Norton Antivirus Cost and Plan Pricing

Much like the stagehands in a musical, antivirus software works in the background to keep everything running smoothly. That’s the beauty of having good antivirus software. You’re not paying to watch the software work. You’re paying for protection and peace of mind, and when virus and malware strike, you know you can count on your antivirus to defend your device.

In this guide, we’re taking a closer look at one of the most trusted antivirus brands around: Norton. We’ll give you a quick tour of its products and features, and we’ll guide you in picking the right Norton antivirus for your budget. Even though Norton’s products are digital, your money is real, and we want to help you spend it wisely.

Subscriptions and Costs

Norton’s pricing is a bit all over the place, but that’s kind of expected from an antivirus company as huge as Norton. There’s an endless combination of individual products, bundles, and deals, so if it’s your first time browsing Norton’s website, it can be overwhelming. But that’s why we’re here; we’ve done all the research and we’ll help you decipher Norton’s pricing.

Antivirus, LifeLock and Norton 360 Bundles

To narrow down your options, let’s start with the three main packages from Norton. First, there’s the barebones antivirus product with some extra protections like a password manager. This product falls under the name AntiVirus Plus, and it was the one we tested.

Next, there are the multi-featured Norton 360 products, which, as the name suggests, are products that offer 360-degree protection. That includes a VPN, a password manager, and even cloud backup for your most important files to protect them from ransomware.

Lastly, we have the Norton 360 with LifeLock bundles. These bundles offer the same digital protections as Norton 360, but adding LifeLock makes them capable of protecting your identity as well.

LifeLock will alert you of potential identity theft, as well as suspicious changes to your credit. In addition, you’ll receive identity theft insurance coverage of up to $1 million, plus a separate reimbursement of stolen funds up to $1 million if you become a victim of fraud. You can read more about identity theft protection in our identity theft guide, or you can read our review of LifeLock to gain more insight into what it does.

Now, let’s look at how those three types of Norton products compare.

That being said, you may not want the whole kit and caboodle, but just a few services specifically. Well, that’s absolutely fine as Norton also offers these services a la carte, but keep in mind, bundling up services can save you some serious money in the long run. Here’s an example: The Norton 360 with LifeLock Advantage bundle costs $19.99 if you pay on a monthly basis. The LifeLock Advantage plan alone costs $17.99 per month. That means you’re getting advanced Norton 360 features for basically $2 per month. Just something to consider if you’re looking to get device and identity protection from Norton.

Norton Secure VPN

Norton Secure VPN is a virtual private network. It hides your IP address and encrypts your online data to protect your privacy. You can learn more about it in our Norton Secure VPN review.

The Norton VPN is available through several subscriptions. You can buy a monthly subscription or pay yearly for some savings. You can also have a subscription for one, five, or 10 devices total.

You’ll notice below that the minimum cost of the VPN for one device is $4.99 per month or $29.99 per year. That’s only $20 less than the 360 Deluxe one-year plan, which includes Norton Secure VPN for not just one but five devices. Again, bundling helps you save.

Check out what we thought of their VPN in our Norton Secure VPN review.

Norton Computer Tune-Up

This device optimizer, which aims to get rid of clutter and make computers run faster, costs $49.99 per service on one computer. However, there are ways to do this sort of cleanup for free, so we think that your $50 could be better spent elsewhere.

Norton Family

From pornography and violence to child identity theft, there are a number of risks you take when you let your kids use the Internet. That being said, in our research on parental attitudes towards child identity theft, we found that about a third of parents aren’t very concerned or not concerned at all with child identity theft.

In a nutshell, Norton Family lets you block apps and sites you don’t want your kids to see, implement safe search terms, schedule screen time, and get reports about what your kid is doing online sent straight to your inbox. Considering the fact that the average eight to 12-year-old in the U.S spends four to six hours a day on screens,1 some protection is much needed, and $49.99 a year seems worth it to us.

Norton Ultimate Help Desk

Suffice it to say that some people are more tech-savvy than others. Without stereotyping people by their ages, research has shown that millennials are the leading adopters of tech, with Baby Boomers and Gen Xers following behind.3 But no matter what age you are, running into frustrating tech issues is…well, frustrating. Fortunately, Norton offers a virtual help desk that lets you contact IT whenever you want, 24/7, for $19.99 a month. This applies to three devices, be it a smartphone, tablet, or computer. With this plan, you can call Norton’s virtual help desk unlimited times.

Norton Utilities Premium

Norton Utilities Premium is another optimizer for PCs available for $39.99 a year. You can use it on up to 10 PCs but again, we don’t think this service is necessary as you can clean up your PC yourself for free.

Norton Small Business

Finally, there’s an option for small businesses with five, 10 or 20 devices. This software works on Windows, Android, macOS and iOS, but Norton’s website isn’t very clear on what it actually does. To find out, we recommend live chatting with a member of their support staff to get all of your questions answered.

Favorite Features

Looking at numbers only, Norton’s pricing is commensurate with other top antivirus companies, and overall, we’re fans of the software. Here’s why.

• Behavior scanning: Norton scans for suspicious behavior of files and programs, not just suspicious files or file signatures. Behavior scanning also helps Norton catch new malware that may not be in its malware database yet.
• Detected 100 percent of malware for Androids: That’s right, 100 percent! While Norton didn’t detect all viruses on our computer when we tested its limits, when it came to malware detection on Android, they more than impressed us.

• Affordable: If you break it down to monthly payments, you can buy Norton for as little as $1.67 a month, certainly a low price for digital protection.
• Week-long free trial: Although we wish they had completely free versions of their antivirus software, a week seems like more than enough time to try out their services and decide if we want to continue.
• Highly-rated iOS and Android apps: Both the Norton Mobile Security- Antivirus and Anti-Malware Android app and the Norton Mobile Security iOS app have 4.7 ratings on the Google Play and Apple stores, respectively.

For Free?

With any of Norton’s antivirus software plans, which include all of its Norton 360 offerings, users get seven days to try them out without paying. However, this doesn’t apply to any of their other standalone products like the VPN or the parental controls, only to the packages.

Can I Get A Refund?

Some more good news: Norton has a 60-day money-back guarantee, which means that if you don’t like their products, you can cancel within 60 days of purchase and get your money back. However, that only applies to annual subscriptions; monthly subscriptions only have a 14-day window, but most of Norton’s plans are annual, anyway.

Savings for Students

One of the perks of being part of a student network like Student Beans is unlocking some great discounts; and that’s a blessing, because after tuition, room, board, and textbooks, your bank account is probably dwindling. While their annual pricing isn’t any different from their regular pricing, they do have discounted prices if you sign up for a month, which is probably more ideal for commitment-phobic students. However, note that only the Deluxe and LifeLock Select plans cover five devices; with Antivirus Plus or 360 Standard, only one device is covered.

Norton Black Friday and Cyber Monday Deals

We cover Norton’s deals more extensively elsewhere, but to summarize, we’ve seen discounts from them in the past, not only on Black Friday but also on Cyber Monday. In 2018, for example, they offered up to $70 off.4 Here are some other deals we’ve seen in the past:

• 2015: Over half off on Norton Security
• 2014: 50 percent off
• 2012: Unclear, although we know they had a Black Friday sale of some sort as it was announced on Facebook.

As far as current deals go, Norton is offering savings of up to 36-percent off antivirus products. Norton 360 Deluxe, for example, can be purchased for as low as $34.99 for the first year (instead of $49.99).

If you ask us, though, the best deals are on bundles. Simply choosing a bundle saves you a large amount compared to buying individual Norton products. Plus, you can take advantage of lower introductory prices if you sign up for a year or two. Just remember that once the initial subscription expires, you’ll have to pay the regular rates.

In Conclusion

That about does it for Norton’s antivirus pricing, along with pricing of their other software. If you want to learn more, we highly recommend reading our Norton antivirus review, in which we actually test out the software, compiling it with a bunch of research to see if it’s trustworthy.