If you want a good VPN but are on a budget, you're in luck. There's no need to compromise on a sketchy or scammy VPN, as the best services are pretty affordable these days. Most VPNs offer discounts for longer subscription periods, like one or two years. That means, in general, you can pay less in the long run if you subscribe for longer. That said, if you don't want to pay a large sum at once, we also have you covered with the best VPN service if you want to pay monthly.
We've tested 20 VPNs, and our picks for the best cheap VPNs are below. If you want to learn more about kill switches, check out our R&D article. For more recommendations, check out our articles for the best free VPNs, the best VPNs for torrenting, and the best VPNs for privacy.
In 2025, we published reviews for 20 different VPN services. These reviews followed months of research, test development, and collaboration among our engineers, testers, writers, photographers, and editors. Our process for each review involves extensive work behind the scenes, including rigorous checks and balances, to deliver the most accurate and useful test results so you can make the right purchasing decisions for your needs.
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Best Cheap Month-To-Month VPN
Torrent8.9Private Browsing9.1Policies & Practices9.2Security8.6Speed7.3Email Required:NoTorrent (P2P):YesSee all our test resultsData Limit:N/AIn addition to being the best VPN we've tested overall, Mullvad is also the best cheap VPN if you pay monthly. Unlike most services that discount long-term subscriptions, Mullvad charges a flat €5 per month, no matter how long you subscribe. This is ideal if you only need a VPN temporarily, but it can add up over time. That said, you can sometimes find discounted prepaid plans through retailers like Amazon. If you subscribe directly, Mullvad accepts anonymous payment methods, including cash and cryptocurrency, with a 10% discount for crypto.
Beyond pricing, Mullvad stands out for its privacy-focused approach. Instead of using an email and password, you receive a randomly generated account number for greater anonymity. On top of that, it has remarkable business practices and policies designed to respect your privacy, with frequent transparent communication with its users and regular independent third-party audits of its infrastructure and policy adherence.
Performance is also excellent. Its apps are intuitive, and the service reliably hides your IP address and delivers fast speeds with low latency. Features like Obfuscation help bypass VPN blocks, while DAITA (defense against AI-guided traffic analysis) makes traffic analysis more difficult. The main drawback is the lack of port forwarding, which could matter for some things like torrenting. Proton VPN, our pick below, offers port forwarding and discounts for longer subscriptions.
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Best Cheap Annual VPN
Torrent8.7Private Browsing7.5Policies & Practices6.3Security8.6Speed7.0Email Required:NoTorrent (P2P):YesSee all our test resultsData Limit:N/AIf you plan on subscribing for at least a year, you can get a great deal with Proton VPN. It has a pricing scheme similar to most VPN services, where you can get a better deal by subscribing for longer periods. Like our top pick, Mullvad, Proton has a good reputation for its privacy practices and transparency, for the most part. This VPN also has a few more convenient features than our top pick. You can connect up to 10 devices simultaneously, and there are servers in over 100 countries, which is useful since it lets you connect to a server closer to you for a better connection. On top of that, you can configure port forwarding, an essential feature for some who need it for specific applications like game servers or P2P clients. Additionally, like Mullvad, it has obfuscation to make it look like you're not using a VPN, an adblocker, and 'secure-core,' a feature that ensures your connection goes through Proton's own servers before reaching the server in the country you choose.
Proton VPN has a few downsides compared to our top pick, unfortunately. While it has a no-logs policy that states the service doesn't record your web activity while you use it, there are some conditions in the privacy policy that state it may log your IP address to combat abuse or terms of service violations. Its latency performance is disappointing, so your connection won't feel as snappy, and it'll affect some activities like gaming. If you pay monthly, it's much more expensive than Mullvad, but it's a few bucks cheaper if you buy a one-year or two-year subscription. It's a good pick if you need those extra features, but if you don't (or don't know), you're better off going with Mullvad.
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Best Cheap Biennial VPN
Torrent7.8Private Browsing5.4Policies & Practices4.4Security6.2Speed7.3Email Required:YesTorrent (P2P):YesSee all our test resultsData Limit:N/ASurfshark VPN is the best cheap VPN if you get a two-year subscription and are okay with sacrificing some privacy. Its policies and business practices are significantly worse than our picks above. Its privacy policy indicates that they retain your IP address for 15 minutes after you disconnect, and they can collect some of your personal information and use it for analytics and marketing, and even share it with third parties.
With that in mind, it effectively keeps your IP address hidden and your traffic encrypted inside the VPN tunnel. It's a good choice as long as you understand what you consent to when you sign up for a subscription. It has a slick UI and is available on many different platforms, from desktop PCs to mobile phones to smart TVs. There's also no limit to how many devices you can be logged into simultaneously, so you're covered if you have a bunch of devices. It has some nice extra features like split tunneling, obfuscation, and multi-hop. That said, its kill switch isn't effective after your computer restarts because it leaks some unencrypted data before the VPN connection reestablishes. It's important to bind sensitive applications, like your torrent client, to your VPN connection.
All Reviews
Our recommendations above are currently the best cheap VPNs and best budget VPNs. We only recommend VPN services with a clear and digestible privacy policy, a proven track record of protecting their customers' privacy, transparency about their ownership, and acceptable security and speeds. We also factor in price (a cheaper VPN wins over a more expensive one if the difference isn't worth it), user feedback, and community reputation.
When choosing a VPN, consider what you need it for and understand its limitations. Depending on your risk profile, always using one is probably unnecessary. Modern websites, browsers, and devices have ample built-in security measures to protect you from the most common threats. With that in mind, here's the list of all our VPN reviews.