Are Lifetime VPN Subscriptions Worth It?

Lifetime subscriptions can be a great investment. If you believe in the company’s values, enjoy using the product, and think you’ll use it the rest of your life, then a lifetime subscription at a discounted price is absolutely worth it.

However, lifetime VPN subscriptions have a bad reputation for several reasons. Firstly, a lifetime subscription doesn’t always mean it will last your lifetime. It means it will last for as long as the service is available. In some cases, a lifetime VPN subscription means just three to five years depending on the VPN’s terms and conditions.

Some VPNs offer heavily discounted subscriptions because they make a profit by selling your data onto advertisers. A VPN might also offer a cheap lifetime subscription and shut down after a couple years, leaving you without the subscription you purchased.

A lifetime VPN subscription involves paying a one-time payment for unlimited access to a paid VPN service. This lets you use the VPN for as long as the company exists, without ever having to pay subscription renewal fees. However, the upfront cost is usually higher than a normal VPN subscription.

Lifetime subscriptions might sound like a good deal, but there can be significant risks.

It’s actually very rare to find a secure, high-quality VPN service that offers a genuine lifelong subscription. Most VPNs struggle to offer fast speeds, excellent privacy protection, and the ability to unblock streaming services, and those that offer a premium VPN experience don’t offer lifetime subscription options.

This is because lifetime deals aren’t sustainable for software businesses that need to constantly invest in their service: fixing security patches, releasing apps on new devices, offering new technical features, and expanding VPN server networks.

Additionally, not all lifetime subscriptions actually last a lifetime. The length of a lifetime subscription can differ depending on the VPN, as each VPN decides their own definition of “lifetime.” Typically, a lifetime service subscription can last anywhere from three to five years.

It’s not impossible to find a genuine lifetime VPN with great features, though. We’ve curated a list below of the best lifetime VPN deals and lifetime VPNs to avoid.

How Much Do Lifetime VPN Subscriptions Usually Cost?

As with all VPN subscriptions, the price of a lifetime VPN can vary wildly. FastestVPN, for example, offers a real lifetime subscription for a one-time payment of just $40.00, whereas VPN Unlimited’s lifetime subscription costs $199.99.

For context, the average price of a VPN service is around $4.00 per month on a multi-year subscription. Monthly subscriptions are typically more expensive, averaging around $12.00 – though there are exceptions.

Mullvad offers excellent value and flexibility with an equal pricing policy: a flat rate of $5.50 per month and you can cancel whenever.

Here’s a table comparing costs of the best lifetime VPN deals and long-term plans with popular VPNs:

Only a few good VPNs actually offer a lifetime subscription. Here, we’ve made a list of the best lifetime VPN subscription services and long-term VPN subscriptions that are safe, fast, and user-friendly.

Our tests and methodology could only find two VPNs with full lifetime subscriptions worth considering so we’ve added PrivateVPN, which offers an extremely cheap long three-year subscription.

There are other genuine lifetime VPNs available, like Oyster VPN and Goose VPN, but we can’t in good conscience recommend them, as some have serious security flaws and others have worrying business practices.

Here’s a table comparing the best lifetime VPNs and long-term VPNs:

Based on our tests, the best alternative to a lifetime VPN subscription is a long-term subscription to a safe, affordable VPN service.

PrivateVPN’s three-year subscription is one of the best alternatives to a lifetime VPN. It costs just $2.00 per month, and the length of the subscription gives you a chance to switch after three years if the quality of the VPN decreases or if it shuts down.

Lifetime subscriptions are definitely worth it if the VPN service is high-quality. It should offer consistently fast speeds, excellent customer support, strong security, and reliable streaming functionality.

In this case, a single payment would mean your browsing activity and online personal data is protected for your entire life — granted that the VPN service continues running.

If you subscribe to a lifetime VPN and actually use it for the rest of your life, the average monthly cost of the VPN service will be much lower compared to a regular monthly VPN subscription.

However, just because a VPN is good now, doesn’t mean it’ll be secure or effective in a few years. VPN technology is constantly changing, and the gap between good and bad services is always widening.

Put simply, not all VPN services that offer lifetime subscription are actually worth the money, and even the best lifetime VPNs have disadvantages.

Before spending your money on a lifetime subscription, do your research and find out if the VPN is likely to keep up with the increasingly sophisticated competition.

Here’s a detailed look at the potential drawbacks of lifetime VPN subscriptions:

Lack of Flexibility

A flexible monthly or annual subscription lets you switch VPNs if the service deteriorates in quality. If you have a bad experience, you can request a refund or cancel your subscription before it renews.

If you sign up to a lifetime VPN and face an unexpected issue, you can’t claim your money back.

Worst case scenario: you might find the VPN leaks your data, its speeds are unbearably slow, its apps are full of bugs, or the company might be shut down altogether.

Unreliable & Untrustworthy VPN Services

Many VPNs that offer a lifetime subscription only do so because they’re struggling to attract customers without a heavily discounted price. This can indicate a subpar service or questionable business practices that make it less popular.

We highly suggest avoiding lifetime VPN deals from suspicious VPN companies lacking a privacy policy or proper terms and conditions. Remember that a VPN can have access to your IP address, browsing history, and banking details.

If you’re looking for a lifetime VPN, it’s important to find a company that is trustworthy and transparent in its business practices and company structure.

Not All Lifetime VPN Subscriptions Actually Last a Lifetime

Some VPN services advertise lifetime subscriptions that don’t actually last forever. Instead, it’s a long-term subscription – such as three or five years.

Before you purchase any subscription, review the terms and conditions. Check how long the subscription really lasts, and if there are any exceptions.

Untrustworthy Third-Party Resellers

If you search for a VPN subscription online, you might come across certain software resellers.

These websites are online hubs where you can browse for software deals sold as digital license keys, including lifetime VPN deals. Some popular examples are StackSocial and CouponRim.

Though they are convenient and provide popular software at a discount, you can get unlucky with a service. The license key might fail to send, or the seller might be a scammer posing as a VPN service.

Software resellers also impose extra terms and conditions, like license key redemption deadlines and unfavorable refund policies.

We’ve used VPN Unlimited as an example below. Here’s a table summarizing the differences when purchasing from a VPN Unlimited’s official website versus StackSocial:

Attribute	VPN Unlimited Website/App	StackSocial
Total Price	$199.99	$69.99
Free Trial	1 Device	None
Refund Policy	30 Days	30 Days on unredeemed licenses. Redeemed licenses cannot be refunded.
Redemption Deadline	None	30 Days

The majority of VPNs that offer lifetime subscriptions have questionable company practices or weak security, and most are simply not worth your money.

Here are some examples of lifetime VPN subscriptions that you should avoid:

VPNSecure: Suspicious Privacy Policy & UAE Jurisdiction

VPNSecure offers a cheap, genuine lifetime subscription for $39. But it has some glaring red flag that makes it impossible for us to recommend as a lifetime subscription.

In February 2019, VPNSecure emailed users announcing their change in jurisdiction to Hong Kong. Since then, there has been no change on the website indicating whether the change actually took place.

In fact, the website now claims the company is based in the UAE — another country with privacy-unfriendly laws and an authoritarian government. This level of opacity with a VPN’s corporate structure makes it extremely untrustworthy.

In addition, the VPN service doesn’t have a proper privacy policy. There is a short section of the terms and conditions claiming to be a “strict no data storage or logging policy” but this simply isn’t detailed enough.

We wouldn’t recommend using VPNSecure for a month, let alone your lifetime.

Ivacy VPN: Troubling Jurisdiction & Company History

We don’t recommend Ivacy VPN as a trustworthy privacy tool. On its website, the longest subscription you’ll find is a five-year subscription for $1.00 per month. It also has a lifetime subscription for $39.99.

However, it’s only available through StackSocial, a third-party website that hosts software deals.

Gaditek, the company that owns Ivacy, has been caught offering a VPN reviewer a lifetime VPN subscription in exchange for a good review. It’s also been found creating fake social media accounts, which it used to post fake positive reviews of its products.

The VPN is also based in Singapore, a partner in an international intelligence-sharing alliance called SIGINT Seniors Pacific. Furthermore, the VPN itself is slow in comparison to its competitors and doesn’t offer WireGuard or a kill switch on iOS and macOS. This isn’t a VPN we recommend using for a lifetime.

SetupVPN: US Jurisdiction & Logs Sensitive Data

SetupVPN is one of the least secure free lifetime VPNs we’ve seen. We analyzed its privacy policy and found it simply logs far too much of your data in exchange for a subpar “free lifetime” service.

The VPN logs your real IP address, browser type, connection timestamps, and the websites you visit while connected. It’s also unclear how long it stores this information for, which means American law enforcement could easily seize your data.

We strongly encourage users to avoid this VPN at all costs.

Seed4.me: Offers Free Lifetime Subscriptions to Influencers

We can’t recommend Seed4.me because of its shady business practices. On its official website, Seed4.me can be seen to be giving out free lifetime VPN subscriptions to “bloggers and influential social persons.”

Seed4.me website also falsely claims the VPN was featured in Wired, The Huffington Post, Buzzfeed, Forbes, The Guardian, and the BBC. We weren’t able to find any mention or reviews of Seed4.me on these websites.

Seed4.me is owned by S4M Tech Inc, a company based in privacy-unfriendly Delaware, US. Its official website provides little information about who is behind the company or the corporate structure.

Worryingly, though, S4M Tech seems to offer location-based push notification advertisements under a different company called AskLocala.

Some VPNs will offer seasonal deals on annual, multi-year, and lifetime subscriptions. It’s best to keep checking a VPN’s website if you’re looking for a cheaper deal.

Below are some ideas on how to find deals on safe lifetime VPN subscriptions:

Fundraising Events

A small number of VPN services host physical and virtual fundraising events, which can involve prizes.

For example, Proton VPN runs a yearly December Lifetime Account Charity Raffle. If you win, you’ll get an exclusive lifetime account for ProtonVPN, ProtonMail, Proton Drive, and Proton Calendar.

Previously, Proton VPN had held auctions for the lifetime accounts. However, following a bid war that led to the price going up to $10,000, the VPN realized it was “putting them out of the reach of most users.” So it opted to change the event to a raffle, where the tickets to win now sell for $10.00 each.

Cyber Monday Deals

Cyber Monday is a major online shopping event held on the first Monday after Thanksgiving. On this day, lots of online stores and service providers, including VPNs, will launch promotions with heavily discounted products.

You might be able to find a lifetime VPN subscription on Cyber Monday, but it’s rare to find a VPN that will offer a lifetime subscription if it doesn’t offer it normally.

You won’t be able to access these discounts on any other day though – unless the provider extends the period – so we recommend checking in on VPN websites regularly in November to catch the deals when they come.

Email Campaign Offers

If you don’t mind advertising in your email inbox, we also recommend signing up for VPN newsletters to get regular updates on discount offers. Many VPNs use this method to get previous customers to sign up again for their services.