Every top VPN list is somebody's ranking by criteria they rarely state. This one states them: the providers below are ranked on figures quoted verbatim from their own pricing pages, dated and hash-pinned, with the prepaid term and the renewal counted rather than ignored. No speed test, no score, nothing this site did not read off a page you can open.
Top vpn: the ranking, and the criterion
- CyberGhost: Prints $1.99 a month on a 26-month term and renews at $51.74 a year, an increase of about a half where most of this index doubles or triples; publishes its own pages for TV apps, routers and its no-logs policy, and carries a 45-day money-back window on that plan.
- Private Internet Access: The lowest printed headline in the catalogue at $1.79 a month, autorenewing at $69.81 every three years, so the renewal is close to the intro rather than a multiple of it; the trade is the longest prepayment here at 39 months.
- IVPN: Prints $6 a month and $60 a year with no intro rate, no prepaid term and no renewal to fall off; the most expensive headline in the index and cheaper than several of the low ones from the second year onward.
- ExpressVPN: Prints $2.99 a month on a 28-month term and renews at $99.95 a year; one of only three providers here maintaining its own live pages for all three use cases this index tracks, which is the widest published coverage in the catalogue.
The criteria, stated before the list
Three things, in order. What the plan renews at, because that is the standing price and it is the number the advertising omits. How long the prepayment is, because a low headline on a three-year term is a different product from a low headline on one year. And whether the provider publishes a dedicated policy page on what it retains, because a claim on its own domain is checkable and a slogan is not.
Why the cheapest headline is not first
Private Internet Access prints the lowest monthly figure in this index and asks for thirty-nine months to get it. That is a real offer and a large commitment, and its renewal is unusually gentle. CyberGhost prints nearly as low a headline on a shorter term with a renewal that rises by about half rather than several times over, which on the criteria above is the better shape for most people.
Why two providers with high headlines are here at all
IVPN prints six dollars a month with no term and no discount to fall off, which is the most expensive headline in this catalogue and cheaper than several of the low ones from year two. It is included because the criteria are about the standing price rather than the advertised one, and any ranking that omitted it would be ranking adverts.
What this ranking deliberately does not do
It does not rank on speed, because this site runs no speed tests. It does not rank on security audits, because it has read none. It does not rank on server counts, which change weekly and are unverifiable from here. Anything outside the printed prices and the published policy pages is outside what this index can honestly claim to know.
Questions people ask about top vpn
What makes a VPN top of this list?
A renewal that does not multiply the headline, a prepaid term that is not punitive, and a published policy page on its own domain about what it retains.
Why is the cheapest not ranked first?
Because the cheapest headline in this index requires a thirty-nine month prepayment. The ranking counts the term and the renewal, not the advert.
Do you test speeds?
No. This site publishes no benchmark it did not run, which is why speed appears nowhere in the ranking.