How we check prices
How every price, ranking and fact on this site is produced, and what we haven't tested yet.
Last updated 8 Oct 2026
Where prices come from
VPN providers set prices by country, so a price checked from overseas isn't the price someone in Australia pays. Our prices are checked from an Australian internet connection, on each provider's own pricing page, the way an Australian visitor sees it.
- Surfshark, Proton VPN, CyberGhost, Private Internet Access, ExpressVPN and Mullvad: checked automatically once a day.
- NordVPN: its pricing page blocks automated visits, so we save the page by hand from a normal web browser, about once a week. We never use tricks to get past a provider's bot protection.
Every check is validated before it's saved: the prices must be for Australia, every plan from the previous check must still be there, monthly prices must be plausible, and no price may move by more than half without a person reviewing it. If a check fails, the site keeps showing the last good prices with the date they were checked. Prices that haven't been checked for 3 days (10 for pages we save weekly) are greyed out and marked with that date.
GST
Every price on this site is meant to be what you pay, including 10% GST.
- Surfshark, NordVPN, CyberGhost and ExpressVPN show prices before GST on their own sites and add it at checkout. We add the 10% for you, rounded to the nearest cent; these prices are marked +GST on their site.
- Proton VPN, Private Internet Access and Mullvad don't say on their pricing pages whether GST is included. We show the price as listed and mark it GST not confirmed until we've checked at a real checkout. If GST is added, expect to pay 10% more.
US dollars and euros
Mullvad charges Australians in EUR and ExpressVPN charges Australians in USD. We show an Australian-dollar estimate (marked ≈) as the main figure, with the amount charged beneath it. Estimates use the Reserve Bank of Australia's latest exchange rate (statistical table F11.1, published on business days), and rankings use the estimate.
What you actually pay depends on the exchange rate on the day you're charged, renewals included, so provider pages show how the Australian-dollar cost has moved over the past year. Card fees aren't included: many Australian cards add a foreign transaction fee of around 3%.
The 3-year cost and the monthly cost
A VPN deal's headline price usually covers only the first term; the plan then renews at a higher price. The 3-year cost adds the first payment and every renewal you'd need to stay covered for 36 months. Renewals are paid up front, so the last one can cover you for a little longer than three years. The monthly cost we rank by is the 3-year cost divided by 36: what the VPN really costs per month, renewals included.
Providers sell different plan lengths, so the comparison table shows each provider's cheapest plan in three bands: 2–3 year plans, 6–12 month plans and monthly plans. Three years is the longest plan most providers sell, and long enough to show what renewals do to the price.
Price history and deals
Every check is stored, starting from 5 Oct 2026, and each provider's page lists every change to a first-payment or renewal price.
We'll only say a price is lower than before ("was", "now", "save X%") when we have watched the earlier price ourselves: the reference is the middle price we observed over the previous 30 days, and we state those dates next to the claim. We never repeat a provider's own "was" prices or "save 80%" claims.
Provider facts
Facts about each provider, such as where it's based, its audits, how you can pay and which apps it has, come from the provider's own website and help pages, its transparency reports, and published audit reports. We don't use other review sites as sources. Each fact shows where it came from and when we checked it. We re-check them on a schedule: yearly for ownership and audits, and every three to six months for things like apps, payment options and refund terms. A fact that's overdue for a check is marked as possibly out of date, and one we couldn't confirm says "not confirmed".
The feature comparison works the same way: kill switches, split tunnelling, ad blocking and the rest are what each provider says its apps do, from its own pages. We haven't tested them. If a provider's pages don't say, we mark it "not confirmed" rather than guess. Bundled extras only count when they're included in a plan at no extra cost and open to Australian residents.
The VPN finder
The VPN finder ranks every VPN on the priorities you pick. Each priority scores a VPN from nothing to full marks using the prices and facts above, your first pick counts three times and your second twice, and your must-haves (devices, apps, how you pay) rule VPNs out rather than ranking them. A fact we couldn't confirm scores nothing and is flagged. Every provider is scored the same way, whether or not it pays us.
What we haven't tested
- Streaming. We haven't tested which VPNs work with ABC iview, SBS On Demand, Stan, Binge, Kayo, 7plus, 9Now or 10play. Streaming services also change what they block without notice.
- Speed. We haven't measured speeds.
- Countries that block VPNs. We can't test from China, the UAE, Russia or Türkiye. Where we mention it, we report what the provider itself claims, labelled as its claim.
- Apps and support. We haven't reviewed the apps hands-on or rated customer support.
- Checkout. We haven't yet confirmed GST at checkout for Proton VPN, Private Internet Access and Mullvad.
Corrections
If a price or fact is wrong, tell us. We'll check it at the source, fix it, and update the date it was checked.