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.
Mullvad VPN
Vendor pricing page, mullvad.net/en/pricing — read on 20 August 2026.
$5.78 a month · list price
$5.78 a month · on renewal, per the vendor
- Billed
- $5.78/mo — $69.36 a year
- Renews at
- Same — $5.78/mo
- Free tier
- None, and the page says so plainly — no free plan, no trial, one rate.
- Price read from
- Vendor pricing page, mullvad.net/en/pricing
- Checked
- Vendor
- mullvad.net
Mullvad has one plan and one price: €5 a month, including VAT, which the pricing page converts to $5.78. There is no cheaper annual rate. The page lists one month, one year and one decade side by side at the identical monthly figure, which is either a pricing strategy or a refusal to have one.
That makes the renewal question trivial. There is no first term, so there is nothing to expire. The page also answers whether there are seasonal deals, and the answer is no — not for any holiday you can think of. Mullvad says the rate has not changed since it launched in 2009.
Two things move the number. Paying in Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash or Monero takes 10% off. And the price is set in euros, so the dollar figure drifts with the exchange rate rather than with anything Mullvad decides.
At the conversion shown on 20 August 2026, twelve months costs $69.36. There is no free plan and a 14-day money-back guarantee.
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.