ExpressVPN costs: Pricing and plans explained
Which is the best ExpressVPN plan for your needs? Here’s everything you need to know
ExpressVPN is one of the best VPNs we’ve tested this year, but it’s also one of the most expensive. ExpressVPN’s costs vary depending on the length of the plan you choose, as well as whether the VPN provider is running a discount (which it often is). Excluding discounts, ExpressVPN prices start at £11/mth for one month, dropping to £8/mth for the six-month plan (£48 every six months) and £5/mth for the 12-month plan (£80/yr).
ExpressVPN is one of our favourite VPNs – it received five stars and a Best Buy award in our full ExpressVPN review – and ranks highly on our roundup of the best VPNs for its relatively strong privacy and speed. It’s also the best VPN we’ve tested for accessing your streaming services while abroad.
Below, we’ll explain ExpressVPN’s pricing and plans in more depth, including whether the VPN has a free trial and how to work out which price tier is right for you.
How much does it cost?
ExpressVPN offers monthly, six-monthly and yearly subscription plans. The 12-month plan (that includes a year of free, unlimited cloud backup from Backblaze) is £80 and works out at just £5/mth.
The six-month subscription costs £8/mth, billed at £48/yr, while the monthly plan costs just £11/mth.
Each plan, charged in US dollars, comes with a 30-day money-back guarantee if you decide it doesn’t suit you or you change your mind. These prices are regularly subject to discounts, too, so you’ll often be able to pick the VPN up for less than we’re advertising here.
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Which plan is best for me?
Getting started with the right ExpressVPN subscription should be easy, given the simplicity of its pricing plans. Since you get the same features on all of them (see below), your choice of subscription should largely depend on whether or not you need to use the service on a long-term basis or simply for a one-off project.
12-month plan
Costing £80/yr, this subscription is ideal if you intend to use the VPN for daily surfing and online streaming (for at least a year). While the initial cost is higher than the six-month and one-month plans, this package is the cheapest overall when used over this extended period.
Six-month plan
Taking out this plan will cost you £48 for six months. While cheaper than the 12-month plan, you’ll end up paying more if you renew your contract after the initial six months. Our advice is only choose this option if you’re sure that you won’t need a VPN service after six months.
Monthly plan
The one-month subscription costs £11 per cycle and is most suitable if you only need the VPN for a one-off project that lasts less than five months (otherwise the six-month subscription works out the cheapest).
Below is a table that summarises the plans and costs:
Length of plan | 12 months | 6 months | 1 month |
Monthly cost | £5 | £8 | £11 |
Total amount billed | £80 | £48 | £11 |
What security features are there?
ExpressVPN is one of our favourite VPNs – in our five star review, we praised it for its no-logs policy, fast servers and top security features.
It’s headquartered in the British Virgin Islands, a place outside the jurisdiction of data retention laws and government surveillance, which means you can be confident that your data won’t be stored or accessible to anyone else (for legal reasons).
ExpressVPN’s user-friendly apps are available for a wide range of platforms including Windows, macOS, Android and iOS – as well as routers, TVs, Chromecast and Amazon Fire TV devices. One subscription also gives access to the service on up to eight devices simultaneously, which is one of the better offerings out there.
Once you’re set up you can route your connection through more than 3,000 servers in 94 countries around the world to access geographically restricted content. In our most recent round of tests, ExpressVPN successfully accessed every single US- or UK-based streaming service we tried, earning it the title of best VPN for streaming.
Some of its advanced security features include standard encryption protocols, such as AES-256, Lightway, and IKEv2 for Mac and iOS.
Other key features include a kill switch, private DNS, split tunnelling and a threat manager. The latest update features a built-in ad blocker as well as an explicit content blocker.
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Is there a free trial?
ExpressVPN doesn’t have a free trial. However, there’s a 30-day money-back guarantee if you don’t like the service. Check out our roundup of the best free VPNs for our pick of the best VPNs with free trials or free tiers – Windscribe is our favourite overall.