What will this VPN deal really cost?

What this does

VPN pricing pages advertise an instalment figure (“$2.99/mo”) that is really a lump sum divided by a long first term, followed by a higher renewal. Enter the four numbers from the checkout page — the introductory charge, how many months it covers, the annual renewal price, and how long you realistically expect to keep the service — and the tool returns the total cost over that period, the effective monthly rate, the renewal jump as a multiple of the introductory rate, and, if you supply the provider's month-to-month price, the point at which paying monthly would have been cheaper. Add the optional monthly price to see the break-even for short needs such as a single trip.

Notes

Renewals are prorated across the months you keep the service after the introductory term ends; providers bill them annually in advance, so your actual invoice lands in yearly chunks rather than the smoothed figure shown here. Taxes, currency conversion and bank markups are excluded — for a Nigerian card paying a USD charge, your bank's conversion rate on the day is part of the real price. The companion read is Which VPN subscription is worth paying for?, where the five current contracts are compared on their own published terms.