What a VPN costs a year, and what it costs after the first term
Two of the five biggest names in this category will not tell you what you pay in year three. One has charged the same €5 a month since 2009. Here is the ledger, dated.
ExpressVPN
Vendor order page, expressvpn.com/order — read on 19 August 2026.
$99.95 a year · list price
$99.95 a year · on renewal, per the vendor
- Billed
- $99.95/yr
- Renews at
- Same — $99.95/yr
- Free tier
- None. A 30-day money-back guarantee for new users, which is a refund window rather than a plan.
- Price read from
- Vendor order page, expressvpn.com/order
- Checked
- Vendor
- expressvpn.com
The number on ExpressVPN’s order page is $2.99 a month for the Basic tier. The number under it is more useful: billed $83.72 for the first 28 months, then autorenews at $99.95 annually.
Both figures are the vendor’s own, printed on the same screen on 19 August 2026, which is more than most of this category manages. Annualised, the first term runs at $35.88 a year. The renewal is 2.8 times that.
The pattern repeats up the range. Advanced is $4.49 a month, billed $125.72 for 28 months, then $119.95 a year. Express Pro is $7.49 a month, billed $209.72 for 28 months, then $199.95 a year. In each case the advertised monthly rate multiplied by 28 gives you the first-term total exactly, so the discount is real — it just has a stated end date.
We record $99.95 as the list price because that is the standing annual charge. The introductory 28 months are the exception, not the price.
Where we have written about this
This is a price record, not a review. We do not rate the product, we track what it charges. The method is on how we check prices; mistakes end up in the corrections log.