How Much Does Surfshark Cost?

Surfshark is one of the most affordable VPNs, but that affordability is contingent on making a sizable upfront payment on an extended subscription. The cheapest way to get Surfshark is to subscribe to the two-year Starter plan. It costs $59.13 upfront, which averages out to around $2.19 per month. By comparison, the month-to-month rate for Surfshark Starter is $15.45 per month.

So how does that low, low two-year price stack up to other basic plans? A two-year commitment to NordVPN Basic, for example, costs $81.36 upfront, for an average of $3.39 per month. Does it mean Surfshark is an inferior service? While it may not have a ton of bells and whistles, we’ve found that it provides all the essentials, including lots of servers and relatively fast speeds. Let’s go over the pricing structure and what you get for your money when you’re riding with Surfshark.

Surfshark VPN Subscription Options

Surfshark offers three different tiers of packages: Starter, One, and One+. The Starter package includes a VPN service that comes with now-standard features like multi-hop, rotating IP, and bypassing. The basic package also includes an adblocker, a cookie pop-up blocker, an email alias generator, and an identity alias generator. The latter two functions can be used to hide your true email address and identity from websites you don’t 100 percent trust.

Surfshark One and Surfshark One+ plans tack on added privacy and security features; antivirus software and identity theft protection, respectively. All three plans are available for one month, one year, or two years. As we said, the longer you commit, the lower the average cost per month.

We broke down the Surfshark VPN price and subscription options in the table below:

Once your initial two-year subscription ends, you can only renew on a yearly or monthly basis. The upfront yearly cost is $59.76 – an average of $4.98 per month. It’s more than the introductory price, but still within the usual cost of a VPN. For example, a one-year subscription to NordVPN Basic costs an average of $4.99 per month.

Compared to some of the other top VPNs, Surfshark has very competitive pricing. Take ExpressVPN’s pricing, for instance. When we bought a subscription for our ExpressVPN review, it was $6.67 per month for the one year plan (plus three free months), or about $100 upfront. The cost of a Surfshark plan for the same 12 months (plus three free months) is less than half: $3.19 per month or $47.85 upfront.

Surfshark’s one-year and two-year introductory prices are affordable, but not so much with the monthly plan. At $15.45 per month, it costs $2.50 to $4.50 more than the monthly rate for our other top picks: NordVPN ($12.99) and Private Internet Access ($11.99). While Surfshark doesn’t have the highest monthly rate — Astrill VPN’s monthly subscription grabs that honor with $30 per month — there are better options if you’re going month-to-month.

Surfshark’s Best Features

As if providing great value weren’t enough, Surfshark also has many great features. From split tunneling to torrent (P2P) support and more, Surfshark delivers where some other VPNs fall short. When you combine value and number of features, it should come as no surprise that we raved about this VPN service in our Surfshark review.

• Speedy servers: Surfshark has upgraded the throughput of all its servers to 10 Gbps from 1 Gbps. That means they can allow more traffic to pass through at the same time. Surfshark was already one of the fastest VPNs when it had 1 Gbps servers, so we expect it to be even faster now – at least when it comes to download speed. We’re hopeful they can resolve the lower upload speed soon, too, as that was one of the friction points we noticed during our most recent testing.
• Logging policy: Surfshark doesn’t log browsing activity (e.g. the websites you visit), but it does record IP addresses at the beginning of each connection. The record is permanently deleted within 15 minutes after the session ends, as confirmed by numerous third-party audits. That’s why despite Surfshark’s IP address logging, it’s still one of the best “no-logs” VPNs.

• Split tunneling: Connecting your device to a VPN might cause some apps and websites to function abnormally. For example, some online banking apps won’t give you access if your VPN IP address is showing that you’re in a different country. For such instances, Surfshark’s split tunneling will let you route some website or app traffic outside the VPN.
• Free trial: Okay, this is not a feature, but it’s worth mentioning. We were able to test out Surfshark for seven days by signing up through the iOS App Store. It also works if you sign up through the Google Play Store. It’s one of the best VPNs with a free trial (there aren’t a lot of them).
• P2P/Torrenting support: Downloading a torrent requires the utmost privacy and anonymity because ISPs and the government frown upon the use of torrents. Surfshark, fortunately, can provide that privacy without much effect on the speed and connection quality of torrents. Read our guide on how to use a VPN to torrent.
• Netflix and streaming: This is another popular use-case for VPNs. Changing your IP address allows you to access streaming libraries of other regions. For example, we hopped over to the U.K. Netflix while connected to Surfshark, which allowed us to catch up on TV shows not available on the U.S version using a U.K. IP address.

• Unlimited and simultaneous connections: Surfshark allowed us to connect to as many devices as we wanted, with no limit on simultaneous connections.
• GPS changing: Surfshark is the only VPN we’ve reviewed that allows us to change our Android’s location within the app. If you’re looking for a VPN that allows you to change your GPS location rather than just your IP address, look no further.
• Dynamic MultiHop: Multihop doubles your encryption and protection by connecting you to two servers. Surfshark’s multihop does the same, but it also lets you customize your server pairings by choosing two servers from its list of over 3,200 servers, unlike other VPNs (such as NordVPN) that offer a limited selection of pre-configured server multihop servers.

• NoBorders Mode: When traveling outside the country, Surfshark used NoBorders Mode to bypass censorship and restrictions set forth by the countries we were visiting, including China.
• Camouflage Mode: Additionally, it camouflaged our online traffic to make it look like normal traffic rather than VPN traffic. This helped draw suspicion away from our online data, particularly in countries where VPNs are illegal or frowned upon.
• App performance: Surfshark updates its apps regularly. As a result, it has one of the best VPN apps today. It doesn’t only do major upgrades either; it does small improvements every now then that enhance the overall user experience. If you use a VPN, you’re going to interact with the app a lot, which is why we appreciate that Surfshark does those updates.

Surfshark One

If you’re looking to boost your digital security and privacy beyond using a VPN, the Surfshark One and Surfshark One+ subscriptions bundle tools like antivirus software and a secure browser. Let’s take a second to look at what’s included in those bundles.

First, let’s compare the inclusions and cost of Surfshark Starter, One, and One+.

In addition to the VPN, a Surfshark One subscription gives you access to Surfshark Antivirus, Alert, and Search, as well as other privacy features.

Here’s a closer look at each service.

• Surfshark Alert: Did you know that in 2020, it took an average of 280 days to identify and contain a data breach? That’s nearly a year of stolen credentials floating around the web.
  But we could have found out about data breaches sooner with Surfshark Alert, which would’ve scanned the entire internet for our email addresses. Sure, that’s not as comprehensive as the best identity theft protection services; it doesn’t offer credit monitoring, identity restoration, or dark web monitoring, for example. But it’s better than nothing.

>> Related Reading: Increase your Digital Anonymity with SurfShark’s Incogni

• Surfshark Search: Advertisements above the organic search results can be annoying and can affect what we end up clicking on. In fact, the first link that appears in the search engine results page receives 28.5 percent of the clicks, and many times, that link is an ad. If you dislike ads as much as we do, consider Surfshark Search, which gets rid of ads so all the search results are as organic as your local farmer’s market.
• Antivirus: Another service we subscribed to is antivirus protection. We loved that this complete subscription package allowed us to protect our personal information and safeguard our devices.
• Alternative ID: Alternative ID helps you protect your identity by generating an alternative online profile complete with a name, birthday, home address, and email address. You can use that alternative identity to sign up for websites, so that in case the website gets hacked or suffers a data breach, your real personal information won’t be compromised.
• Email Alias: Additionally, if you need a burner email to sign up for anything from email newsletters to free trials, you can create a secondary email address via Surfshark. All emails will be forwarded to your primary email, while also keeping all your communications – and most importantly, address – secret and private.

You can learn more about Surfshark One antivirus in our Surfshark antivirus review.

Finally, going beyond just privacy protection and cybersecurity, Surfshark One+ adds identity monitoring to the mix. It searches data broker sites and people search sites that have your information and requests your data to be removed on your behalf. That can help you avoid becoming a victim of data breaches.

Payment Options

If you’re going to buy anything online, we recommend using a payment service like PayPal, Google Pay, Apple Pay, or Amazon Pay instead of entering your credit card number. Those services don’t share any account or device information with a merchant. If a merchant is hacked and you’ve used a payment service, you probably don’t have anything to worry about. Fortunately, Surfshark accepts all of the services listed above except Apple Pay.

If you don’t have any of those services, you can pay with your credit card number. Unfortunately, Surfshark uses a payment service called DragonPay to process credit cards. While there’s no reason to be concerned about that service in particular, it means another party is collecting information on you, in addition to Surfshark.

>>Learn More: Is PayPal Safe?

If you want a more secure and anonymous method of payment, Surfshark also accepts cryptocurrency payments via CoinGate. Note that it may take up to 24 hours for payments to clear, so your access to Surfshark could be delayed.

Here are all the payment methods Surfshark accepts:

• Major credit cards including Mastercard, Visa, American Express, and Discover
• PayPal
• Google Pay
• Amazon Pay
• Cryptocurrency including Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Ripple

Cancelling Surfshark

Although this article is about the cost of a Surfshark subscription, it is important to understand a VPN’s cancellation process before putting down a good chunk of change on a one- or two-year plan. If you start to have buyer’s regret or Surfshark makes a change that’s a dealbreaker for you, you should know that you have the power to opt out.

Cancelling a VPN subscription is typically headache-free. With Surfshark, it’s as easy as logging into your online dashboard, opening a live chat ticket, and indicating your desire to cancel your subscription. You won’t even have to talk to a live agent, because the chatbot will handle it for you.

That said, keep in mind that cancelling your subscription simply means stopping your auto-renewal. There won’t be a refund for unused months because you’ll continue to have access to the VPN until the very last day you paid for. For example, if you bought a one-year subscription in March and cancelled in November, your subscription will stay active until March the following year but will not renew after that.

However, if you’re cancelling within 30 days of signing up, you might be entitled to a full refund. Full details below.

Surfshark: Is There A Free Trial?

There are several ways to enjoy Surfshark for free.

First off, you can buy a subscription through the App Store or Google Play Store and enjoy a week-long free trial. Your card won’t be charged initially and you can cancel the trial anytime before it expires to avoid auto-renewal. You can also use your iOS or Android sign-in credentials to use Surfshark on Windows or macOS. Just note that after the free trial, your subscription will auto-renew and you will be billed.

Second, you can use the 30-day money-back option, but only if you buy a subscription from Surfshark’s website. Here’s how it works:

• Log-in to your Surfshark web dashboard and cancel your subscription.
• If you’re still within the 30-day grace period, ask for a refund.
• Surfshark will process your refund request and inform you of the timeline for the process.

Unlike most companies that offer a 30-day money-back option only to new customers, you can request a refund from Surfshark twice. The only condition is that those refund requests must be made at least six months apart. So even if you’ve used and canceled Surfshark before, you can still try it risk-free. That’s why it made our list of the best free VPNs.

Discounts

Surfshark is a great VPN for school and the company often offers student discounts. In the past, we’ve seen an extra 15-percent off the 2-year plan, bringing the monthly cost down to $2.11. It’s not much, but at least those discounts appear from time to time.

But even though we’re no longer students, we still got to enjoy discounted prices. Surfshark will usually add additional free months to its 2-year and 1-year plans. For example, it’s currently offering three months free, which translates to the $2.19 average monthly price for the two-year plan (27 months of access for $59.13).

Before you subscribe to Surfshark, be sure to browse its website for its current deals, or check our pages on Surfshark deals and Surfshark Black Friday deals.

Referral Program

We’re always interested in freebies, which is why we took advantage of Surfshark’s referral program.

Here’s how it worked: first, we told all our friends and family about Surfshark and sent them referral links, which were easy to access in our app’s settings under Earn Free Months. If anyone signed up for more than 30 days and used Surfshark via a Windows, iOS, or Android app, we received free months of its VPN, which ranged anywhere from just a month all the way up to a year.

Server Locations

Before you test out any VPN, we recommend checking its list of servers to find one near you. The distance between the user and the server can greatly affect the internet connection speed, so make sure Surfshark has a server in your area:

• Albania
• Argentina
• Australia
• Austria
• Azerbaijan
• Belgium
• Bosnia and Herzegovina
• Brazil
• Bulgaria
• Canada
• Chile
• Colombia
• Costa Rica
• Croatia
• Cyprus
• Czech Republic
• Denmark
• Egypt
• Estonia
• Finland
• France
• Germany
• Greece
• Hong Kong
• Hungary
• Iceland
• India
• Indonesia
• Ireland
• Israel
• Italy
• Japan
• Kazakhstan
• Latvia
• Libya
• Luxembourg
• Malaysia
• Mexico
• Moldova
• New Zealand
• Nigeria
• North Macedonia
• Norway
• Pakistan
• Paraguay
• Philippines
• Poland
• Portugal
• Romania
• Russia
• Saudi Arabia
• Serbia
• Singapore
• Slovakia
• Slovenia
• South Africa
• South Korea
• Spain
• Sweden
• Switzerland
• Taiwan
• Thailand
• The Netherlands
• Turkey
• Ukraine
• United Arab Emirates
• United Kingdom
• United States
• Venezuela
• Vietnam

Will My Device Work With Surfshark?

Another thing to check before you purchase a Surfshark subscription is the devices compatible with its VPN software. However, it’s highly unlikely that your device won’t work with Surfshark, as it’s compatible with all of the most popular consumer electronics brands like:

• Android
• Apple TV
• Fire TV
• iOS
• Linux
• macOS
• Playstation
• Samsung TV
• Windows
• Xbox

>> For Further Insight: Our Favorite Surfshark Alternatives

Surfshark Recap

With prices starting at just $2.19 a month, Surfshark provides a lot of value for minimal investment. To start, it currently has 3,200 servers across more than 100 countries. It also provides all the essential VPN features, including static IP addresses, multihopping, and a no-logs policy.

Still unsure? Try out Surfshark for seven days with no risk; you won’t even have to put a credit card down. And if you do decide to get a paid subscription, you’ll get 30 more days to test Surfshark or get your entire money back.