Best Cheap VPN for 2024: Privacy on a Budget

One of the best ways to protect your privacy online is by picking the right VPN. But if you’re on a strict budget, adding yet another annual subscription charge may not be on your list of priorities. Luckily, there are still options because online privacy should always be a priority. The best cheap VPNs can give you all of the privacy protections their higher-priced counterparts do at a price that won’t break the bank. Choosing a cheap VPN that's reliable, affordable and secure is a smart way to go if you’re looking to save some money.

CNET’s VPN experts have years of experience testing dozens of VPNs and have compiled a list of great budget-friendly options below. Each of our cheap VPN suggestions includes impressive privacy features, strong security and fast connection speeds, all for a fraction of the price of other premium options. 

VPN providers are changing rapidly, resulting in a constantly evolving VPN market, so we advise against signing up for a two-year or longer subscription because the VPN industry tends to shift on a dime. We recommend choosing the cheapest plans based on their one-year or one-month rates and have the best money-back guarantees. While a lot of VPN providers offer better month-to-dollar value when you go for these long-term plans, you should be cautious with those kinds of lengthy VPN commitments.

Watch this: Top 5 Reasons to Use a VPN

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 more expensive than the competition, but if you sign up for a yearly plan, you’ll pay far less than what you would for most other top VPNs’ annual subscriptions. 

Mullvad VPN

Along with Proton VPN, Mullvad is another open-source VPN provider that offers its services at a competitive rate. Mullvad's simple pricing structure is vastly different than most others. The service costs $5 per month, whether you use it for a month, a year, 10 years or longer. Mullvad doesn't offer any sales or discounts, just a flat $5 fee for however many months you want to use it. That comes out to $60 for a year, which matches Surfshark for the lowest annual price in this list when not considering introductory prices. 

And because Mullvad says it strives to know as little about its customers as possible, it has completely done away with recurring subscriptions so it can't hang onto payment data longer than absolutely necessary. You can even mail Mullvad an envelope with cash to pay for the service. Mullvad automatically generates a random 16-digit account number when you sign up, and you can prepay for one, two, three, six or 12 months at a time. The company is so focused on security and privacy that you don't have to enter any personal data whatsoever at signup; no email or username is required. 

Mullvad is fast and offers excellent privacy, but isn't optimized for streaming. I streamed content on Netflix without any issues during my tests, but couldn’t watch anything on Disney Plus. It's otherwise an excellent option for budget-conscious VPN users who value extra attention to privacy and appreciate simplicity and straightforwardness, but you may want to go with another provider if you’re interested in streaming. 

Read our Mullvad 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. We also evaluate how well the VPN performs when streaming and unblocking content from different regions worldwide. Additionally, we run DNS leak tests and look for trust signals like transparency reports and third-party security audits. 

Based on our experience testing, using and researching VPNs, these are the most important factors to consider when choosing a cheap VPN.

Cost

If your objective is to find the cheapest VPN for your needs, then the cost of the VPN will likely be your primary consideration. While some VPNs cost up to $100 or more per year, you can get a top-notch cheap VPN with many of the same features, usability and privacy protections for $40 to $60 per year.

Privacy

Privacy is a major consideration for any VPN, regardless of what kind of VPN you want. The best VPNs all have privacy protections like a kill switch and DNS leak protection, along with a no-logs policy and AES 256-bit encryption. Depending on the level of privacy you need, you can get a cheap VPN that offers additional features like TOR over VPN, obfuscation and multihop connections.  

Speed

A VPN will often slow down your connection speeds by 50% or more. So you’ll want to look for a VPN that will cut your speeds by as little as possible -- ideally less than 20% so that you’ll barely even notice a difference. Fast VPN speeds are essential for data-heavy activities like streaming, gaming, downloading or video conferencing. A fast VPN will easily handle all of those activities, whereas slow VPN speeds may only be suitable for basic internet browsing.

Usability

Getting a VPN on the cheap doesn’t necessarily have to mean that you have to sacrifice usability. In fact, many of the more budget-friendly VPN options are miles ahead of their pricier peers in terms of user-friendliness. Look for a VPN that works well across all the devices you want to use. Your VPN should be as easy to use as any other app you may download and should require little to no learning curve.