A virtual private network (VPN) is useful in many ways – a good network can stream foreign TV shows and events, protect your information from cybercrime, and thwart online trackers that show you extremely invasive ads. Although we strongly recommend using a VPN, a little comparison shopping goes a long way in this market. The pricing you see on VPN websites is often not an accurate depiction of what you’ll actually pay.
Still, there are some good deals on the table. VPN providers want to grow their customer base, so they offer deep discounts to customers who sign up for a year or more. It’s a win for you too – while you pay more upfront, it works out to be significantly cheaper over time if you divide the cost by months of service.
Most of the deals we highlight below follow the same pattern, so make sure you’re comfortable with a longer commitment before you decide. If you’re thinking about subscribing to a VPN service, read on for the best VPN deals we could find right now.
best vpn deals
proton
This Swiss VPN is Engadget’s top VPN of choice right now, for reasons I explain in the full ProtonVPN review. It looks and feels great to use on every platform, making it great for multiple-device households. This keeps your browsing speed fast and latency low even over long distances. For those who need a VPN to stay anonymous, ProtonVPN is the only service to implement full-disk encryption, meaning it can handle all your traffic without being visible to Proton.
$119.76 for 24 months at ProtonVPN (50 percent off).
ExpressVPN Basic – $97.72 for a two-year subscription with four months free (73 percent off): It is one of the best VPNs, especially for new users, who will find its apps and website headache-free on all platforms. In tests in my ExpressVPN review, it reduced my download speeds by 7 percent and successfully changed my virtual location 14 out of 15 times. In short, it’s an all-round excellent service that only suffers because of the slightly higher price – which is why I get so excited whenever it offers me a good deal. This deal, which gives you 28 months of ExpressVPN service, represents a 73 percent savings.
ExpressVPN Advanced – $125.72 for a two-year subscription with four months free (67 percent off): ExpressVPN recently split its pricing into several tiers, but they all still come with the same discounts in the long run. In addition to the top-tier VPN service, advanced users get two additional simultaneous connections (for a total of 12), ExpressVPN key password manager, advanced ad and tracker blocking, ID protection features, and a 50 percent discount on the Aircove router.
NordVPN Basic – $80.73 for a two-year subscription with three months free (74 percent off): NordVPN gets the most important parts of a VPN right. It’s fast, it doesn’t leak any of your data and it’s great at changing your virtual location. I noted in my NordVPN review that it always connects fast and includes a support page that makes it easy to get live help. Although I’m sad to see it shutting down Meshnet, NordVPN still includes a lot of great features, like servers that connect you to Tor instantly. This early Black Friday deal gets you 74 percent off a two-year plan, which also comes with three extra months.
NordVPN Plus – $105.03 for a two-year subscription with three months free (74 percent off): In another early Black Friday discount, NordVPN has also taken 74 percent off its Plus subscription. For only a little more, you get a powerful ad and tracker blocker that can even catch malware downloads, as well as access to the NordPass password manager. The Plus plan also adds a data breach scanner that scans the dark web for your sensitive information.
Surfshark Starter – $53.73 for a two-year subscription with three months free (87 percent off): This is the “Basic” tier of Surfshark, but it includes a complete VPN; Everything on Surfshark One is an added benefit. With this subscription, you will get some of the most exciting features in the VPN world right now. Surfshark can constantly rotate your IP to help you avoid detection – it also lets you choose your own entry and exit nodes for double-hop connections. All this has an almost invisible effect on download speeds. With this year-long deal, you can save 87 percent on 27 months of Surfshark.
Surfshark One – $59.13 for a two-year subscription plus three months free (88 percent off): A VPN is great, but it alone is not enough to keep your data secure. Surfshark One adds several apps that extend your protection beyond the VPN service, including Surfshark Antivirus (scans devices and downloads for malware) and Surfshark Alerts (alerts you whenever your sensitive information appears in a data breach), as well as Surfshark Search and Alternative ID from a tier down. This extra low deal gives you 88 percent off all those features. If you jump on the Surfshark One+, you’ll also get the ability to delete data via Incognito, but the price increases so much that it’s just not worth it in my view.
CyberGhost – $56.94 for a two-year subscription, with two months free (83 percent off): CyberGhost has some of the best automation you’ll see on any VPN. With its Smart Rules system, you can set how its apps react to different types of Wi-Fi networks, with exceptions for specific networks you know by name. Typically, you can set it to auto-connect, disconnect, or send you a message asking you what to do. The second best feature of CyberGhost is its streaming servers – I get both better video quality and more consistent unblocking when I use them on streaming sites. Currently, you can get 26 months of Cyber Ghost for 83 percent off the normal price.
hid.me – $59.95 for a two-year subscription with five months free (79 percent off): Hide.me is an excellent free VPN – in fact, it’s my favorite on the market, even with EventVPN and ProtonVPN’s free version as competition. However, if you want to upgrade to its paid plan, a two-year subscription offers big savings. Hide.me works well as a no-frills beginner VPN, with the apps and server network clearly charging more than it should.
Private Internet Access – $79.20 for a three-year subscription with four months free (83 percent off): It’s a little hard to find (the coupon is included in the link at the beginning of this paragraph), but Private Internet Access (PIA) is offering the best available price right now on a VPN that I would recommend using. With this deal, you can get 39 months of PIA for just over $2 per month – an 83 percent discount on its monthly price. Despite being so cheap, PIA has plenty of features coming with its own DNS servers, a built-in ad blocker, and automation powers to rival CyberGhost. However, Internet speed may fluctuate while you are connected.
What makes a good VPN deal?
Practically every VPN offers deep discounts on their long-term subscriptions throughout the year, with even steeper discounts on occasions like Black Friday/Cyber Monday. The only notable exception is Mullvad, which is the Costco hot dog of VPNs (that’s a compliment, to be clear). With deep discounts constantly going on, it can be hard to tell when you’re really getting a good deal. The best way to extract more savings is to look for seasonal deals, student discounts or special sales like ProtonVPN’s coupons for Engadget readers.
One trick that VPNs often use is to add extra months to the introductory deal, which reduces the average monthly price even further. When it comes time to renew, you usually don’t get these extra months back. You may also often not be able to renew for the same original period – for example, you may only be able to renew a two-year subscription for one year. If you plan to keep a VPN indefinitely, check the fine print to see how much it will cost per month after the first renewal and make sure it fits into your budget.
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