The cheapest VPNs (that won't slow down your connection)

My top pick for a cheap VPN is Atlas VPN. It's a surprisingly good service for the price, offering unlimited connections across multiple countries for only $1.82 per month. Plus, three months' extra is a bonus.

This service provides top-tier security along with unlimited connections, making it a potentially cheaper alternative to other top VPNs like NordVPN and ExpressVPN. Plus, you get a 30-day refund guarantee -- that's hard to beat.

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?

Pricing certainly played a significant part when I chose these 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 I'm going to recommend a VPN, it needs to meet certain minimum standards, like having a kill switch, a reasonable data log policy, and no outstanding issues linked to improper customer data use. The server network range and capacity, money-back guarantee periods, privacy policies, and the number of simultaneous connections allowed are also important.

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.

I've spotlighted paid services in this article, although some of them offer a free tier. I don't usually recommend free VPN services because I 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, I 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.