It’s a new year, and a great time to fulfill your resolution to practice better cybersecurity. The early days of January are a great time to grab a last-minute subscription for yourself or a loved one. With access to a virtual private network (VPN), you can stream TV shows and events from all over the world, protect your information from hackers and thwart online trackers.
Although we strongly recommend using a VPN, jumping on the first deal that comes along might get you stuck with a substandard app. Beyond that, even otherwise respectable VPNs sometimes frame their prices in misleading ways, with advertised deals not always as available as they seem to be.
Even so, there are some great bargains on the table. Plenty of the best VPNs — including our top pick, Proton VPN — are still running end-of-year deals that can save you anywhere from 67 to 88 percent on annual subscriptions. Most of these discounts only apply if you sign up for a year or more, but as long as you’re comfortable with a service before you take the plunge, committing actually makes sense. You pay more at the start, but if you divide the cost by the months of subscription, it’s much cheaper over time.
Best VPN deals
Proton
This Swiss VPN is Engadget’s top VPN of choice right now, for reasons I’ve laid out in a full Proton VPN review. It looks and feels good to use on every platform, which makes it fantastic for multiple-device households. It keeps your browsing speeds fast and latencies low, even over long distances. For those who need a VPN to stay anonymous, Proton VPN is the only service implementing full-disk encryption, which means it can manage all your traffic without any of it being visible to Proton itself.
ExpressVPN Basic — $78.18 for a two-year subscription with four months free (78 percent off): This is one of the best VPNs, especially for new users, who will find its apps and website headache-free on all platforms. In tests for my ExpressVPN review, it dropped my download speeds by less than 7 percent and successfully changed my virtual location 14 out of 15 times. In short, it’s an all-around excellent service that only suffers from being a little overpriced — which is why I’m so excited whenever I find it offering a decent deal. This discount, which gets you 28 months of ExpressVPN service, represents a 78 percent savings. Be aware, though, that it’ll renew at the $99.95 per year price.
ExpressVPN Advanced — $100.58 for a two-year subscription with four months free (74 percent off): ExpressVPN recently split its pricing into multiple tiers, but they all still come with similar discounts for going long. In addition to top-tier VPN service, advanced users get two additional simultaneous connections (for a total of 12), the ExpressVPN Keys password manager, advanced ad and tracker blocking, ID protection features and a 50 percent discount on an AirCove router. As above, note that it renews at $119.95 annually.
NordVPN Basic — $81.36 for a two-year subscription (70 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 quickly and includes a support page that makes it easy to get live help. NordVPN includes a lot of cool features, like servers that instantly connect you to Tor. This deal gives you 70 percent off the two-year plan.
NordVPN Plus — $105.36 for a two-year subscription (70 percent off): NordVPN has also taken 70 percent off its Plus subscription. For only a little more, you get a powerful ad and tracker blocker that can also catch malware downloads, plus access to the NordPass password manager. A Plus plan also adds a data breach scanner that checks 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” level of Surfshark, but it includes the entire VPN; everything on Surfshark One is an extra perk. With this subscription, you’ll get some of the most envelope-pushing features in the VPN world right now. Surfshark can rotate your IP constantly to help you evade detection — it even lets you choose your own entry and exit nodes for a double-hop connection. That all comes with a near-invisible impact on download speeds. With this year-round deal, you can save 87 percent on 27 months of Surfshark.
Surfshark One — $67.23 for a two-year subscription with three months free (87 percent off): A VPN is great, but it’s not enough to protect your data all on its own. Surfshark One adds several apps that boost your security beyond just VPN service, including Surfshark Antivirus (scans devices and downloads for malware) and Surfshark Alert (alerts you whenever your sensitive information shows up in a data breach), plus Surfshark Search and Alternative ID from the tier below. This extra-low deal gives you 88 percent off all those features. If you bump up to Surfshark One+, you’ll also get data removal through Incogni, but the price jumps enough that it’s not quite worthwhile in my eyes.
CyberGhost — $56.94 for a two-year subscription with four months free (84 percent off): CyberGhost has some of the best automation you’ll see on any VPN. With its Smart Rules system, you can determine how its apps respond 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 what to do. CyberGhost’s other best feature is its streaming servers — I’ve found both better video quality and more consistent unblocking when I use them on streaming sites. Currently, you can get 28 months of CyberGhost for 84 percent off the usual price, but it’ll renew at $56.94 per year.
hide.me — $69.95 for a two-year subscription with four months free (75 percent off): Hide.me is an excellent free VPN — in fact, it’s my favorite on the market, even with EventVPN and the free version of Proton VPN as competition. If you do want to upgrade to its paid plan, though, the two-year subscription offers great savings. Hide.me works well as a no-frills beginner VPN, with apps and a server network it should frankly be charging more for.
Private Internet Access — $79 for a three-year subscription with four months free (83 percent off): With this deal, you can get 40 months of Private Internet Access (PIA) for a little bit under $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 speeds can fluctuate while you’re connected.
What makes a good VPN deal
Practically every VPN heavily discounts its long-term subscriptions year-round, with even sharper discounts around occasions like the holidays. The only noteworthy exception is Mullvad, the Costco hot dog of VPNs (that’s a compliment, to be clear). When there’s constantly a huge discount going on, it can be hard to tell when you’re actually getting a good deal. The best way to squeeze out more savings is to look for seasonal deals, student discounts or exclusive sales like Proton VPN’s coupon for Engadget readers.
One trick VPNs often use is to add extra months onto an introductory deal, pushing the average monthly price even lower. When it comes time to renew, you usually can’t get these extra months again. You often can’t even renew for the same basic period of time — for example, you may only be able to renew a two-year subscription for one year. If you’re planning to hold onto a VPN indefinitely, check the fine print to see how much it will cost per month after the first renewal, and ensure that fits into your budget.
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