deal if you need that benefit. For instance, ExpressVPN is among the fastest out there, but it’s a little more expensive than the average. It’s worth it if you want the speed, but over the odds if you don’t.
That means that to get the cheapest VPN, you need to make sure you know what you want from your VPN.We’ve assembled this list to show the cheapest VPNs on offer, and what you get for your money. But there’s a snag: how do we list them? Just going from low to high price ignores value. If you get a lot more features for a little more money, shouldn’t that be reflected in where that VPN appears on the list?
Additionally, some VPNs are cheaper for a month or for three months, but far, far more expensive for a year or two years.
We’ve listed our cheapest VPNs in terms of value overall, then, and tried to be clear about why they’re where they are in the list.
Before we jump in, here are some considerations to bear in mind when you’re deciding on the best value VPN for your needs:
- Are you interested in privacy?
- Are you interested in streaming?
- Do you need business protection?
- Are you a gamer?
- Does it support P2P?
(If you just want to see the facts, jump ahead to the 5 Cheapest VPNs.)
Are you interested in privacy?
Privacy is one of the most common reasons to use a VPN, and everyone should use one — for this if for no other reason. The good news is that the top VPNs for price and performance are typically also best for privacy. So if privacy is your main concern, and you’re an average person, you should be fine with a VPN like NordVPN, which is among the lowest-priced options as well as one of the best.
Are you interested in streaming?
Streaming from geo-restricted services can require a VPN with special features. Generically known as ‘obfuscation,’ these are tools that hide the fact that you’re using a VPN so you don’t get zapped by VPN blockers when you’re watching your favourite shows while you’re out of town.
But there’s another reason to use a VPN for streaming: throttling. Some ISPs will slow your traffic down if they think it’s streaming video because it’s data-heavy and makes life more difficult for them. A VPN conceals the type of traffic you’re sending and receiving and thus frees you from throttling.
Do you need business protection?
Businesses have different requirements from a VPN. Most consumer VPNs give you five or six devices, and allow you to add more cheaply and easily. But even a small business might need more devices off the bat, or router-compatible VPN. Typically, business VPNs are priced on a per-seat basis like business SaaS products, rather than as a one-size-fits-all subscription for multiple devices as with consumer VPNs. If you’re shopping for a business VPN, your pricing and feature needs will be different.
Are you a gamer?
Gamers need a VPN that doesn’t slow them down. Unlike streaming, gamers need a different type of speed. They should look at the network response (ping) rather than at upload and download, because it’s high ping that causes lag and glitchy gameplay. You also need to make sure there’s a fast enough server in the right location if you’re playing geo-restricted games on the move.
Does it support P2P?
P2P networking is awesome. But not every VPN offers equal support for P2P and torrenting. Before you pick a VPN, check that it actually offers plenty of fast servers in the areas you need and that they allow torrenting!
| NordVPN | SaferVPN | PureVPN | IPVanish | TunnelBear |
Privacy | Excellent | Good | OK | Excellent | Good |
Streaming | Excellent | Good | Excellent | Good | Good |
Business | Good | Good | Good | No dedicated service | No dedicated service |
Speed | Good | Good | Excellent | Good | Good |
Gaming | Good | Good | Good | Good | Good |
P2P | OK | OK | Excellent | Good | OK |
Pricing | $3.99/mo (2-year plan) | $3.29/mo (2-year plan) | $2.99/mo (1-year plan) | $6.49/mo (1-year plan) | $4.17/mo (1-year plan) |
Cheapest VPNs
Click on the links to be taken to the relevant paragraph.
1: Nord VPN : Best value VPN $3.99/mo
Nord is among the best VPNs out there. With 5114 servers across 62 countries, Nord gives you a huge range of IPs to access the web from.
It offers military-grade 256-bit AES encryption over IKEv2/IPsec and OpenVPN, mobile apps, and double VPN: traffic is routed to one Nord server, which redirects it to another, which in turn redirects it to its destination, double-encrypting it and making it far harder to figure out your real IP.
How NordVPN Stacks up
Privacy | Nord keeps no logs and can’t access your data |
Streaming | Unblocks major streaming services easily |
Business | Account manager, dedicated server, user admin and more |
Speed | Speed is barely affected by using NordVPN |
Gaming | Solid choice, unblocks georestricted games |
P2P | Servers in Canada and the Netherlands |
Pricing | Best price/features trade-off for long contracts |
NordVPN pricing
How does Nord’s pricing stack up? It’s cheapest standard plan is the 1-year plan at $6.99/mo — a good price for the features it offers.
But Nord has a frequently-running special promotion that lets you get two years for a one-off payment of £3.99.
That’s a solid price. Yes, it’s $96 in one lump, but then you have access to a good VPN for two years. If you’re interested in that deal, click through here:
2: Safer VPN : Best cheap VPN for long term $3.29/mo
SaferVPN has 400 servers across the US, Africa, the Middle East, Europe, Africa and Asia. And they make a big deal out of their commitment to streaming: they’ll unblock Hulu, Netflix, and Youtube anywhere:
And their security checks out too: multiple protocols including OpenVPN and IKEv2, and AES-256 encryption.
However, you should be aware that they have a relatively small server net, and that torrenting is allowed only on specific servers on the SaferVPN network. They don’t keep logs of user activity, but do log some metadata.
How SaferVPN Stacks up
Privacy | SaferVPN logs metadata only, no identifying data |
Streaming | Unblocks major streaming services easily |
Business | Custom business VPN service – Perimeter 81 |
Speed | Speed is barely affected by using SaferVPN |
Gaming | Solid choice, unblocks georestricted games |
P2P | Available on dedicated servers in Netherlands, Canada and Spain |
Pricing | Good pricing, cheap offer for 2-year plan |
SaferVPN pricing
SaferVPN offers a $3.29/mo deal for a 2-year plan, payable as a $78.96 lump every 2 years. But its yearly price, $5.49/mo, is pretty competitive too. Finally the monthly price of $10.99/mo is about normal, not conspicuously high or low.
3: PureVPN: Cheapest VPN for long term $2.99/mo
Fast, easy to use and with 256-bit AES encryption, PureVPN is a good choice for gaming, streaming and browsing. They make a point of being streaming-friendly, and there’s a wide range of P2P-friendly servers too.
How PureVPN Stacks up
Privacy | PureVPN logs Your name, email address, phone number, IP address, bandwidth data and connection timestamps |
Streaming | Unblocks major streaming services easily |
Business | Has custom business service |
Speed | PureVPN is among the fastest out there |
Gaming | Solid choice, unblocks georestricted games |
P2P | Servers in over 80 locations worldwide |
Pricing | Cheapest for very long contracts, some offers on shorter contracts |
PureVPN pricing
Pure’s pricing is best for long contracts, with a 2-year plan coming in at $3.29 a month. Typically, it’s just $10.95 a month otherwise, whether you take out a 1-year subscription or just a month at a time. But there are frequently offers, like this one:
You pay $2.99/mo when you sign up to a 1-year plan — $35.88, a hard price to beat.
We often have offers on PureVPN when it’s not Halloween. Check them out:
4: IPVanish : Cheapest VPN for short term $6.49/mo
With over a thousand servers in more than 60 countries, IPVanish is a decent choice for a VPN for most uses. It’s among the fastest VPNs in the world, and comes with a solid features list, including AES-256 over OpenVPN and L2TP/IPsec encryption.
How IPVanish Stacks up
Privacy | IPVanish keeps no logs and can’t access your data |
Streaming | Dedicated servers for streaming in Las Vegas, Chicago, Dallas |
Business | No provision beyond standard consumer VPN |
Speed | Speed is barely affected by using IPVanish |
Gaming | Solid choice, works on consoles, unblocks games |
P2P | OK across the whole network |
Pricing | Less than Nord for one month, 6 months and one year |
IPVanish pricing
How does IPVanish’s pricing look?
Like most VPNs, IPVanish has reductions for buying longer subscriptions. Buy a year in one go and pay $77.99 — just $6.49/mo. It’s slightly cheaper than many others for one month, 6 months and even one year, but can’t beat Nord’s 2-year deal.
5: TunnelBear: Freemium VPN Free/$4.17/mo
TunnelBear is a smaller VPN than most on this list, with just 20 countries represented. There’s no dedicated business VPN, and the only Pacific servers are in Australia. There’s an anti-blocking tool called GhostBear that gives you access to Hulu, Netflix and YouTube. And it gets good, though not glowing, reviews as a gaming VPN:
TunnelBear keeps connection logs but not traffic or activity logs, and its 1-year price is pretty solid. It’s also the only service on this list to offer a free version with most of its paid-for features. Until recently TunnelBear didn’t allow torrents, but it now says it ‘doesn’t have a stance either way,’ recommending P2P on servers in Canada, US, UK, Romania, Netherlands, Germany, or Sweden.
How TunnelBear Stacks up
Privacy | Logs connections but not traffic or activity |
Streaming | Unblocks major streaming services easily |
Business | No dedicated business service |
Speed | Speed is barely affected by using TunnelBear |
Gaming | Solid choice, unblocks georestricted games |
P2P | Ambivalent on torrents, the company recommends certain servers |
Pricing | Limited free version (500Mb/mo), good 1-year price |
TunnelBear pricing
TunnelBear has a fun pricing page. But it also has pretty fair pricing: 500MB free a month, or $4.17/mo for a year payable as a $49.99 lump annually.
| Plan Name | Monthly Price | Yearly Price | Bandwidth | #Locations | Overall Rating |
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