ESET Antivirus Cost and Plan Pricing

You know when you go to a car dealership and they hand you a piece of paper with four boxes to explain the price of a car? When you get the paper, you’re even more confused about how much the car costs. They seem to break it down in every way possible without actually giving you the final cost. Well, that’s kind of how we felt when going through ESET’s pricing.

Even though we liked the antivirus software they sold overall, actually buying it is a headache waiting to happen. It’s one of the reasons it didn’t make the cut in our list of the best antivirus software. After all, you shouldn’t need a guide to buy antivirus software. You should only need a guide to understand antivirus software.

But don’t worry; we already went through that headache so you don’t have to. We’re going to break down ESET’s pricing in simple terms so you can get on their site and know exactly what to look for.

For Free?

We tried out ESET for 30 days without paying, but there’s no unlimited free subscription. Still, we’re glad that we didn’t have to commit to a year, two years or three years without actually trying the antivirus software out for ourselves. And that 30-day free trial gave us full access to the software which let us test all of its features. That way, you can test it out to see which features you like, and therefore, which subscription tier you want. But after the initial 30 days, we had to cough up some dough.

Subscription Options

ESET’s pricing used to be a complete mess, with different plans for desktop and mobile devices. Thankfully, they redid their pricing model and now they use an all-in-one subscription model that lets you decide how many devices you want covered. They still offer three tiers of protection, but it’s a lot easier to figure out than the old one that gave different prices for different device types.

Unfortunately, the Ultimate tier requires protection for at least 5 devices. But, other than that, you can buy protection for up to ten devices on any tier. Here’s an overview of the pricing for all three tiers:

So, what do you get with the different tiers of ESET’s all-in-one protection? With how much more the Ultimate plan costs, we’re sure you’re hoping it gives you a whole lot more. We cover the difference in full detail in our comprehensive ESET review. For now, here’s a quick overview of what you can expect in each tier:

NOD32 Windows and macOS Protection

Now, if you only want ESET antivirus protection for their NOD32 program, you can save a bit of money. However, it only works on Windows and macOS devices, so you won’t be able to protect your smartphones or tablets with these plans. You can only get protection for up to 5 devices too. Anyways, here’s an overview of ESET’s NOD32 plans:

Android-Specific Protection

Of course, ESET’s pricing wouldn’t be that confusing if they didn’t have yet another tier of subscriptions specifically for smartphones. But, these plans are only for Android devices. To protect an iOS device, you’ll need to go with one of the all-in-one plans. Here’s how much protecting Android devices costs with ESET:

ESET also offers a free plan for Android devices, but it doesn’t give you a whole lot of protection. Here’s a comparison between the free and premium plans of Android protection:

What We Liked

While we’re not going to go into extreme detail about the testing process behind the Cyber Security Pro for Mac package, we can give you a little information on what we liked most about the software:

• Free trial: We liked that we could try out ESET for free without worrying about losing money.
• Discounted long term contracts: With up to three year plans, ESET gave us discounts the longer we signed up for.
• Solid Android app: The ESET Mobile Security & Antivirus app on the Google Play store was easy to use, reflected in its 4.7-star rating. Although they made an iOS app too, it doesn’t have its own premium plan like the Android app.
• High malware detection: It’s hard to get much better than detecting 99.8 percent of malware in the past four months.

• Detected four out of five viruses: In our testing, ESET performed well, in the top percentile compared to the other antivirus software we’ve tested.
• No history of breaches, vulnerabilities, or lawsuits: This is a huge rarity when it comes to antivirus companies. Many have pretty sordid histories with multiple vulnerabilities leaking user information, hackings, or simply lawsuits from disgruntled customers. ESET’s clean background made us trust them that much more.

Student Discount: How To Get It

All current students can get 25% off any ESET product. You’ll need to verify your student status through ID.me though, so good luck to you if you’re like us an always try to snag a discount with our old-school email. That discount includes everything from their all-in-one security solution to just protection for your Android phone or tablet though. So, you can even get a plan that protects ten devices to give protection to your whole family with your student discount. We are a little disappointed though, because ESET used to give us half off as a student and only required our email.

>> Related reading: Is ID.me Safe?

How To Cancel

If you try ESET out fnd you’re convinced it’s not the best antivirus software, you can return it for up to 60 days after your purchasing data for a full refund, which includes the free, 30-day trial. This is more than enough time to make your decision, so we love that testing out ESET didn’t require any dire financial straits on our part. Booya!