The 10 Best Cheap VPNs in 2024 | Budget VPNs Compared

The best cheap VPNs hide your IP address, encrypt your data, and keep you safe from trackers, malware, and cybercriminals, without burning a hole in your wallet. A good VPN doesn’t have to cost an arm and a leg, and there are great VPN deals and affordable pricing plans if you know where to look.

In this guide, we’ll review the 10 best cheap VPNs in 2024, comparing their pricing plans, features, and pros & cons, so you can make an informed decision. Our top pick for the best cheap VPN overall is NordVPN, thanks to its strong encryption, powerful open-source VPN protocols, and high-speed servers, but Surfshark and CyberGhost are also excellent choices, so read on to find out more.

The Best Cheap VPNs in 2024 | Shortlist

If you’re looking for an affordable VPN, but don’t know where to start, here’s a quick overview of the best cheap VPNs for 2024:

1. NordVPN — The Best Cheap VPN Overall. A Full Security Suite With a 30-Day Money-Back Guarantee.
2. Surfshark — The Best Cheap VPN for Streaming. Unlimited Devices and a 30-Day Money-Back Guarantee.
3. CyberGhost — The Best Cheap VPN for Beginners. Comes with an Enormous 45-Day Money-Back Guarantee.
4. StrongVPN — A Decent Cheap VPN Available on all Operating Systems, With a 30-Day Money-Back Guarantee.
5. AtlasVPN — A Cheap VPN with Data Breach Monitoring and a 30-Day Money-Back Guarantee.
6. IPVanish — A Cheap VPN That Offers Lots of Customization and a 30-Day Money-Back Guarantee.
7. PrivateVPN — The Best Cheap VPN for Tor. Budget-Friendly and has a 30-Day Money-Back Guarantee.
8. ProtonVPN — A Cheap VPN From a Big Brand. Check Out Its Freemium Service Before You Commit.
9. VyprVPN — A Great Cheap VPN for China. Lots of security features and a 30-Day Money-Back Guarantee.
10. Private Internet Access — Great Features on a Budget. Take advantage of its 30-Day Money-Back Guarantee!

The Best Cheap VPN Services | In-Depth Reviews

There are dozens of VPN service providers out there. Researching and comparing them all would take weeks, if not months, and that’s provided you have the knowledge to discern which VPN offers good value for money.

To save you valuable time and help you choose the best VPN for your needs, we’ve put together in-depth reviews of the best cheap VPNs. Read on to learn everything about the security, features, servers, speed, and different pricing plans of the top 10 cheap VPNs. 

1. NordVPN — The Best Cheap VPN Overall

NordVPN isn’t the very cheapest VPN out there, starting at $5.29/month on a two-year plan. However, if you consider the sheer number of security features NordVPN offers, it’s evident that it provides great value for money.

What makes NordVPN stand out from the sea of VPNs is the ongoing threat protection. In addition to hiding your IP and physical location and encrypting your online data, NordVPN acts as a shield that protects you from malware, trackers, and ads 24/7. 

Even if your connection to one of NordVPN’s 5,600+ servers drops, the kill switch will immediately block internet access until the connection to a VPN server is re-established. This ensures that your data isn’t left unprotected, even for a millisecond. 

Another NordVPN feature worth mentioning is ongoing Dark Web monitoring.

If any of your online data ever gets leaked and shows up in the dark corners of the internet, NordVPN will immediately notify you so you can react, update your passwords, and turn on two-factor authentication.

With NordVPN, you can even establish a secure, VPN-protected peer-to-peer network by connecting directly to another NordVPN user.

This makes NordVPN ideal for businesses that share information between team members, gamers who want to connect with their friends, and anyone who wants to share files directly with another user securely.

2. Surfshark — The Best Cheap VPN for Streaming

Surfshark is an award-winning VPN service provider that offers premium online protection at an affordable price.

At just $2.49/month on a two-year plan, you’ll enjoy ironclad security, complete online privacy, an ad-free online experience, and a high-speed internet connection on all your devices.

Surfshark uses uncrackable AES 256-bit encryption and offers four secure VPN protocols to choose from, prevents online tracking, and hides your identity and online activity from cybercriminals, advertising companies, and even your ISP. 

There are over 3,200 servers in 95+ countries to choose from, all of which are RAM-only. This means Surfshark doesn’t store any of your data, and your online activity is automatically deleted after each session, so nobody can track you or steal your data, no matter how hard they try. 

To be on the safe side, Surfshark allows you to leverage the Multi-Hop connection to route your online traffic through two VPN servers, so your data is encrypted twice. 

In addition to premium security features, Surfshark provides CleanWeb, which blocks all annoying ads, banners, and trackers.

With Surfshark, you don’t have to worry about malware-infected websites since the VPN won’t allow them to display the pop-ups that contain download links for harmful software. 

3. CyberGhost — The Best Cheap VPN for Beginners

CyberGhost VPN is among the more affordable VPNs out there, starting at $2.19/month on a two-year plan (one of the cheapest two-year plans on the market). What makes it one of the best options for people who have never used a VPN before is its 45-day money-back guarantee.

This gives you a month and a half to try out the VPN, test all of its features in practice, and see if it’s the right choice for you without a long-term commitment. 

In terms of safety and security, CyberGhost offers industry-standard AES-256 encryption and three powerful, secure VPN protocols — IKEv2, OpenVPN, and WireGuard.

CyberGhost also blocks all online tracking attempts, ensures complete online privacy and anonymity through its NoSpy servers, and allows you to bypass internet censorship and access geo-restricted websites and content on all popular streaming platforms.

CyberGhost also has one of the largest server fleets out of all VPN service providers we reviewed, with over 9,000 ultra-fast servers in more than 90 countries.

What’s more, some servers are optimized for streaming TV shows and movies on Netflix, so you can watch online content without any buffering or interruptions.

CyberGhost is available on all devices and operating systems, including smart TVs and consoles. Due to its stable performance and lightning-fast connection speeds, it’s also one of the best gaming VPNs in 2024. 

4. StrongVPN — A Decent Cheap VPN Available on all Operating Systems

StrongVPN is a decent, affordable VPN option available on all devices and operating systems. It offers ironclad data encryption and powerful VPN protocols, including WireGuard, and hides your IP address and physical location. 

Additionally, StrongVPN acts as a firewall, protecting you against malware, trackers, and other forms of cyber attacks. However, it doesn’t block annoying ads, and it doesn’t offer double VPN protection or Multi-Hop connectivity for added security. 

StrongVPN has over 750 servers spread in 30+ locations, most of which are in Europe and North America. While a decent option for these regions, users in Asia and South America will have to look for better alternatives. 

Compared to leading cheap VPN providers like NordVPN and Surfshark, with over 3,000 servers each and a myriad of additional security features, StrongVPN falls a bit short but it’s still a decent option overall, and its annual plan costs just $2.47 a month.

5. AtlasVPN — A Cheap VPN with Data Breach Monitoring

At just $1.99/month on a three-year plan, AtlasVPN is one of the most affordable VPNs on the market. Plus, the protection you get for your money is excellent. 

AtlasVPN relies on industry-standard AES-256 encryption, offers four secure VPN protocols to choose from, and comes with built-in malware and tracker protection.

Additionally, you can leverage the VPN’s MultiHop+ connectivity to route your online traffic through multiple rotating VPN locations, making it impossible for anyone to track your online activity or gain access to your data.

The SafeSwap servers AtlasVPN offers let you access the internet through multiple IP addresses simultaneously, ensuring complete online anonymity.

This means nobody, whether it’s hackers, your ISP, or your government, can tell what websites you’re visiting and what you’re searching for online.

AltasVPN also provides 24/7 data breach monitoring. If any of your personal details are ever compromised, AtlasVPN will instantly sound the alarm, allowing you to react in time and prevent data theft or financial loss. 

6. IPVanish — A Cheap VPN That Offers Lots of Customization

IPVanish is another affordable VPN option, starting at $3.99 on a yearly plan.

While the deal IPVanish offers isn’t as good as some of the discounts some of the leading alternatives provide, the slightly higher price is warranted, given the fact that IPVanish provides built-in ransomware and malware protection.

Plus, you don’t have to sign up for a multi-year plan to get IPVanish’s lowest price. Additionally, you can connect as many devices as you want to IPVanish with a single subscription, including your PC, laptop, Android or iPhone, and even your Fire TV. 

What’s interesting about IPVanish is the fact that the 40,000+ IP addresses IPVanish offers are shared between users. This provides an additional layer of protection on top of industry-standard encryption, making it virtually impossible to tie a particular online activity to a single user.

With over 2,000 servers in 75+ countries, a VPN kill switch, stable high-speed connections, and a verified no-logs policy, IPVanish is a great choice for anyone who wants to protect themselves from cyber threats. 

7. PrivateVPN — The Best Cheap VPN for Tor

PrivateVPN offers one of the best deals we’ve ever come across. If you opt for the three-year plan, you’ll get 36 months of PrivateVPN for just $72.00. This amounts to $2.00 per month for the first three years, making PrivateVPN one of the most affordable VPNs on the market. 

That said, you can’t just look at the price tag in a vacuum — it’s crucial to understand the value you’re getting for your money. When it comes to online security, privacy, and speed, PrivateVPN is on par with the world’s leading VPNs.

However, it doesn’t offer anything apart from standard VPN protection. What’s sorely lacking is any kind of protection from real-time threats and the ability to block annoying ads on shady websites.

While providers like ExpressVPN and NordVPN offer in-built security features, PrivateVPN is yet to catch up. What PrivateVPN has going for it is uncapped bandwidth speed, plenty of VPN protocols to choose from, and that it reliably unblocks content on the vast majority of popular streaming platforms.

8. ProtonVPN — A Cheap VPN From a Big Brand

ProtonVPN is a renowned Swiss VPN service provider, offering its users an option to stay protected on the internet free of charge. 

While the free plan is limited to only medium-speed servers in three countries, it’s still a great way to try out ProtonVPN before committing to a monthly subscription.

You can take a week, a month, or even a year to test out all the features of ProtonVPN and see if you like it without paying a cent. 

On the flip side, the premium version of the VPN is relatively expensive, starting at $4.99/month on a two-year plan. If you decide to upgrade, you’ll have access to over 1,700 high-speed VPN servers, malware and ad-blocker, and a VPN accelerator. 

ProtonVPN adheres to a strict no-logs policy, and all of its apps are open-source and independently audited. This means that the company doesn’t store any of your data on its servers.

Additionally, the VPN traffic is routed through multiple Secure Core servers before leaving the ProtonVPN network, making it impossible for hackers, snoopers, and trackers to get a hold of your online data.

9. VyprVPN — A Great Cheap VPN for China

VyprVPN may not be the cheapest VPN option available, starting at $5.00/month on a yearly plan, but it’s not the most expensive either. 

What makes VyprVPN stand out from the competition is the ability to consistently and reliably unblock censored online content while bypassing government surveillance. 

VyprVPN lets you generate an IP address that originates from any of its global servers, protects your online data with the strongest encryption standard, and prevents your internet service provider (ISP) from performing deep packet inspection (DPI) of your connection.

This makes VyprVPN an ideal choice for people in countries/regions that have strict cyber laws and enforce online censorship, such as China, Turkey, Russia, and the Middle East. 

In addition to strong encryption and secure VPN protocols, VyprVPN offers public Wi-Fi protection and includes an internet kill switch to immediately drop your internet connection whenever your device disconnects from the VPN.

This ensures that you’re not left unprotected even for a millisecond and effectively prevents any tracking or snooping attempts. 

10. Private Internet Access — Great Features on a Budget

Private Internet Access (PIA) is an affordable, open-source VPN that provides military-grade encryption and advanced security features for a little over $2 per month.

If you opt for PIA’s three-year plan, you’ll save over 80% on your subscription. You can also take advantage of its 30-day money-back guarantee to try out PIA for a month completely risk-free.

Private Internet Access relies on AES 256-bit encryption and powerful, open-source VPN protocols like WireGuard and OpenVPN to keep your data 100% secure and hide your online activity from hackers, trackers, and even your internet service provider (ISP) and the government. PIA has even put its no-logs policy to the test by appearing in court twice.

PIA also comes with a built-in ad-blocker, so you don’t have to worry about annoying ads interrupting your online experience. If you opt for PIA, you’ll have access to over 20,000 high-speed servers spread across more than 84 countries worldwide.

All of PIA’s servers have ports of up to 10 Gbps, which makes this VPN ideal for streaming online content, gaming, and torrenting movies and TV shows. 

The best part about PIA is the fact that it’s compatible with all devices and operating systems, and you can use a single subscription to protect up to 10 devices! 

Best Cheap VPN Comparison Table

This table offers an easy-to-read overview of the best cheap VPNs available on the market, so you can quickly compare the top providers today and make an informed decision.

What Makes a Great Cheap VPN? | How We Chose the Best Budget VPNs

When researching and testing the best cheap VPNs, we took a multitude of factors into consideration in order to bring you a comprehensive list of the top ten affordable VPN service providers. Here are all the variables that factored into our decision:

Value for Money

When looking for the best cheap VPN, you have to look beyond the price tag. What’s far more important is the level of protection, the number of advanced security features, and the server speed and reliability you get for your money. 

The top VPN service providers on our list all provide the highest level of security, numerous servers spread all over the globe, and consistently high connection speeds at low prices. 

Encryption Standard and VPN Protocols

For a VPN to be considered good, it needs to rely on industry-standard AES 256-bit encryption. 

This encryption standard is virtually uncrackable since it uses a random number generator (RNG) and a 256-bit cipher key, meaning there are  2^256 possible combinations someone would need to try to decipher the data.

It would take a super-computer over 2 billion years to run all possible permutations and crack the cipher, so cybercriminals don’t stand a chance. Every provider on our list relies on AES-256 and offers the most powerful, secure VPN protocols, such as WireGuard, OpenVPN, and Ikev2.

Number of Servers and Server Spread

The physical distance between you and a VPN server greatly impacts the connection speed and stability. Ideally, you want to choose a VPN service provider with many servers equally spread all over the globe.

This will allow you to connect to a wide range of local servers when torrenting and gaming, as well as give you plenty of remote options when streaming otherwise geo-restricted content.

VPN Connection Speed and Reliability

Apart from the sheer number of servers, it’s important to look at server speed. The best cheap VPNs offer servers with ports of up to 10 Gbps, meaning you won’t experience a significant drop-off in connection speed regardless of which server you connect to.

The servers should also be reliable, meaning that they won’t often drop the VPN connection and leave you vulnerable to cyber attacks in the time it takes the VPN to reconnect to one of its servers.

Ability to Bypass Censorship and Unblock Geo-Restricted Content

Most people use VPNs to access restricted websites, which are either blocked by their government or the website’s server. Another common use for VPNs is accessing geo-restricted content on popular streaming platforms, like Netflix, Hulu, and HBO Max. 

For that reason, we ranked VPNs that consistently manage to bypass censorship and unblock restricted content at the very top of our cheap VPNs list.

Compatibility With Different Devices and Operating Systems

Before committing to a monthly, annual, or multi-year subscription to a particular VPN service, make sure you can use it to protect all your devices. Even if it’s just $2/month, the money is wasted if the VPN isn’t compatible with your iPhone or if you can’t use it on your PC.

All the providers on our list are available on Windows, macOS, Android, and iPhone devices, so you won’t go wrong either way.

Some even offer router support, so you can encrypt all of your online data, whether you’re using your laptop, phone, or even your games console to connect to the internet. 

Number of Simultaneous Connections

If you’re budget-conscious, you should consider how many devices you can connect the VPN to simultaneously with a single subscription. Some VPN service providers only support half a dozen simultaneous connections, while others allow you to protect an unlimited number of devices. 

If you want to make sure every single device in your household is VPN-protected, we strongly recommend opting for a VPN that doesn’t put a limit on the number of devices you can connect it to at a time.

Are Cheap VPNs Safe? | Is a Cheap VPN Secure?

In the world of virtual private networks, affordable doesn’t necessarily mean bad. In fact, some of the most powerful and most secure VPNs on the market, like Surfshark, NordVPN, and CyberGhost, all offer super-affordable pricing plans. 

All leading cheap VPNs rely on the strongest encryption currently available (AES-256) and offer multiple secure VPN protocols to choose from. The best cheap VPNs also have strict zero-logs policies, meaning they don’t store any of your data. 

Our number one choice of cheap VPN, NordVPN, has a strict no-logs policy showing everyone that you can get an affordable VPN without sacrificing data privacy or online security.

The main reason why so many VPN service providers offer affordable pricing plans or large discounts is the fierce competition.

There are dozens of superb VPNs on the market, and the only way for a secure, reliable VPN to gain an edge over the competition is to offer its services at a lower price. 

One VPN lowering the cost of its annual plan by 80% starts a domino effect, where all other leading VPN service providers have to follow suit. As a result, we all get access to premium VPN features at a more affordable price! 

Cheap VPN FAQs