Cheapest VPN, once the prepaid term and the renewal are counted

Printed prices, verified

Working out what a cheap VPN really costs

1. Multiply the headline by the term. A monthly figure attached to a 27-month term is not a monthly price, it is a total divided by 27. The providers print the total too, and the table carries the term in months so the sum is doable in one step.
2. Read the renewal in the period it is printed in. Renewals here are annual or triennial against a monthly headline. This site publishes each one in the period the provider used rather than converting it, because a converted number is one no source prints.
3. Add the second term to the first. Cost over four or five years is where the cheap headlines and the flat prices converge, and sometimes cross. A provider whose headline is twice another's can be cheaper by year four.
4. Decide whether you would really stay. A three-year prepayment at a low monthly rate is only cheap if you keep it for three years. Most refund windows are 30 days, not three years.

Cheap on the headline, and what happens next

The bottom of the table is tightly bunched. Private Internet Access, CyberGhost, IPVanish, Surfshark, PureVPN and hide.me all print between $1.79 and $2.69 a month, and every one of those figures requires a prepayment of two years or more. The median printed entry price across the whole index is $2.69 a month, which tells you how little separates the cheap end of this market on the number it advertises.

The renewals are where they separate. CyberGhost renews at $51.74 a year, PureVPN at $47.95 a year, IPVanish at $99.99 a year, and Private Internet Access at $69.81 every three years. Those are four quite different standing prices behind four nearly identical headlines.

Cheap without a term

If a long prepayment is not acceptable, the honest cheap options are different ones. Windscribe prints $5.75 a month billed as $69 a year, a one-year commitment rather than three. IVPN prints $6 a month with no term and no discount to fall off.

Neither is cheap against a three-year headline, and both are straightforward to leave. Which of those matters more is the actual decision, and it is not a question about price at all.

Common questions

What is the cheapest VPN per month?

Private Internet Access at $1.79 a month on its own page, which buys a three-year-and-three-month term. The cheapest without a multi-year commitment is Windscribe at $5.75 a month billed annually.

Are cheap VPNs worth it?

The prices in this index are all from established providers publishing on their own domains, and the cheap end of it is cheap because of the prepayment, not because of the service. The thing to check is the renewal, not the headline.

Is a free VPN cheaper?

It costs no money. Proton VPN, Windscribe and hide.me all publish a free tier with limits on data, speed or server choice; what a free tier costs you is those limits, and on providers outside this index sometimes rather more.

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