Best Cheap VPN for 2024: Privacy on a Budget

Surfshark is CNET’s top pick for the best cheap VPN, thanks to its innovative feature set, outstanding speed performance, top-notch privacy protections and budget-friendly annual subscription plan. Surfshark is easy to use across all platforms and excellent for streaming -- especially if you want to maximize your Netflix viewing options. Granted, Surfshark’s monthly subscription is quite a bit more expensive than the competition, but if you sign up for an annual or two-year plan, you’ll pay far less than what you would for most other top VPNs’ long-term subscriptions.  

Private Internet Access, or PIA, is another solid cheap VPN that has a strong reputation for privacy and transparency. PIA's apps have lots of options for customization and are simple to use. It's also a great option for streaming, but users with slow connections may struggle with PIA's rather slow speed performance. Nevertheless, PIA is an excellent cheap VPN at just $40 per year.

Mullvad rounds out our list of the best cheap VPNs. Its fast speeds, easy-to-use app and innovative privacy features all for a flat fee of $5 per month make this Swedish-based provider a great choice for privacy-conscious users on a budget. It's decent for streaming, but Mullvad struggles with some streaming services and doesn't offer full native app support for smart TVs or streaming devices. It's an otherwise well-rounded privacy-focused VPN that's a fantastic bargain.

Price is an important consideration for most people for most purchases, including VPNs. When VPN prices vary wildly from provider to provider and generally range between $5 to $15 per month or anywhere from $40 to $100 or more per year, how do you know which VPN is actually good -- and worth the price?

What I've learned over the past decade testing and using VPNs is that, like with a lot of things, there isn't necessarily a direct correlation between a VPN's quality and its price. I've encountered several expensive, overpriced VPNs that turned out to be severely inadequate in virtually every possible way -- think buggy apps, slow speeds and poor privacy for upwards of $100 per year. On the other hand, some of the best VPNs on the planet deliver premium performance and innovative features at a refreshingly budget-friendly price. There are excellent VPNs for every budget, so you don't need to break the bank to get a premium-quality VPN service.

If you're looking to stretch your dollar, I'd recommend opting for a yearly subscription plan in most cases rather than going month-to-month because you'll usually enjoy greater savings in the long run. VPN companies typically offer a variety of subscription plan lengths -- most commonly monthly, yearly and two-year plans -- with the longest normally offering the most savings. I don't recommend signing on with any VPN provider for longer than a year at a time because of how quickly things tend to shift in the VPN industry. VPNs get bought and sold, terms of service may change, performance may fluctuate, features may come and go -- or your VPN service may cease to operate altogether.

The cheap VPNs I've highlighted on this page are all excellent, top-tier options that cater to a wide variety of use cases. Best of all, each one is supremely gentle on your pocketbook.

Proton VPN

Proton VPN is developed by the Swiss-based company behind the popular secure email service Proton Mail. The VPN has built a reputation for top-notch security and maximum transparency. Proton VPN's apps are fully open-source, and the software is also regularly audited to help affirm the security of the VPN for users without the time or know-how to inspect the code. On top of security features like a kill switch and DNS leak protection, Proton VPN offers extras like malware protection, Tor over VPN and a stealth protocol to help hide the fact that you're using a VPN. If you connect to Proton VPN's Secure Core servers, you'll be able to route your traffic through secure data centers located in Switzerland, Sweden or Iceland before exiting through another location. This provides a critical extra layer of security if you're a user with heightened privacy needs. Aside from its robust privacy protections, Proton does well at unblocking content from various streaming providers, including Netflix.

Proton VPN is an excellent choice for budget-conscious VPN users looking for a free VPN. Proton VPN offers the only free VPN recommended by CNET, because it's secure and doesn't put limits on speed, data or usage time -- which is something the vast majority of free VPNs can't claim. The free tier doesn't include torrenting support or access to its Secure Core servers, but it delivers the same standards of encryption and includes the same basic privacy protections like a kill switch, DNS leak protection and a no-logging promise. Free users are allotted one connection at a time and access to servers in five countries (Japan, Netherlands, United States, Poland and Romania). If you want to purchase a subscription to Proton VPN, it's not quite as wallet-friendly as the others at the top of this list. The monthly plan is on the cheap side at $10 per month, the annual plan costs $60 for the first year and jumps to $80 annually and the two-year plan costs $108 for the first 24 months (then $80 annually). For $80, you can get three years of PIA as opposed to one with Proton VPN.

Read our Proton VPN review

We test cheap VPNs much like we do any VPN, but we pay special attention to the cost of the service to determine its overall value. We test each VPN’s features, speeds and usability across platforms. To determine speed loss, we run over 250 internet speed tests with a VPN enabled and disabled, across multiple VPN servers. We also evaluate how well the VPN performs when streaming and unblocking content from different regions worldwide. Additionally, we run DNS leak tests, inspect the VPN's privacy policy and look for trust signals like transparency reports and third-party audits.