The daily price monitoring of eight major VPNs has shown an average advertised discount of 81%. It has also revealed countdown timers, operating way past their expiration date.
Shopping around for a VPN becomes tricky really quick because nearly every page features a cross-through price tag, a discount of 70% or more, and some kind of "Buy now". Some sites even have a timer counting down the minutes left until the offer expires.
But does the offer expire?
The data gathered by vpnrank.io suggests that it doesn't. Besides comparing advertised prices of eight major providers with actual prices at checkout, since July its VPN Price Index takes a snapshot of each of them once a day. Thus far, the same picture emerges again and again: the sale price is available, while the regular price cannot be found anywhere.
On average, the introductory discount among the eight tracked services in July 2026 was 81%. The smallest discount was 70%, the largest was 88%. The median price for a two-year plan was $2.11 per month. For the same services month-by-month customers would have to pay $12.17 on average – almost 5.3 times more.
It is an unusually wide margin for a subscription-based product. Monthly streaming plans may cost 20% or 30% more than annual ones, but not several times more.
The most extreme case in the dataset was a provider charging $15.45 per month or $1.78 per month on a two-year plan. Thus, a flexible plan turned out 8.7 times more expensive. The smallest margin is not low either: $9.99 month-to-month and $2.99 on a long-term plan. See the chart below and the live index for detailed figures for each provider.
Charts: VPNRank.IO
If to speak practically, the monthly price works not as a widely offered plan, but as a reference price. The providers' pricing pages feature longer subscriptions more prominently and these are the plans the customers are urged to buy. This way, the high price serves as a base for the discount calculation. To claim "88% off," after all, one must first find an appropriate price to discount.
Put that way, it becomes clear that the offer is not a temporary sale anymore. It becomes the everyday price sold as a limited time offer.
The countdown timers are probably the clearest proof of it. Two of the eight providers had them on their pricing pages in snapshots taken five days apart in mid-July. One was labeled "Offer Ends In" and featured countdown in hours, minutes, and seconds. Five days later, the offer was still there. The timer puts a limit on the customer but does not denote the end of the offer.
"Surprisingly, it was not the size of the discounts," Matt, founder of vpnrank.io, independent comparison site maintaining the index, says. "What stood out is the fact that we couldn't find any major provider charging the price described as regular. The sale is apparently the usual state of the market. Once you understand that, the countdown clock stops being meaningful."
It does not mean that the introductory offers are not good value. Two dollars per month is a very affordable price for a decent VPN. However, what customers should keep an eye out for is the following period.
The lower rate is applied only to the initial subscription. The renewal notifications featured on the pricing pages of the providers say so. In some cases, the billing period changes too: a multi-year introductory plan may turn into an annual subscription. Thus, if someone remembers only the price mentioned in the large font, he may be faced with a substantially higher price in the third year – 4 to 6 times higher, depending on the provider. The service itself has not changed; the promotion just ended.
There is yet another reason why the percentage in the banner is not particularly meaningful. Since it is measured against the monthly price, the provider may increase the cost of the long-term plan without changing much in the advertised discount. This is one of the reasons why the index measures the underlying prices instead of the headline percentage. Whenever the pricing page changes, the prices are checked again, allowing for a small increase over time.
The customers may easily avoid all the confusion by doing three things.
First of all, calculate the actual checkout price. An offer saying that a plan costs $1.78 per month over two years is not a monthly payment of $1.78; it is a prepaid fee of $42.72. Secondly, find the renewal price before subscribing. Providers provide this information, but not necessarily near the main button. And thirdly, use the money-back period as the trial period. Most of the providers have 30-day money back policy, and the longest is 45 days. Install the VPN, check it on your devices and services and return it within this period if it fails to meet your expectations.
As for the countdown clock, there is not much sense in letting it make the decision for you. Judging by the daily snapshots, there is a good chance that the offer is still there tomorrow.
Since July 2026, vpnrank.io also started automated daily snapshots of each provider's pricing page. They include visible prices, promotional texts, countdown timers and renewal disclosures. The live index and its machine-readable feed can be found at vpnrank.io/vpn-price-index.
Shopping around for a VPN becomes tricky really quick because nearly every page features a cross-through price tag, a discount of 70% or more, and some kind of "Buy now". Some sites even have a timer counting down the minutes left until the offer expires.
But does the offer expire?
The data gathered by vpnrank.io suggests that it doesn't. Besides comparing advertised prices of eight major providers with actual prices at checkout, since July its VPN Price Index takes a snapshot of each of them once a day. Thus far, the same picture emerges again and again: the sale price is available, while the regular price cannot be found anywhere.
On average, the introductory discount among the eight tracked services in July 2026 was 81%. The smallest discount was 70%, the largest was 88%. The median price for a two-year plan was $2.11 per month. For the same services month-by-month customers would have to pay $12.17 on average – almost 5.3 times more.
It is an unusually wide margin for a subscription-based product. Monthly streaming plans may cost 20% or 30% more than annual ones, but not several times more.
The most extreme case in the dataset was a provider charging $15.45 per month or $1.78 per month on a two-year plan. Thus, a flexible plan turned out 8.7 times more expensive. The smallest margin is not low either: $9.99 month-to-month and $2.99 on a long-term plan. See the chart below and the live index for detailed figures for each provider.
If to speak practically, the monthly price works not as a widely offered plan, but as a reference price. The providers' pricing pages feature longer subscriptions more prominently and these are the plans the customers are urged to buy. This way, the high price serves as a base for the discount calculation. To claim "88% off," after all, one must first find an appropriate price to discount.
Put that way, it becomes clear that the offer is not a temporary sale anymore. It becomes the everyday price sold as a limited time offer.
The countdown timers are probably the clearest proof of it. Two of the eight providers had them on their pricing pages in snapshots taken five days apart in mid-July. One was labeled "Offer Ends In" and featured countdown in hours, minutes, and seconds. Five days later, the offer was still there. The timer puts a limit on the customer but does not denote the end of the offer.
"Surprisingly, it was not the size of the discounts," Matt, founder of vpnrank.io, independent comparison site maintaining the index, says. "What stood out is the fact that we couldn't find any major provider charging the price described as regular. The sale is apparently the usual state of the market. Once you understand that, the countdown clock stops being meaningful."
It does not mean that the introductory offers are not good value. Two dollars per month is a very affordable price for a decent VPN. However, what customers should keep an eye out for is the following period.
The lower rate is applied only to the initial subscription. The renewal notifications featured on the pricing pages of the providers say so. In some cases, the billing period changes too: a multi-year introductory plan may turn into an annual subscription. Thus, if someone remembers only the price mentioned in the large font, he may be faced with a substantially higher price in the third year – 4 to 6 times higher, depending on the provider. The service itself has not changed; the promotion just ended.
There is yet another reason why the percentage in the banner is not particularly meaningful. Since it is measured against the monthly price, the provider may increase the cost of the long-term plan without changing much in the advertised discount. This is one of the reasons why the index measures the underlying prices instead of the headline percentage. Whenever the pricing page changes, the prices are checked again, allowing for a small increase over time.
The customers may easily avoid all the confusion by doing three things.
First of all, calculate the actual checkout price. An offer saying that a plan costs $1.78 per month over two years is not a monthly payment of $1.78; it is a prepaid fee of $42.72. Secondly, find the renewal price before subscribing. Providers provide this information, but not necessarily near the main button. And thirdly, use the money-back period as the trial period. Most of the providers have 30-day money back policy, and the longest is 45 days. Install the VPN, check it on your devices and services and return it within this period if it fails to meet your expectations.
As for the countdown clock, there is not much sense in letting it make the decision for you. Judging by the daily snapshots, there is a good chance that the offer is still there tomorrow.
Methodology
The vpnrank.io VPN Price Index monitors the prices published by eight major VPN services: ExpressVPN, NordVPN, Surfshark, CyberGhost, Private Internet Access, IPVanish, Proton VPN and TotalVPN. Advertised prices are manually verified at checkout using first-term offers shown in US dollars on US-facing pages. The index is updated whenever the provider changes its pricing.Since July 2026, vpnrank.io also started automated daily snapshots of each provider's pricing page. They include visible prices, promotional texts, countdown timers and renewal disclosures. The live index and its machine-readable feed can be found at vpnrank.io/vpn-price-index.
Author bio: Matt is the founder of vpnrank.io, an independent VPN comparison site. The site publishes hands-on reviews, quarterly speed tests and a VPN price index regularly updated based on daily monitoring. The data used in this article is publicly available at vpnrank.io/vpn-price-index.
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Read next:
• What do human relationships with chatbots say about friendship? A philosopher considers
• Survey: 90% of Parents Want School Phone Access, 60% Say It Should Be Limited to Emergencies, 30% Say Phones Disrupt Learning
