Business VPN Pricing Comparison: Monthly, Annual and Team Plans

Overview

If you are comparing business VPN pricing, the first useful distinction is between consumer-style subscriptions and products built for teams. Some services publish a straightforward per-user price. Others blend secure remote access, central administration, identity controls, or Zero Trust features into a broader platform. That matters because the cheapest plan on paper is not always the lowest-cost option in practice.

For small businesses and IT teams, pricing decisions often become difficult for three reasons. First, vendors use different billing models: per user, per month; annual prepaid discounts; minimum seat bundles; or mixed plans with enterprise sales involvement. Second, the feature line between a traditional VPN and a secure access platform is increasingly blurred. Third, costs that sit outside the subscription itself—deployment time, user onboarding, support effort, or the need for SSO and MFA integration—can outweigh a small difference in licence price.

A sensible VPN pricing comparison therefore needs more than a table of list prices. It should answer a narrower buying question: what will this plan cost our team over 12 months, and what do we need to add to make it usable and supportable?

The source material available for this article shows how wide the spread can be. In one 2026 business VPN roundup, example starting prices ranged from low-cost entry plans such as GoodAccess from $3 per user per month with a five-seat minimum, to Twingate from $5 per user per month billed annually, to NordLayer from $7 per user per month billed annually. At the higher end of the cited examples, Private Internet Access Business VPN was listed from $9.95 per user per month, while ExpressVPN and Surfshark appeared with significantly higher starting points for the plans referenced. Those figures are useful as directional inputs, but they should be treated as a snapshot, not a permanent truth. Vendors regularly adjust bundles, rename plans, or move core controls into higher tiers.

For that reason, the best way to compare VPN cost for small business is to track pricing in a small worksheet with a consistent set of columns:

• Billing model
• Advertised price
• Billing term
• Minimum seats
• Included admin features
• Identity and MFA support
• Gateway or network access limits
• Support level
• Estimated total annual cost

That structure turns marketing pages into something decision-ready. It also makes the article worth revisiting whenever pricing inputs change.

If your shortlist includes products that behave more like Zero Trust network access than a classic tunnel VPN, it is worth reading ZTNA vs VPN: Which Remote Access Model Fits Your Organisation? alongside this pricing guide. Product category affects both cost and the features you should expect at each price point.

How to estimate

The fastest way to build a fair team VPN comparison is to calculate annual effective cost rather than relying on a monthly sticker price. The process below is simple enough for a spreadsheet and robust enough for procurement discussions.

1. Start with the real team size

Use the number of named users who actually need access, not total headcount. Include contractors if they require long-term credentials. Then add a modest buffer if you expect hiring during the term. For example, a company with 18 remote-capable staff may budget for 20 seats to avoid repeated plan changes.

2. Apply seat minimums before multiplying

Some business VPN plans look inexpensive until you notice a minimum purchase requirement. Using the source example, a plan priced from $3 per user with a five-seat minimum behaves differently for a three-person team than for a twenty-person team. In a tiny deployment, the minimum matters more than the headline rate.

3. Convert every plan to a 12-month cost

To compare monthly and annual offers fairly, express them as annual spend.

Formula: Annual licence cost = billable seats × effective monthly rate × 12

If a vendor quotes an annual per-user rate, convert it to a monthly equivalent for your sheet, or simply keep everything annual. The main point is consistency.

4. Add plan-dependent extras

Now add any costs caused by feature gaps. These may include:

• Upgrading to access central admin controls
• Paying for SSO or MFA support in a higher tier
• Buying a separate identity provider integration
• Using another product for device posture or access logging
• Allocating internal admin time for setup and support

Even when those extras are not priced on a public page, you can note them as “likely additional effort” so they are visible in the decision.

5. Score the management layer

For business use, management features often justify a higher subscription cost. A useful scoring line includes:

• User provisioning and deprovisioning
• Central policy management
• Audit logs
• Role-based admin access
• SSO and MFA compatibility
• Device coverage and deployment options
• Support responsiveness

If one vendor is cheaper but requires much more manual administration, your effective cost may be higher over time.

6. Separate access use cases

Not every team needs the same type of remote access. A privacy-focused VPN subscription can be enough for secure browsing on public Wi‑Fi, but it may be the wrong fit for application-level access to internal services. If your requirement includes private app access, connector-based routing, or least-privilege controls, compare like with like. This is where classic VPN products and ZTNA-style services start to diverge.

For a deeper technical lens on access models, see ZTNA vs VPN: a practical decision framework for UK IT leaders.

7. Record the evidence date

Every price in your comparison sheet should include the date you checked it. This is the simplest way to keep a pricing tracker usable over time. SaaS security vendors change plan names and packaging often enough that an undated comparison becomes misleading surprisingly quickly.

Inputs and assumptions

A reliable VPN for business pricing model depends on transparent assumptions. Without them, it is easy to compare products unfairly.

Team size assumptions

Use named users, not peak concurrent sessions, unless a vendor explicitly bills by concurrency. Most business VPN products in the market still present pricing around users or seats. If you run a shift-based operation, confirm whether suspended or inactive accounts still count against billing.

Billing term assumptions

Annual plans usually lower the effective monthly price, but they also increase commitment and make switching harder. A monthly plan can be more expensive in nominal terms yet cheaper in practical terms if you are still proving fit, changing architecture, or expecting a move toward hybrid access or ZTNA.

As a rule:

• Monthly plans suit pilots, temporary projects, and uncertain growth.
• Annual plans suit stable teams with clear requirements and a validated shortlist.
• Custom team plans suit larger organisations that need procurement review, identity integration, or policy controls not available in entry tiers.

Feature assumptions

Do not assume that all business VPN products include the same management layer. At minimum, check whether the quoted price includes:

• Admin console
• Dedicated gateways or private network connectors
• MFA support
• SSO integration
• Logs and reporting
• Static IP options if relevant
• Split tunnelling or policy routing
• Priority support

This matters because a plan that looks like a best cheap VPN option may still be poor value if it lacks controls that your IT team needs on day one.

Security assumptions

Do not use price alone as a proxy for security. Buyers often ask broad questions such as how does a VPN work, what is AES-256 encryption, or whether a vendor claims a no-logs policy. Those questions are worth checking, but for business evaluation the more practical concerns are often management and fit: protocol support, access segmentation, authentication options, and whether the product aligns with your remote access model.

If protocol choice is part of your comparison, VPN Protocol Comparison: WireGuard vs OpenVPN vs IKEv2 gives a good technical baseline.

Currency and tax assumptions

Many vendors quote in US dollars even for UK buyers. Your actual cost may differ once exchange rates, VAT treatment, and procurement terms are applied. The safest evergreen approach is to compare vendors first in the currency they publish, then create an internal budget version in GBP using your finance team’s current conversion method. Avoid embedding hard currency conversions into a long-lived comparison article unless you update them frequently.

Support and rollout assumptions

Subscription cost is only one part of a usable estimate. Consider:

• How many hours an admin will spend on initial rollout
• Whether client deployment can be automated
• How users will authenticate
• How remote troubleshooting will be handled

For teams deploying at scale, these implementation factors can dwarf small licence differences. Related reading includes Automating AnyConnect Deployments: Scripts, Configuration Management and CI for VPN Rollouts and Troubleshooting AnyConnect: A Practical Handbook for IT Admins.

Worked examples

The examples below show how to think through pricing rather than declare winners. Because vendor packaging changes over time, treat them as models for your own sheet.

Example 1: Small team, price-sensitive, five users

A five-user consultancy needs secure access for travel, home working, and occasional use on public Wi‑Fi. It does not need complex network segmentation. In this scenario, seat minimums matter.

If a vendor offers a plan from $3 per user per month with a five-seat minimum, the annual licence estimate is straightforward:

5 seats × $3 × 12 = $180 per year

That looks attractive. But now ask the operational questions. Is there central user management? Are logs sufficient for basic oversight? Is MFA available? If the answer is no, the plan may still be fine for a very small team, but the buyer should record those limitations rather than compare on price alone.

Example 2: Growing SMB, twenty users, annual commitment

An IT services firm expects twenty remote-capable staff for most of the year and wants a managed product with better controls. Using source snapshot figures, a plan listed from $7 per user per month billed annually produces:

20 seats × $7 × 12 = $1,680 per year

A competing service listed from $5 per user per month billed annually would come to:

20 seats × $5 × 12 = $1,200 per year

The nominal difference is $480 annually. That is meaningful, but not enough on its own to make the choice. If the higher-cost option reduces setup effort, offers clearer admin controls, or better supports the team’s routing and access needs, the total cost picture may reverse. This is especially true where one product behaves more like a secure remote access platform than a simple VPN subscription.

Example 3: Hybrid access requirement, thirty users

A software company has thirty users and mixed needs: secure browsing, private access to internal services, and contractor onboarding. It is comparing a traditional VPN product with a ZTNA-leaning platform.

Using the source material, a buyer might model a 30-user estimate against plans such as:

• 30 × $5 × 12 = $1,800 annual baseline
• 30 × $7 × 12 = $2,520 annual baseline
• 30 × $9.95 × 12 = $3,582 annual baseline

That spread is large enough to attract attention, but the key question is what each plan includes. If the lowest-priced option covers only a narrow use case and the team later adds another tool for identity-aware access, the apparent saving may disappear. Conversely, if the more expensive option collapses multiple needs into one admin model, it may reduce long-term complexity.

Example 4: Pilot first, annual later

Sometimes the best pricing decision is not the lowest annual price but the least risky path. A team may start on a monthly plan or free tier to validate device compatibility, routing behaviour, and user support demands, then move to annual billing after 30 to 60 days. That approach is particularly sensible when the organisation is also evaluating alternatives such as hybrid access or phased ZTNA adoption.

If performance is a concern during that trial period, Optimising VPN performance: tuning AnyConnect for remote teams can help you test whether the bottleneck is the service, the endpoint, or the network path.

Example 5: Developer access, limited user count, high admin value

Developer teams often need access patterns that are more sensitive than ordinary browsing protection. If ten engineers need stable access to internal tools, repositories, or staging systems, features such as identity integration, policy control, and precise access scoping can matter more than the absolute subscription price.

That makes a pricing table incomplete unless it includes a note on access model fit. For this use case, a higher licence cost can still be rational if it reduces broad network exposure or simplifies user lifecycle management. See Securing Remote Access for Developers: VPNs, SSH and When to Use AnyConnect for the operational side of that decision.

When to recalculate

This is the section to bookmark. A VPN pricing comparison only stays useful if you know when to update it.

Recalculate your shortlist when any of the following happens:

• A vendor changes published pricing. Even a small per-user shift becomes material at scale.
• Plan names or bundles change. Features previously included may move into higher tiers.
• Your team size crosses a threshold. Seat minimums and admin overhead behave differently at 5, 20, and 50 users.
• You add identity requirements. SSO, MFA, and provisioning can turn a low-cost plan into a poor fit.
• Your access model changes. A team moving from basic VPN use to segmented private app access should revisit the shortlist immediately.
• You open access to contractors or partners. External user management often exposes pricing and admin limitations.
• Exchange rates move materially. UK buyers budgeting in GBP should refresh internal cost models when dollar-denominated subscriptions shift enough to matter.
• You are approaching renewal. The best time to compare alternatives is before auto-renewal, not after it.

A practical review rhythm is simple:

1. Maintain a one-page pricing sheet for your shortlist.
2. Date-stamp every vendor check.
3. Re-run annual effective cost at least quarterly, or before renewal.
4. Note any feature moved behind a higher tier.
5. Record rollout and support friction during the current term.

When you revisit the numbers, do not just ask whether another vendor is cheaper. Ask whether your current product still matches the organisation’s access design, user count, and compliance expectations. For many teams, the right next step is not a cheaper VPN at all, but a clearer remote access architecture. If you are at that stage, read Hybrid Access Architectures: Combining Site-to-Site VPNs and Cloud ZTNA for Scalable UK Networks and Deploying AnyConnect for UK SMBs: a practical, step-by-step blueprint.

The most durable buying habit is to treat pricing as one layer of the decision, not the whole decision. Compare annual effective spend, seat rules, and included admin features on a like-for-like basis. Keep a dated worksheet. Revisit it whenever pricing inputs or access requirements change. That simple discipline will do more for procurement quality than chasing a single “best” number.