The Best Cheap VPNs of 2026
NordVPN is our top pick for an affordable VPN thanks to its excellent balance of price and features, followed by Surfshark for performance and Private Internet Access for its extensive server network.
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Last Updated on Oct 12, 2026
- Dramatic savings when you sign up for a two-year plan
- Low price includes features like multi-hop, split tunneling, and a kill switch
- Access Netflix libraries in other countries at no extra charge
- Unlimited simultaneous connections means you can use multiple devices without paying more
- Two-year subscription costs less than $3 per month
- Even cheapest plans come with no data limits
- Frequent deals and promotions offer even more savings throughout the year
- Lots of free add ons like a data breach alert system
- Even single-month subscriptions are affordable at under $12
the security.brief
NordVPN offers the best price-to-feature ratio, Surfshark excels in performance, and Private Internet Access boasts the best privacy policy among cheap VPNs of 2026.
The word “cheap” carries a negative tone. If you book a cheap hotel, you go there half-expecting a so-so experience. When you buy a cheap used car, you can’t help but think there are underlying problems. And we don’t even want to think about flying with a cheap airline. Those cramped seats leave our legs hurting for days.
You almost always expect to compromise quality to get a cheaper price, but there are some exceptions. As you probably know, we’ve been testing and comparing VPNs for nearly a decade now. We’ve seen it all, including cheaply-priced VPNs that offer quality features. Our five favorite affordable VPNs are Surfshark, Private Internet Access, CyberGhost, NordVPN, and Proton VPN. They are, in our opinion, the best cheap VPNs. While they may not be the cheapest you can find, they offer an excellent price-to-feature ratio.
Pro Tip: Looking to save? We also have lists of the best free VPNs and best VPN free trials. They’re free, but they come with serious limitations. If you want a premium VPN for less, though, keep reading here.
>> Also See: VPN Sales and Deals
Expert Tested: The Best Cheap VPNs of 2026
- NordVPN - Best Price-to-Feature Ratio
- Surfshark - Best Performance
- Private Internet Access - Best Server Network
- CyberGhost VPN - Best Money-Back Guarantee
- Proton VPN - Best Monthly Plan
Side-by-Side Comparison of The Best Cheap VPNs
| System |
NordVPN
|
Surfshark
|
Private Internet Access
|
CyberGhost VPN
|
Proton VPN
|
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ranking | 1st | 2nd | 3rd | 4th | 5th |
| Ratings | 9.7/10 | 9.5/10 | 9.4/10 | 8.9/10 | 9.3/10 |
| Best monthly price | $2.49 | $1.99 | $1.98 | $2.03 | $4.49 |
| Regular monthly price | $14.99 | $15.45 | $11.95 | $12.99 | $9.99 |
| Kill switch | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Split tunneling | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Multihop | Yes | Yes | Yes (via proxy) | No | Yes |
| Changes IP address? | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| DNS leak test | Passed | Passed | Passed | Passed | Passed |
| WebRTC leak test | Passed | Passed | Passed | Passed | Passed |
| No-logs | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Read Review | NordVPN Review | Surfshark Review | Private Internet Access Review | CyberGhost VPN Review | Proton VPN Review |
A Closer Look At Our Top Picks
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1. NordVPN - Best Price-to-Feature Ratio
Get NordVPN Links to NordVPN
Product Specs
Server locations 137 countries Average Speed Loss 6% download & 4% upload Apps Windows, MacOS, Linux, Android, iOS, Chrome, Firefox, Edge, Android TV, tvOS Best Monthly Rate $3.49/mo with a 2-year plan Money-Back Guarantee 30 days full refund
Features
We tested NordVPN for a little over a week, using it everyday for our browsing, downloads, and general internet use. What we noticed is that it has features for just about any situation that might arise.
When we needed to share files with a colleague working remotely, it had specialty servers built for peer-to-peer file sharing (which also makes it a good VPN for torrenting). When we needed extra privacy for this secret project we’re working on, we used Double VPN a.k.a. multihop. Even when we had to go to the deep web, NordVPN had this Onion over VPN feature that kept us connected to a secure VPN server. Not many VPNs can work with Tor (The Onion Router)4, the anonymity network used to access the deep web. Fortunately, NordVPN was there for us to keep anonymous and private.
Setting up NordVPN to run on qBittorrent >> Read More: How To Say Anonymous Online
FYI: NordVPN’s Meshnet feature came in handy on more than one occasion while we were testing it. Basically, it works like Airdrop for Apple products except it’s not limited to the Apple ecosystem or to nearby devices. That let us easily drop our on-the-go notes from our iPhone to our Windows laptop when we had a creative thought at a coffee shop.
Performance
Like Surfshark, PIA, and CyberGhost, NordVPN passed all our safety tests. NordVPN passed all our safety tests. It effectively changed our IP address to that of the VPN server and shielded our real one from DNS and WebRTC leaks. We even used the DNS leak test tool from ExpressVPN5, one of NordVPN’s fiercest competitions, and it still passed.
When it comes to being fast, NordVPN’s download speed averaged around 228 Mbps on our 250 Mbps network. Assuming we were getting 250 Mbps from our internet provider the whole time, that’s a 9 percent speed loss from NordVPN, which is way below the 40 percent industry average. Surfshark was faster than NordVPN, averaging over 230 Mbps.
Internet speed test results while connected to NordVPN >> Also See: The Fastest VPNs
Privacy
NordVPN is committed to privacy. We saw as much in its privacy policy and the fact that it has submitted itself to third-party security audits on more than one occasion. It seems to be a yearly thing for NordVPN. The latest audit performed by Deloitte from Romania at the end of 2024 confirmed the truthfulness of NordVPN’s “no-logs” claims. Before that, Deloitte audited NordVPN in December 2023.
To be clear, though, we did find that NordVPN still logs some data. For example, it records usernames and a time stamp of users’ last session status. So, technically, NordVPN knows who’s connected to its VPN servers at a given time. However, it doesn’t know what they’re doing, and they claim to delete that information 15 minutes after each session. Confirming that they delete that information 15 minutes after each session is part of their third-party security audits, so we trust that they actually do it.
What We Like:
- Feature-rich VPN
- Prices start at $3.49 per month
- 30-day money-back guarantee
- Optional add-ons like a password manager and secure cloud backup
What We Don’t Like:
- Limited to 10 simultaneous connections
- Desktop apps can be a little slow
- Monthly plans cost a minimum of $14.99
- Prices may increase after the initial subscription
Our NordVPN subscription Is NordVPN really affordable? Well, it’s not the cheapest VPN, but given its features, we believe we got more than our money’s worth. Subscriptions cost us as little as $3.49 per month, making it more expensive than other options by only about a dollar per month.
>> Compare: NordVPN Vs CyberGhost
As for us, we went with the more expensive $14.99 monthly plan since we wanted to test NordVPN for just a week. But keep in mind NordVPN has a 30-day money-back guarantee. In fact, when we canceled our VPN subscription even though it was just for one month, NordVPN refunded us. That’s a good workaround if you want to test out NordVPN before committing fully.
Here’s how much NordVPN costs per month depending on your plan:NordVPN plans Basic (VPN only) Complete (VPN + password manager + secure cloud storage + next-generation antivirus) Prime (VPN + password manager + secure cloud storage + next-generation antivirus + identity theft protection) 1-month plan $14.99 $19.99 $29.99 1-year plan $5.49 $6.49 $9.49 2-year plan $3.49 $4.49 $7.49 To give you some perspective on NordVPN’s pricing, let’s look at that’s one not on this list, ExpressVPN. ExpressVPN costs a minimum of $2.99 per month with a two-year subscription. It doesn’t offer subscriptions any longer than that, so that’s also the best price you can get. With NordVPN, a two-year deal costs $3.49 – sounds affordable to us!
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2. Surfshark - Best Performance
Get Surfshark VPN Links to Surfshark.com
Product Specs
Server locations 100 countries countries Average Speed Loss 8% download & 50% upload Apps Windows, MacOS, Linux, Android, iOS, Chrome, Firefox, Edge, tvOS, Android TV, Fire TV Best Monthly Rate $2.49/mo with a 2-year plan Money-Back Guarantee 30 days full refund
Features
For a cheap VPN, Surfshark shares a lot of the same features as a premium offering. You get access to military-grade encryption, security features like a kill switch and split tunneling, and a massive server network. The best feature is unlimited simultaneous connections, which is something premium VPNs don’t offer.
MultiHop with Surfshark Surfshark also had a few extra features like ad and malicious site blocking. Not only did those make our browsing experience smoother without ads filling our screens, they also prevented us from accessing a potentially harmful phishing site from a convincing scam email we received.
Pro Tip: Surfshark also makes one of our favorite antivirus software and they offer it alongside their VPN in their Surfshark One subscription. With a price point that starts at $2.19 per month for both, we think it’s one of the best value bundles in the cybersecurity industry. See if you could benefit from it by reading our Surfshark Antivirus review.
Performance
While our IP address, DNS, and WebRTC leak tests are pass/fail tests – they either pass or fail and there’s no grading system – we tested a Surfshark feature called Camouflage Mode that made Surfshark perform extra well. Camouflage Mode, or obfuscation, is a VPN technology that makes encrypted VPN traffic look like just regular traffic. It doesn’t just hide your IP address; it hides that you’re using a VPN. This came in handy when we tested the best travel VPNs while in Hong Kong, which is more restrictive towards VPN users.
In terms of speed, Surfshark didn’t disappoint, either. We notched the fastest average download and upload speeds – 234 Mbps and 227 Mbps, respectively. It’s not always fast, mind you, but throughout our nearly two-week testing period, we didn’t notice any significant slowdowns. We were able to keep up with our Netflix streaming, download gigabytes of files, and browse without any hitch.
Surfshark Server Locations including the Fastest Ones >> Check Out: The Top VPNs that Work in China
Privacy
Surfshark has a zero-logs policy, and just like our next pick, Private Internet Access, it has gone through numerous security and transparency audits. The latest was an audit by Deloitte confirming that Surfshark complies with their no-logs policy.1 It bears significance because as we were reading through Surfshark’s privacy policy, we noticed that it does log IP addresses.
That is a cause for concern if not for the statement that it deletes the information 15 minutes after each session. There’s a lot someone can do with your IP address; for VPNs, they can see who accessed which servers, which can potentially tie a server’s activity (i.e. which websites are visited) to a user’s computer. Because of Surfshark’s transparency, though, we have no doubt that it follows the 15-minute protocol.
What We Like:
- Audited privacy policy and server structure
- Fast speeds most of the time
- Camouflage mode
- Affordable rates starting at $1.99
What We Don’t Like:
- Pricey $15.45 monthly plan
- Logs IP addresses (but deletes it after 15 minutes)
- Based in The Netherlands (Nine-Eye country, not great for privacy)
- More expensive subscription renewals
Surfshark is a budget VPN. It becomes a complete digital security solution when you subscribe to the higher tiers, but it’s still very affordable. Surfshark offers three subscriptions: A monthly plan, a one-year plan, and a two-year plan. We went with a monthly plan, which is a little on the steep side. When you sign up for a one-year or two-year plan, Surfshark becomes a lot cheaper.
Surfshark plans Average monthly rate Total subscription Renewal 1-month $15.45 $15.45 Renews monthly at $15.45 1-year $3.19 $47.85 Renews yearly at $79 2-year $1.99 $53.73 Renews yearly at $79 All Surfshark plans are also covered by a 30-day money-back option. After we were done testing it on day 12 of our subscription, we requested a refund and got the full $15.45 back. Don’t hesitate to use the money-back option; it’s there to let you test VPNs until you find the one that works best for you.
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3. Private Internet Access - Best Server Network
View Plans Links to Private Internet Access
Product Specs
Server locations 91 countries Average Speed Loss 5% download & 84% download Apps Windows, MacOS, Linux, Android, iOS, Chrome, Firefox, Android TV, tvOS Best Monthly Rate $1.98/mo with a 3-year plan Money-Back Guarantee 30 days full refund
Features
Private Internet Access provided us with a lot of features. While those features were not as advanced as Surfshark, they were all we needed to protect our online privacy, such as a kill switch, split tunneling, and multihop. What impressed us the most was how many servers PIA offers.
Private Internet Access’ customizability What we really appreciated about Private Internet Access was its customizability. For example, most VPNs encrypt data using 256-bit AES. That’s the most advanced and secure encryption standard used even by the U.S. government for top-secret data.2 Not all data, however, requires encryption that strong. Sometimes a more simple (but still plenty secure) 128-bit AES is all that we need, like when we’re using a VPN to stream movies, meet via Zoom, or play online games. Private Internet Access allowed us to lower the encryption for such occasions, which resulted in a slight speed boost.
>> You’ll Like: The Top VPNs for Online Gaming
Performance
Private Internet Access was another fast one. It averaged 221 Mbps for downloads, although the upload speed left us wanting a bit more. It averaged around 205 Mbps. It wasn’t bad – that’s still only an 18 percent loss – but it’s something to keep in mind if you’re doing upload-heavy tasks like live streaming via Twitch or uploading videos to YouTube.
In terms of security performance, we had no problems with Private Internet Access at all. It passed all our tests, even when we adjusted the encryption to 128-bit AES. It was successful in changing our Android’s IP address location and giving us a U.K. IP address, even though we’re in the U.S. As a result, we were able to stream shows exclusively available on BBC iPlayer.
Private Internet Access VPN Connected to New York City Privacy
Private Internet Access’ strongest point was privacy. It has a no-logs policy that promises not to keep any logs of users’ activities, including which websites are visited and IP addresses are used. The only information it logs from users is anonymized connection data, which includes device identifiers, which VPN protocol is used, and a few more.3
What we found striking is that you can opt out from providing those pieces of information, as well. On PIA’s Windows app, for example, just go to the settings, select Help, and make sure the checkbox next to Help Improve PIA is left unticked. It’s disabled by default, but better check just to be sure.
>> Check Out: The Best Windows VPNs
Did You Know: Surfshark and Private Internet Access allow you to pay with cryptocurrency instead of a credit or debit card. Paying with cryptocurrency minimizes the amount of information connecting you with your use of a VPN.
What We Like:
- Option to opt out of all logging
- Customizable settings
- Subscription starts at $2.03 per month
- Easy-to-use apps
What We Don’t Like:
- Based in the U.S. (Five Eyes member)
- Slower upload speeds
- Not as feature-rich as other top options
- Three-year subscription required to get best price
Private Internet Access’s $2.03 monthly price is the cheapest among the five VPNs on this page, but it comes with a trade-off: You’ll need to buy a three-year subscription. That’s $79 total, which is not bad when you do the math. Paying $79 for three years of Private Internet Access is still cheaper than $94.23 for two years of our number four pick NordVPN.
Private Internet Access pricing Average cost per month Total cost 3-year plan $2.03 $79 1-year plan $3.33 $39.95 1-month plan $11.95 $11.95 Like Surfshark, Private Internet Access doesn’t put limits on the number of devices you can connect. We had more than five desktops and about a dozen of our team members’ smartphones connected to PIA during our tests. Surfshark is another VPN we tested with unlimited simultaneous connections, but NordVPN only covers up to 10 devices.
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4. CyberGhost VPN - Best Money-Back Guarantee
Get Cyberghost VPN Links To CyberGhost
Product Specs
Multihop No Obfuscated Servers No Kill Switch Yes Split Tunneling Yes Netflix Yes Torrenting Yes
Features
CyberGhost offers a healthy serving of features, like a network of over 11,000 RAM servers, email leak monitoring, and a kill switch. It’s missing a couple you would find with Surfshark and PIA, such as multihop. We also found the split tunneling feature limited. Split tunneling creates two tunnels for your traffic. One goes to the VPN server, the other takes the normal route (without VPN). We use it when we’re multi-tasking; for example, when we need to access our office backup server, which requires a non-VPN connection.
CyberGhost streaming-optimized servers and locations Normally, VPNs with split tunneling let us force entire apps to use the non-VPN tunnel. Unfortunately, CyberGhost didn’t have that kind of split tunneling. It relied on website URLs and IP addresses, which we had to enter into the given field. We prefer selecting apps, because when the office server rotated its IP address, we had to find the IP address and enter it again into the CyberGhost app.
Performance
If you don’t need split tunneling, you’ll be more than satisfied with how CyberGhost performs. It passed our IP address leak tests, and it put up great speeds. It had symmetric upload and download speeds; uploads and downloads were equally fast, unlike with PIA where the upload speeds were slower.
CyberGhost’s average readings were 218 to 222 Mbps. That’s about a 12 percent drop, so even if your internet isn’t as fast as ours, you’d still be able to do most things you normally do. For example, we were still able to stream 4K shows on our iPhones using our AT&T mobile data plan (about 50 Mbps normally).
>> See More: Our Favorite iPhone VPNs
Privacy
Next to Private Internet Access, CyberGhost has the best privacy policy in this list. It has a no-logs policy that stores only two types of aggregate data from all users to be used as a metric for measuring the performance of its overall server network. Those types of data are connection attempts – for example, it logged every time we tried to connect to a server and our country of origin – and successful connections to identify things such as peak hours and how many users are connected on an hourly or daily interval.
Those types of data are benign. They can’t be used to track what a person is doing while connected to CyberGhost. Our only gripe is that CyberGhost itself doesn’t process the collected data. We learned from the privacy policy that it uses a third-party service provider for data analytics, and often, the more people involved, the higher the risk of a data breach.
>> Learn More: What Is A Data Breach?
What We Like:
- Symmetrical upload and download speed
- Lightweight and easy to use apps
- 45-day money-back guarantee
- 100 server locations and 11,000+ servers
What We Don’t Like:
- Limited features
- Can be slow to connect
- Still uses obsolete VPN protocols like L2TP for macOS
- Uses third-party service provider for data analytics
CyberGhost’s special deal at the time of writing CyberGhost offers subscriptions up to two years, and if you go with the longest plan, you’ll get CyberGhost’s $2.03 per month price. That’s $56.94 for the whole two years, the third most affordable pricing on this page next to Surfshark.
Here’s a complete look at CyberGhost’s pricing:
CyberGhost plans Monthly rate Total price you’ll pay 1-month $12.99 $12.99 6-month $6.99 $41.94 2-year $2.03 $56.94 Another thing we like about CyberGhost is that you get a longer time to test the service before locking in your subscription. As discussed, Surfshark and PIA have a 30-day money-back guarantee. That’s par for the course of the VPN industry. CyberGhost, however, gives users two extra weeks for a total of 45 days to test out its VPNs. If you decide it’s not for you, you can cancel for free and get your money back.
Bear in mind though that the 45-day money-back option applies only to the six-month and two-year plans. We went with the $12.99 monthly plan, which comes with only a 14-day refund option. That’s not so bad; we canceled on day 10 and got a full refund within six days, but just something to remember when choosing a CyberGhost subscription.
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5. Proton VPN - Best Monthly Plan
View Plans Links to Proton VPN
Product Specs
Server locations 129 countries countries Average Speed Loss 8% download & 4% upload Apps Windows, MacOS, Linux, Android, iOS, Chrome, Firefox, Android TV, tvOS, Firestick Best Monthly Rate $2.99/mo with a 2-year plan Money-Back Guarantee 30 days
Features
Proton VPN actually closely resembles NordVPN’s feature-set. It has split tunneling, multihop, and a kill switch. More than that, it was another VPN we tested with an Onion over VPN capability. So yes, we were able to keep our VPN connection while browsing the deep web.
What Proton VPN has that NordVPN doesn’t is Secure Core. Secure Core is a specialty network that connects you to servers only in privacy-friendly countries. Every time we connected, we got either a Switzerland or Sweden location, but other countries like Iceland were available, too. As opposed to countries like India that forces VPN servers to store user data, Secure Core countries have no mandatory data retention laws, making them safer for privacy.
>> Read About: 5 Countries Where VPNs Are Illegal
Performance
Proton VPN’s performance kind of dipped. It was secure – it passed all our IP address leak tests – but the speed was sometimes inconsistent, especially on those Secure Core servers. Sometimes, we got great speeds up to 235 Mbps; other times, it was a more sluggish 210 to 215 Mbps. Nonetheless, when it’s fast, Proton VPN is one of the fastest VPNs. You just have to troubleshoot the VPN a little when it’s not performing as well, like switch to a different server or choose a different VPN protocol.
Proton VPN app Privacy
Proton VPN comes from the same company that brought us ProtonMail, the secure, private, and encrypted email service. As such, we expected nothing less than complete privacy. Did Proton VPN deliver? Without question!
We liked the fact that because Proton offers different cybersecurity products, it has a detailed privacy policy for each. For the VPN, it makes clear that it does not log which websites you visit, traffic or the content of any communication, IP addresses, session lengths, and location-based information.
>> Learn More: How to Change Your PC’s Location
What We Like:
- Less than $10 per month monthly subscription
- Other Proton products (mail, calendar, cloud storage) are optional add-ons
- Secure Core servers
- Onion over VPN
What We Don’t Like:
- Inconsistent speeds
- Privacy policy doesn’t detail what is collected
- More expensive one-year and two-year plans
- 10-device limit
We want to make clear that Proton VPN is on this list for one reason and one reason only: It’s less than $10 per month for the month-to-month subscription. Proton VPN is actually on the more expensive side if you’re planning to get a two-year or one-year plan. Two years of Proton VPN costs $120 ($4.49 per month), which is nearly $26 more than NordVPN. So if you’re looking for a cheap VPN to use long-term, Proton VPN is not it.
Proton VPN plans Monthly cost Total price Monthly $9.99 $9.99 1-year $4.99 $59.88 2-year $4.49 $107.76 On the other hand, if you’re looking for a cheap VPN you can pay for monthly, Proton VPN is an affordable option. As you’ve probably noticed, a VPN monthly plan typically costs more than $10. NordVPN cost us $14.99, CyberGhost cost $12.99, Surfshark was $15.45, and Private Internet Access was $11.95. When we bought a monthly Proton VPN subscription, it cost us only $9.99. And remember, we got NordVPN-like features from Proton VPN, so it’s worth your money if you’re going with a monthly subscription.
Summary: How Much Do The Best Cheap VPNs Cost?
We’ve learned that the best cheap VPNs can cost anywhere from $50 to $100 for two years, which in all fairness, breaks down to about $2 to $4 per month. If you think of it that way, they’re really cheap. If you can brew coffee at home instead of buying from a coffee shop for just one day per month, you can afford these VPNs.
If you want a more detailed look at VPN pricings, here’s our page that discusses VPN costs more in-depth. There you’ll see exactly which VPNs fit your budget.
Are There Special Discounts?
VPN prices are pretty much the same throughout the year. Even during special sales like Black Friday (November) and Cybersecurity Month (October), VPN prices don’t move. At best, they offer free months – for example, buy a two-year subscription and get three months free. The average monthly cost will go down on account of the added months, but the total price you’ll pay is the same.
If you’re a student, however, some VPNs offer student discounts through Student Beans and similar student discount programs. You can sign up for those programs with your student ID and see if your VPN of choice offers discounts there. Usually, the discounts range from 10 to 15 percent for the longest subscription available.
>> Also See: The Best VPNs for School
Methodology: How We Selected The Top VPNs for Budget Buyers
Our Testing Process
At Security.org, no VPN makes it onto any of our recommendation pages without clearing our full vetting process first. The process includes our testers purchasing, installing, and putting each service through its paces. That means we run speed tests across a wide range of server locations, verifying leak protection, stress-testing kill switch behavior and reliability, and holding each provider’s logging claims up against real, published audit findings. Price and value is also important. We weigh monthly and annual pricing, device coverage per plan, and refund windows and cancellation flexibility alongside every privacy and performance result. Our complete process is governed by our Editorial Guidelines. Every recommendation we publish reflects real-world privacy protection, not just polished marketing promises.
The Factors We Considered Most
Budget VPNs occupy a tricky space — the market is flooded with providers that win on price by cutting corners on the things that actually matter, and finding the ones that don’t do that requires a different kind of scrutiny. We shaped our scoring around the specific trade-offs budget buyers are most likely to encounter. Here’s what we focused on:
- True Cost of Ownership: We looked well beyond headline subscription prices to understand what each VPN actually costs over time. We factored in introductory versus renewal rates, which features are locked behind higher tiers, and whether essential tools like the kill switch or multi-device support require a paid upgrade.
- Privacy Without the Premium Price Tag: We held budget providers to the same privacy standard as any other VPN we evaluate because privacy is the one thing no VPN should skimp on. We verified their no-log policies, checked for DNS, WebRTC, and IPv6 leaks, and confirmed that cost-cutting hadn’t come at the expense of the encryption standards and protocol options.
- Speed and Reliability at Scale: We tested each VPN’s performance across a broad range of server locations to see whether speed held up consistently or degraded noticeably on less-trafficked servers. We’ve found that budget providers often maintain smaller networks that can become congested, but some offer consistent, reliable speeds.
- Streaming Access and Feature Depth: We verified each provider’s ability to unblock major streaming platforms and assessed what features came included at the base price. We compared split tunneling availability, simultaneous connection limits, and kill switch reliability to determine whether each VPN delivered key features.
A budget price point was the starting point for this list, not the finish line. Every VPN here had to earn its place on performance just as much as on value.
Who We Are
Security.org’s VPN testing is overseen by Brett Cruz, a cybersecurity expert and long-time VPN reviewer with extensive experience evaluating privacy tools. Brett’s hands-on approach shapes our overall approach to VPN recommendations.
Behind Brett are Security.org’s security researchers and product testers — more than 20 specialists who have collectively spent over 25,000 hours reviewing security products since 2018. We’ve produced more than 740 reviews, and some of our work has been featured and cited in major publications and outlets such as The New York Times and CBS News. Our broader team includes:
- Ozzie Enriquez: Former DHS Senior Watch Officer and DHS Duty Director for Current Operations, offering up his expertise in cybersecurity strategy and threat intelligence as an advisor
- Gene Petrino: Former S.W.A.T. commander and law enforcement veteran, serving as a lead advisor across our privacy and security coverage
- Cort Honey: Engineer-turned-security reviewer with 1,000+ hours of hands-on product testing and a knack for making sophisticated tech digestible for everyday consumers
- Corey Birnstengel: Editor and product reviewer behind our 200+ in-depth video reviews
Our picks are never influenced by advertiser relationships or affiliate compensation.
Are VPNs Worth It?
Bear in mind that you’ll have to pay upfront for multiple years of subscription to enjoy the best prices, and $50 to $100 isn’t exactly chump change for everyone. Are VPNs really worth it? Well, let’s take a look at what they offer.
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- Encryption: First and foremost, VPNs encrypt data. Even if you go incognito, a lot of people are still privy to your browsing history. Your ISP can see all your activities, and if you’re browsing from a public Wi-Fi, the network administrator can technically see what you’re doing. Encryption doesn’t hide your browsing activity, but it scrambles the data so that no one can understand it. To anyone with access to your browsing activity, it will be like you’re sending gibberish to a random server IP address.
- Traffic tunneling: Browsing the internet leaves a lot of digital footprint. Think of it like this: If you step on red paint and then walk around, it will be easy to track and follow you. In the digital world, others will be able to see which websites you’ve been on, what products you’ve looked at, which social media platforms you’ve used, and so on. If you use a VPN, your footprint will be mixed with those of thousands of other VPN users, making it impossible to distinguish whose footprint is which.
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- Uncensored internet: Internet censorship is another problem you can solve by using a VPN. If you live in a country where the flow of information is controlled by the government, your access to hundreds of websites is blocked. In China, for example, internet users can not access Facebook, X (formerly Twitter), and other Western social media sites. Connecting to a VPN unblocks those blocked websites.
- Online anonymity: Using a VPN doesn’t make you completely anonymous, but it hides your most important online identifier – your IP address. Your traffic goes from your device to a VPN server and then to the website you’re accessing. As far as the website is concerned, the traffic is coming from the VPN server, so your real IP address is totally out of the equation.
- Getting around geo-restriction: Similar to unblocking websites, using a VPN gives you access to geo-restricted content. For example, if you’re outside the U.S., there’s no way to access Hulu with your normal internet. Hulu can see that your IP address is from outside the country, and so it blocks you from using its services. With a VPN, you can get a U.S. IP address. And again, once you’re connected, Hulu won’t see your real IP address, so it will think you’re browsing from the U.S.
>> Learn More: The Best VPNs for Hulu Streaming
Making The Most Of Your VPN
So those are the benefits of using a VPN, but how do you access them? Easy, just set up your VPN app, buy a subscription, and connect to a server.
The most important part is knowing how to set up and use the VPN based on what you’re trying to accomplish. For example, if you want to access Netflix’s streaming library in Australia, you’ll need to connect to a VPN server in Australia. Most VPNs have a server list that lets you choose the location of your server. If you connect to a server in Australia, you’ll get an Australia IP address; if you connect to Singapore, you’ll get a Singapore IP address.
>> See More: The Best VPNs in Singapore
In most cases, if you want to access something that’s blocked in your home country, you’ll need to connect to a server outside your country. On the other hand, if the network did the blocking – for example, if you’re in school and your school Wi-Fi blocks Disney+ – connecting to any server will do the trick. Your network is likely checking where your device’s traffic is going to, and if you connect to a VPN, it’ll see that you’re sending traffic to a random server, not Disney+.
>>Read More: The Best VPNs for Disney+
For a full guide on how to fully utilize a VPN, here’s our full VPN how-to guide. Give it a read and learn how to best use your VPN to get the most out of your subscription.
Conclusion: The Cost of Your Digital Privacy
In a perfect world, we’d all be browsing the internet risk-free. No one is snooping on our online activities, there’s online freedom and no censorship, and there are no hackers to worry about. Unfortunately, we’re not living in that world. We live in a world where data is the most valuable form of digital currency. A lot of people are interested in our data, so we must do the best we can to protect it.
Using a VPN is one of the best steps we can take, and yes, the best VPNs to use cost money. But as we’ve learned, it’s money well-spent because the consequences of losing our privacy is much more costly. It can lead to identity theft, for example, which costs each victim over $1,500.
Fortunately, the best cheap VPNs also happen to be some of the top VPNs all around. Even if we’re not rich enough to spend millions of dollars each year to protect our data like big corporations do, we stand a good chance of protecting ourselves online.
FAQs
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Are cheap VPNs secure and safe to use?
Most cheap VPNs are secure and safe to use as they are still regular VPNs. They are only considered cheap because they offer discounts for long-term subscriptions.
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Are cheap VPNs better than free VPNs?
In most cases, cheap VPNs are better than free VPNs in terms of features and performance. Typically, free VPNs have limitations, such as data usage limits, speed limits, and server location limits. Cheap VPNs don’t have such limitations.
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What is the cheapest VPN?
The lowest prices we saw were from Ivacy, which has a five-year subscription for $60. That’s one dollar per month. However, even though it has a money-back guarantee, five years is too long. A lot of things can change during that time, so even though Ivacy is also one of our top VPNs, we recommend going with a slightly more expensive but shorter subscription from either Surfshark, Private Internet Access, CyberGhost, NordVPN, or Proton VPN.
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What if I want to cancel my long-term VPN subscription?
Most VPNs have a money-back guarantee. They will give you your money back if you’re unsatisfied with their service. In most cases, you have 30 days to do so after paying for the subscription. There are also VPNs that don’t have a money-back guarantee but have a free trial. You can take advantage of the free trial to test things out before paying for a subscription.
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Surfshark. (2023). Surfshark’s no-logs statement gets verified by Deloitte.
https://surfshark.com/blog/deloitte-audit-nologs -
National Institute of Standards and Technology. (2023). Advanced Encryption Standard (AES).
nist.gov/publications/advanced-encryption-standard-aes-0 -
Private Internet Access. (2022). PRIVATE INTERNET ACCESS PRIVACY POLICY.
privateinternetaccess.com/privacy-policy -
Tor. (2023). Home Page.
torproject.org/ -
ExpressVPN. (2023). DNS Leak Test.
expressvpn.com/dns-leak-test -
Private Internet Access. (2022). PRIVATE INTERNET ACCESS PRIVACY POLICY.
privateinternetaccess.com/privacy-policy
