The best cheap VPNs you can buy

Our top pick is Ivacy, an extremely affordable VPN with long-term plans starting at only $1.17/month. Plus, you get a 31-day money-back guarantee if you change your mind about signing up for the long term.

*Lowest price at the time of writing. Please note that prices may vary based on retailer and available promotions, sales, or discounts.

The best cheap VPN for you depends on various factors besides price. If you choose a low-cost service, but you can't unblock the streaming services you want to use, then what did you really save? Start by asking yourself why you need a VPN. Then, test out a reputable provider that has high standards for security.

If you want to learn more about how VPNs work and how to choose the best one for you, check out our guide: What is a VPN and why do we need one?

When you are considering what VPN to sign up for, there are a number of factors you should consider:

• Plan length: Before signing up for a new VPN service, consider which subscription length is right for you. Month-by-month plans are considerably more expensive than longer plans, of which you can choose six-month to five-year plans. 
• Features: Many cheap VPNs don't offer advanced features on their basic or longest plans. If you want a specific feature, such as a password manager, you may need to pay more. 
• Pricing: The cost of your VPN subscription, naturally, should factor into your decision. Choose one that is affordable for you.
• Use cases: If you want a VPN for a specific purpose beyond day-to-day browsing -- such as traveling -- check whether or not the VPN will be suitable. You may need to opt for a particular VPN if you want to use it in different countries, for example, or you may want to choose a VPN known for great streaming support. 

Price is a significant factor when we choose VPNs, but it's not the be-all and end-all when choosing the best cheap VPN. There are several cheap and free VPN services that aren't trustworthy. Saving a little bit of cash isn't worth putting your privacy at risk.

If ZDNET is going to recommend a VPN, it needs to meet specific, minimum standards and use cases:

• Server network: A VPN vendor's server range and capacity is important to provide customers with flexibility and decent speeds. 
• Features: We like to see features such as kill switches, pause functionality, multiple platform support, security options, and high encryption standards. 
• Money-back guarantee: It is important for our top VPNs to offer a reasonable money-back guarantee. All of our top picks offer at least 30 days, although up to 45 days is even better. 
• Simultaneous connections: Unlimited simultaneous connections is the best option. But if there is a reasonable number available on cheap plans, we take that into account.

Free months, added as an incentive for users to sign up for a VPN service, are typically added to the length of your contract. For example, if you sign up for a two-year contract with three months free, you pay for 24 months of access and then enjoy an additional three months for free.

If you want your data to be secure, then yes. VPNs offer protection no matter what kind of device you use to transmit and receive data. Before you commit to a VPN service, it's a good idea to test it out and see how well it works with all of your devices. The best VPN for Android may not be the same as the best VPN for iOS, and vice versa.

A VPN may help you get cheaper flights by connecting you with foreign servers and hiding your IP address. But airline prices shift based on various factors, and the impact of changing your location could be negligible or at the very least, hard to confirm. 

It's worth trying to use a VPN to save money on flights. I've managed to score slightly cheaper long-haul flights by appearing to come from my destination country, for example, but the discounts haven't been huge. 

Let's be clear: Yes. Using a VPN will slow down your connection because your data is encrypted, decrypted, and sent through intermediate servers. Your online gaming experience might suffer. You might have enough lag to miss shots if you're a first-person shooter player. That said, both computers and VPNs have gotten much faster. Years ago, VPNs caused everything to slow down far more than today's services.

But now the negative impact is almost unnoticeable, especially with the fastest VPN services. Most (but not all) VPN providers also limit the number of devices you can connect to simultaneously, so you may have to pick and choose which home devices to connect to.

We've shone a spotlight on paid services in this article, although some of them offer a free tier. We don't usually recommend free VPN services because we don't consider them secure, the exception being ProtonVPN. 

Running a good VPN service requires hundreds of servers worldwide and a ton of networking resources -- it's expensive. If you're not paying to support that infrastructure, who is? Probably advertisers or data miners. What's the point of a VPN if it doesn't keep your data secure? 

However, we want to clarify that no one tool can guarantee your privacy. First, anything can be hacked. Second, a VPN protects your data when it transits from your computer to the VPN service, but it doesn't protect what you put on servers or whatever cloud-based application you're using. It doesn't typically offer password security or multi-factor authentication unless you pay for these add-ons. Privacy and security require you to be diligent throughout your digital journey, and VPNs, while helpful, are not a miracle cure. 

There is no shortage of reputable VPNs that get the job done.

If what has been highlighted here doesn't suit your needs, you can try out other services that may meet your requirements. Some may be free, even -- with limited capacity and network scope -- whereas others are still cheap, but might not perform quite as well as our top picks. Below, you can check out other VPNs that are worth consideration.