ExpressVPN Pricing: How Much Does ExpressVPN Cost?

ExpressVPN is actually one of the more expensive cheap VPNs on the market. ExpressVPN pricing starts from $8.32 per month when billed annually for a full 12-month plan. If you don’t want to commit for that long, the other two plans cost $9.99 per month for six months, and $12.95 per month for a single month.

For comparison, PureVPN – which has a similar set of features and more servers – retails at just $2.11 per month. That’s a quarter of what you’d be paying for ExpressVPN, even on the best value payment plan offered by the provider.

Read on to find out exactly what you’ll get for your money with ExpressVPN, and whether you should spend less on an alternative service. I’ve tested over 30 VPNs, and in my opinion, there are better options available if you’re on a budget.

In this guide:

• ExpressVPN Pricing Plans
• ExpressVPN Pricing for Business
• Does ExpressVPN Have a Free Version?
• Why Is ExpressVPN More Expensive Than Other VPNs?
• ExpressVPN’s Pros and Cons
• ExpressVPN Alternatives
• Verdict: Is ExpressVPN Pricing Good Value?
• ExpressVPN Pricing: FAQs

ExpressVPN Pricing Plans

ExpressVPN is a single product, and you get the same features whatever payment plan you opt for — which at least makes ExpressVPN pricing easy to understand. There are three different ways to pay:

• The month-long plan: $12.95 + renewal process each month
• The six-month plan: $9.99 per month ($59.95 total bill)
• The annual plan: $8.32 per month ($99.95 total bill)

While the $12.95 one-month plan is pricey for a VPN, the annual plan brings the cost down to a more reasonable (though still at the higher end of the market) per-month cost.

ExpressVPN’s User interface, which is pretty simple – even for VPN software. Image: Tech.co

ExpressVPN Pricing for Business

Unlike other VPN providers, ExpressVPN doesn’t offer any dedicated business plans (despite what they try to imply on their website). The popular VPN provider actually doesn’t offer business-specific features, but you can still bulk-buy ExpressVPN accounts for your employees. Quick note, one ExpressVPN license allows for up to five users.

The best part about this method of pricing, dubbed volume licensing, is that you’ll actually save money on more licenses.  According to the ExpressVPN website, if you’d like to purchase ExpressVPN accounts in bulk in this way, follow these steps:

1. Purchase/Log into an ExpressVPN account.
2. Sign in to your ExpressVPN account.
3. On the dashboard for your account, select “Sign up for volume licensing.”
4. Choose the number of licenses you need.
5. Choose your preferred payment cycle.
6. Click on the “Complete your order” button.

For larger teams, this can make ExpressVPN more affordable than some of the best VPNs for business out there. But it’s only really suitable for small teams who want to provide their employees with extra protections when they surf the internet.

For comparison, PureVPN’s PureDome business VPN will let you provision gateways in 30 locations and offer dedicated IP addresses, so can be used as a fully-fledged business VPN. If you need to ensure your staff team can access a company server securely from multiple remote locations, don’t go for ExpressVPN.

ExpressVPN payment options

ExpressVPN accepts payment through all major credit cards: Visa, Mastercard, American Express, Discover, and JCB. It also supports Paypal, Bitcoin, and many other alternative payment methods, such as those available through the payment provider Paymentwall.

If you’re interested in ExpressVPN’s service, you may want to try the $12.95 plan for one month just to test it out. If you like it, you can switch to the less expensive 12-month plan for the best savings. Alternatively, you can pay for an annual plan, and then just cancel within 30 days if you’re not using it – if you do it within this period, you’ll get a full refund.

ExpressVPN money-back guarantee

As you now know, ExpressVPN offers a 30-day money-back guarantee. Just contact its Support team through live chat or email. Be prepared for a bit of back-and-forth over email. In my experience with VPN companies, they’ll make at least a small attempt to find out why you want to cancel, and convince you to stay. Just be firm and stay on message!

Unfortunately, ExpressVPN does not offer a general free trial period, but the money-back deal is functionally the same – as long as you’ve got $12.95 to spare. This makes it easy to sample the service at no cost, which you can’t do with all software.

ExpressVPN is currently displaying this message at the bottom of their desktop application. Image: Tech.co

There’s actually one other way to get a bit more free VPN time out of ExpressVPN – through referring a friend. Right now, the provider says it will award any user who refers a friend an additional 30 days of free usage.

Does ExpressVPN Have a Free Trial?

No, ExpressVPN does not offer a free trial or a free plan tier. It’s a premium VPN, not a freemium one.

At least, it doesn’t offer a free trial in most circumstances: ExpressVPN does provide a free trial for “certain mobile devices,” according to its website, but it’s only for 7 days. Remember, as we’ve already mentioned, ExpressVPN does offer a 30-day money-back guarantee, so even if you pay the up-front cost, you’ll be able to easily claim a refund if you’re not happy with the service.

Some websites out there describe ExpressVPN’s money-back guarantee as a “free trial” or even a “hack” – but this is slightly misleading. You won’t get automatically refunded at the end of the month – you’ll have to cancel of your own accord.

We have rounded up all the best free VPNs in the past, although a lot of free VPNs come with their own drawbacks as well: Most come with heavy bandwidth limitations or speed throttling, almost all offer limited features, and a few even come with dangerous security risks that may leave your information more exposed than if you’d avoided a VPN at all.

Why Is ExpressVPN More Expensive Than Other VPNs?

Even at its cheapest, ExpressVPN still costs $8.32 per month, which puts it solidly at the higher end of the scale for VPNs – many of which are available for $3 to $5 per month.

ExpressVPN justifies this price by offering a superior service to almost all of its competitors. The exception is NordVPN, which offers a faster VPN service, a password manager, and encrypted cloud storage space for almost half the price of ExpressVPN’s package.

PureVPN is just such good value for money it’s hard not to consider it, retailing at just a quarter of ExpressVPN’s total despite having a server network that’s almost twice the size. Before I tell you more about the other options, here’s a closer look at ExpressVPN’s strengths and weaknesses:

ExpressVPN Alternatives

At Tech.co, we don’t just test ExpressVPN – we’ve actually put 19 other VPN providers through their paces across eight different investigative categories. Here’s a little more information on some of the other providers we tested:

*The scores above were awarded during our most recent VPN testing series. During this project, we put 20 top VPNs through their paces, and compared how they performed across eight core assessment categories: Infrastructure, Features, Protocols, Speed, Service Unblocking, Pricing, Support, and Platforms & Extensions.

NordVPN – faster than ExpressVPN

While any VPN is going to lower your internet speeds a little bit, NordVPN only does so a little, putting it ahead of ExpressVPN in our tests:

Overall, our internet speeds decreased by just 13% while I was connected to NordVPN’s network, and 23.1% when connected to ExpressVPN’s. These were both good results, though, and ExpressVPN by no means “feels” slow when you use it.

On top of being a speed demon, NordVPN offers a great suite of features as well, rivaling ExpressVPN’s options. I’ve compared ExpressVPN vs NordVPN in more detail elsewhere, so check this out if you want to learn more.

One other big benefit: NordVPN can cost very little – provided you nab one of the best NordVPN discounts!

PureVPN – cheaper than ExpressVPN

PureVPN is one of our top-rated VPNs, and performed impressively on our most recent tests. The interface is easy to use, there are over 6000 servers available in more than 65 countries, yet it only costs $2.11 per month on the 2-year deal – making it one of the most affordable VPNs on the market.

PureVPN isn’t just cheap, it’s also cheerful – the provider offers plenty of options for connecting third-party apps, and the package comes with some extra security functions that other VPNs don’t have. These security bonuses include Ozone, an antivirus that blocks internet security risks before you notice them, and Gravity, a DNS protection feature.

Surfshark – more features than ExpressVPN

Surfshark burst onto the VPN scene a few years ago and has become one of the most reputable services on the market. Its app is set out in a very similar way to ExpressVPN, but Surfshark makes it easier to access and switch between VPN protocols and leverages additional security features to make yourself even safer. It also provides very similar speeds.

Surfshark has a tool called Cleanweb which will help you avoid spammy ads and malware, while the multi-hop function will let you route your connection through two servers rather than one, for an added layer of protection. No Borders mode, on the other hand, detects network restrictions and helps you skirt around them.

Surfshark released Surfshark One back in 2023, which is a VPN combined with a lightweight antivirus solution and a data breach monitoring tool, which you can use to check if your information has been exposed.

CyberGhost – a good streaming alternative to ExpressVPN

CyberGhost aims its service at VPN beginners, prioritizing ease of use. It’ll automatically block ads, trackers, and malicious websites. Plus, users can just pick one out of a series of “modes” when signing on – Surf Anonymously, Torrent Anonymously, or Unblock Streaming are a few examples.

CyberGhost is one of the few providers to provide servers optimized for specific streaming sites. This feature isn’t provided by the likes of NordVPN or PureVPN. This gives you an easy way to get the best server for your needs, even if you don’t have any technical knowledge.

The trade-off is that it’s a pretty slow VPN, sometimes slowing connection speeds by over 60%. Plus, during testing, I found ExpressVPN unblocked every streaming service I tried across two different devices, while CyberGhost couldn’t unblock Channel 4 on the Android phone I tested it on.

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