10 Best VPN Free Trials in September 2023 [Ultimate Guide]

Looking to try out a premium VPN for free and wondering “Is there a VPN with a free trial?” Well, not all VPNs offer a similar service regarding free trials and money-back guarantees. A few VPN services are better than the rest. Therefore, we recommend you the best option in the industry – ExpressVPN. In this guide, we’re going to list down the 10 best VPN free trials in September 2023!

VPN free trials are a great way to test a provider’s features, security, and whether it works with your favorite streaming sites. However, almost all VPN services that are offered with a free trial do not provide their users with all the necessary privacy and security features.

Also, they may not be a good fit for server networking, unlocking streaming capacity, customer support, browsing, speed, and more. Considering all these limitations, we tested 100+ VPN services to create a list of the best VPN free trials with credit cards and without credit cards.

These VPNs don’t limit you from trying different security/privacy features on different devices. Plus, you can try our service risk-free for 30 days with our money-back guarantee and get your money back later.

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What Factors Make a VPN Free Trial Reliable to Use?

The most valuable factor of VPN free trials is the ability to test the service before purchasing. This way, you can better understand the service’s strengths and flaws and make an informed purchasing decision.

As most of the best VPN free trials last for a week, we recommend taking advantage of the money-back guarantee. Yes, you have to pay upfront, but you can try the service for at least a month. Based on our testing experience, most providers make requesting a refund quick and easy.

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VPN Free Trials vs. VPN Money-Back Guarantees

Here’s a quick comparison of the VPN free trials and money-back guarantees:

• Money-back guarantees: You need to pay for your chosen VPN package upfront to avail of money-back guarantees. However, you can get a complete refund in a specific time period, ranging between 30-45 days (depending on the VPN provider). While money-back guarantees require full payments, they’re mostly risk-free. This means that your refund request won’t be rejected as long you cancel within the specific time period.

• Free trials: For these, there’s no need for any upfront payment or commitment. Even though a few VPNs ask for your credit card details while signing up for a free trial, you’re not charged until the period ends. The time period of free trials usually ranges between 1-7 days, and you might have to take help from customer support for cancellation, so you don’t get charged once it’s over. Please note that while some free trials have no limitations, various come with bandwidth and server restrictions.

• Free VPN services: These are VPNs that are absolutely free to use. They come with restrictions, such as data caps, limited servers, and slow speeds that only improve if you upgrade to a paid subscription plan. They’re also often dangerous as they harvest user data, sell it to third-party advertisers, or embed malware in your devices.

The list above offers all the VPNs providing reliable free trials and money-back guarantees. However, we recommend opting for the latter as you really get to test the VPN for at least a month, after which you can make an informed decision.

Among the paid and free trial VPNs, there are still some free VPNs in Australia that you can try. Check out our free VPN Australia guide for them.

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VPN Free Trial Quick Comparison Chart (2023 Updated)

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The Best VPNs With Free Trials in 2023

Get unlimited bandwidth, a friendly privacy policy, secure and leak-free connections, and up to thousands of servers with these best VPN free trials in Australia:

1) ExpressVPN – The best VPN with a 7-day trial and 30-day money-back guarantee

ExpressVPN is the most premium VPN service that tops our list. Best of all, it offers a 7-day free trial on mobile as well as a risk-free 30-day money-back guarantee to users on all popular devices, so its service can be tested out without any trouble.

The best thing is that there are no limitations on this money-back guarantee, and you can enjoy robust security, fast speeds, and absolute anonymity easily in Australia for a whole month.

In terms of servers, ExpressVPN provides 3000+ servers in 94+ countries globally. If we talk about its existence in Australia specifically, the service offers multiple servers in 7 Australian locations, including Brisbane, Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide, Woolloomooloo, and Perth.

Using this VPN, you can thoroughly enjoy other amazing features like Network Lock (kill switch), IP leak protection, WebRTC leak protection, P2P assistance, and others on your desired devices.

Regarding its other security and privacy features, ExpressVPN does not store its users’ information in any form, be it connection or usage logs. You can use the OpenVPN protocol, DNS leak protection, split tunneling, 256-bit encryption, etc., to protect your digital footprints while surfing the web accordingly.

As for speeds, we tested its speed performance by connecting to one of its US servers and received impressive upload and download speeds of 87.78 Mbps and 42.22 Mbps on our 100 Mbps connection.

User experience aside, many people aren’t satisfied with the local content library of their favorite streaming services or just want a taste of some other library. In that case, they can easily unblock American Netflix and CNN in Australia without facing any issues whatsoever. And if they’re traveling outside the country, then they can make the most of 7plus outside Australia.

ExpressVPN is available for AU$ 10.58/mo (US$ 6.67/mo) . If you do not wish to continue using ExpressVPN after its 30-day money-back guarantee ends, then you can benefit from its user-friendly email or live chat support to claim a refund before the one-month period is over.

In terms of user experience, the service is easy to use and does not need any rocket science. You can use a single account on 5 devices simultaneously, which is excellent! In case you want more details about this provider, make sure to go through the ExpressVPN review.

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2) Surfshark – Avail the service for 7 days without any cost

Surfshark is a British Virgin Islands-based VPN service, which offers a 7-day free trial for iOS and Android users. To get the free trial, you need to download the Surfshark VPN app on your mobile device and enjoy unrestricted access to Surfshark for 7 days free.

Surfshark operates 3200+ servers in 65+ countries worldwide. You can connect to any of these servers in the free trial. There are five server locations available in Australia, including Adelaide, Perth, Melbourne, Brisbane, and Sydney. All five server locations are live and operational.

To secure your web traffic, you can choose between WireGuard, OpenVPN, IKEv2, or Shadowshocks as your tunneling protocols. For encryption, you have the choice between AES-256-GCM and Chacha20Poly1305 standards. The service does not keep a record of your online activities.

Similarly, you can experience Surfshark’s other impressive features on devices like a kill switch, DNS leak protection, CleanWeb, Whitelister, Camouflage Mode, etc.

As for speed, we tested the VPN’s speed performance by connecting to one of its US servers and received a download speed of 85.48 Mbps and an upload speed of 48.42 Mbps on 100 Mbps.

With a fast connection, we successfully unblocked Netflix, Hulu, HBO Max, Hotstar, and BBC iPlayer in Australia. The P2P servers also worked well, seamlessly connecting to BitTorrent and uTorrent, and PopcornTime and VLC streaming players.

The best thing about Surfshark is that it offers unlimited simultaneous connections on a single subscription. You can also use Surfshark’s 30-day money-back guarantee and enjoy its restriction-free service for an entire month! After that, it will charge only AU$ 3.95/mo (US$ 2.49/mo) .

If you don’t plan to continue beyond the 1-week trial period, you can cancel your free trial by simply going to your account settings from the app and opting out. And to cancel its subscription after utilizing the money-back guarantee, just use its live chat support.

In case you want more details about this provider, make sure to go through the Surfshark review.

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3) NordVPN – Classic VPN embedded with a 7-day free trial

NordVPN is a Panama-based secure, reliable VPN service. It offers an unrestricted free trial for Android users, extending to 7 days. It can be availed by downloading the NordVPN app on your mobile device and signing up for the service.

During the sign-up process, NordVPN will ask you to provide your credit card details and choose a plan that you’d be interested in subscribing to after completing your free trial. If you use a torrenting VPN, which is one of the most common VPN usages, be sure NordVPN keeps the speeds you’re accustomed to.

NordVPN has extensive server coverage with 5500+ servers in 60+ countries and can unblock almost all premium streaming sites without any problems.

All these locations are available in the free trial. It also got impressive support for torrents as well, maintaining a robust profile of more than 700 P2P servers.

There are five server locations for Australia that you can connect to. These include Perth, Sydney, Brisbane, Melbourne, and Adelaide.

Regarding security, the NordVPN free trial offers OpenVPN, IKEv2, IPSEC, and NordLynx tunneling protocols to choose from. Apart from this, you can avail of other exciting features like an Internet Kill Switch, dedicated IP address, DoubleVPN, etc., to improve your privacy to the next level.

Additionally, it uses 256-bit ciphers to encrypt your web data. The service does not keep a log of your online activities.

Additionally, we tested the VPN’s speed performance by connecting to one of its US servers and got a download speed of 86.51 Mbps and an upload speed of 51.86 Mbps on a 100 Mbps connection.

We then accessed Hulu, BBC iPlayer, Netflix, and HBO Max in Australia using NordVPN’s 7-day free trial and found them all to be working.

In short, NordVPN costs around AU$ 5.54/mo (US$ 3.49/mo) . You can also use the 30-day money-back guarantee if you want to enjoy this VPN service on your desktop and other devices for a longer time.

However, if you’ve been using its 30-day money-back guarantee and plan to claim a refund, then it’s crucial that you do it a day or two before the duration end. You can do it using the live chat support of NordVPN.

In case you want more details about this provider, make sure to go through the NordVPN review.

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4) ProtonVPN – Unlimited bandwidth with a free plan

ProtonVPN is a Switzerland-based VPN service that offers a 7-day free trial with no credit card and a 30-day money-back guarantee. Both desktop and mobile users can sign up for the trial as per their preferences.

ProtonVPN works with 1,831 servers in 64 countries, including Australia. However, with the free trial, the user can connect to the Netherlands, US, and Japan servers.

On the security front, ProtonVPN uses the powerful OpenVPN UDP/TCP tunneling protocol for its Windows app and offers the option of adding IKEv2 on all other platforms. Furthermore, it uses AES-256-CBS encryption to secure your web traffic in transit.

ProtonVPN does not log any user activity thus protecting your privacy online. That said, it stores your login timestamps to protect its servers from brute-force password attacks.

Now, let’s talk about its speed. Well, speed ​​has always been a limiting factor for free VPN apps; Unsurprisingly, this is true for ProtonVPN. We ran a speed test when connected to the Australia server.

There has been a significant increase in ping and a significant drop in download and upload speeds when connecting to a VPN. It gave us a download speed of 71.96 Mbps and an upload speed of 34.79 Mbps.

Moreover, we found the ProtonVPN free trial quite underwhelming and wouldn’t recommend it at all. It does not unblock Netflix, Hulu, HBO, BBC iPlayer, and other popular streaming services from Australia. However, you can get YouTube TV in Australia on it.

The VPN costs $8/mo. The customer support service of Proton VPN is not up to the mark. Hopefully, the company will improve its services in the future, and we can then re-consider it for our list of best free trial VPNs for Australia.

Still, the service is a good option if you want to protect your digital footprints while surfing the web.

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5) CyberGhost – Super configurable VPN with a long money-back guarantee

CyberGhost is based in Romania and is one of our preferred VPNs for Australia. But, does CyberGhost offer a free trial? Yes! its free trial is available for just one day. However, there is an extended money-back guarantee of 45 days to try the service for free.

CyberGhost operates servers in countries worldwide with 80 optimized P2P servers, making it one of the largest and most diverse services.

Most servers are in the UK and US, but it’s a good global mix with above-average performance on 150 Australian servers. These servers are located in Melbourne and Sydney.

Perhaps, the most impressive thing about CyberGhost is its smart interface. For example, the server list is helpfully divided into specific categories, namely Favorites, Dedicated IP, NoSpy-Server, For Streaming, and For torrenting.

Talking about security and privacy, CyberGhost uses the latest WireGuard tunneling protocol to protect your web traffic and hide your online activities.

AES 256-bit encryption algorithms further reinforce this security. As you’d expect, there’s also a reliable kill switch, IPv6, and DNS leak protection. The company keeps no activity logs. A free ad-blocker is included with the app.

During our speed test on a 100 Mbps connection, it gave us a download speed of 73.12 Mbps and an upload speed of 37.48 Mbps, making Hotstar in Australia accessible.

Additionally, CyberGhost has servers dedicated to streaming, so finding a server that unblocks a particular media platform is very easy. During testing, we unblocked Bravo TV and Peacock TV in Australia on CyberGhost servers.

CyberGhost VPN is available for AU$3.63/mo (US$ 2.29/mo) . You can cancel the subscription before the 45th day to get a full refund through 24/7 support.

That’s a much better option. Don’t worry; the company will issue a refund without any fuss.

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6) CactusVPN – Free VPN trial with no credit card needed along with unlimited bandwidth

CactusVPN is based in Moldova, away from the influence of Five Eyes and Fourteen Eyes alliances. It offers a full-fledged 3-day free VPN trial with no credit card.

Moreover, the 3-day free VPN trial comes with no data caps, making your internet experience thoroughly enjoyable and free of any restrictions.

The VPN also offers a 30-day money-back guarantee, but it has certain limitations. For example, you won’t get a refund if you subscribe to the VPN using crypto, if your account has been suspended due to privacy violation, if the VPN doesn’t work on any device they do not support, etc.

In terms of server networks, CactusVPN offers 36 servers in 22 countries worldwide. It also has a server in Sydney, Australia, allowing you to remain connected to the homeland while traveling abroad conveniently.

Moreover, the CactusVPN free trial offers OpenVPN, IKEv2, SSTP, L2TP, and PPTP tunnelling protocols to secure your traffic data. For encryption, the service uses AES-256 ciphers.

CactusVPN also has a guaranteed no-logs policy. That means that we will not store any data relating to your activities while using any of our privacy solutions and will not record, monitor, log, or store any of your information.

We tested CactusVPN for speed performance by connecting to one of its US servers. While the download and upload speeds weren’t amazingly fast, 59.66 Mbps and 39.87 Mbps on a 100 Mbps connection, they were not slow either. So overall, we would say they are sufficient for regular internet users.

Unfortunately, the 3-day free trial from CactusVPN does not work with Netflix, Hulu, HBO Max, or other blue-chip streaming services geo-blocked in Australia. Torrenting support is good, though. There are ten P2P servers that you can use with BitTorrent and uTorrent.

Once the free trial is over, you’d require getting a proper subscription. It costs $2.77/mo. However, if you’ve chosen the money-back guarantee for yourself and are eligible for a refund, then just do it through the live chat of this VPN.

CactusVPN’s free trial is a good all-around option, especially if you’re looking for a temporary VPN solution. This free trial VPN Australia has decent (but by no means extensive) server coverage, a solid no-logs policy, healthy P2P support, and doesn’t require a credit card to set up.

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7) StrongVPN – A VPN that has a free trial alongside reliable P2P support

StrongVPN is a US-based VPN service that, unfortunately, doesn’t offer users a free trial. Instead, all users desiring to use a VPN for free can opt for its 30-day money-back guarantee and enjoy its service on all their devices.

The VPN operates more than 950 servers in over thirty different countries worldwide. It provides four servers for Australia in cities like Sydney, Brisbane, Melbourne, and Perth. All these servers are live and operational.

StrongVPN uses the industry-standard OpenVPN tunneling protocol to secure your web traffic in terms of online security and privacy. Additionally, it implements the robust Blowfish algorithm with 256-bit cipher keys to encrypt your data. The company believes in maintaining an uncompromising no-logs policy.

StrongVPN offers no bandwidth or data transfer restrictions on its money-back guarantee, providing you with a premium VPN experience to enjoy.

We tested the VPN for upload and download speeds which delivered 62.18 Mbps and 40.17 Mbps on a 100 MBps connection. We found the results more than satisfactory.

We tried accessing Netflix, Hulu, HBO Now, BBC iPlayer, and Discovery Plus in Australia with this VPN and could unblock all of these even with a small server network. This ensured that StrongVPN is quite reliable for streaming.

We also found strong support for torrents in P2P servers located across its server network, which was definitely a plus.

To refund your money, you need to use this VPN’s live chat support. They will then send you a form over chat which you’ll be required to fill out. However, we recommend you do it two days before the trial period ends so there are no chances of delays or errors.

StrongVPN costs $3.66/mo. It may not offer a free VPN trial in Australia, but its money-back guarantee meets your regular internet needs and provides top-notch features with no payment obligations.

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8) Ivacy VPN – Free VPN trial with dedicated streaming servers

Ivacy VPN is a Singapore-based VPN company that offers a 7-day unrestricted free VPN trial to allow users to test its services. Once you’ve signed up for the free account, you can download the VPN app and enjoy full internet freedom without worrying about any bandwidth or data constraints.

The company operates an impressive 3500+ servers in 100 countries worldwide. You can access all these servers during the free trial. In Australia, you get servers in Melbourne, Brisbane, Sydney, and Perth.

In terms of security, Ivacy uses OpenVPN, IKEv2, and L2TP tunneling protocols to secure your web traffic. It further encrypts the data using AES 256-bit cipher keys. No connection or activity logs are recorded.

As for speed, Ivacy has a decent reputation for speed, so we decided to put the service to the test. We randomly picked the Miami server in the US and ran it on an online speed test tool. The VPN delivered a downloading speed of 65.83 Mbps and an uploading speed of 41.11 Mbps on a 100 Mbps connection.

Moreover, the Ivacy VPN free trial does a pretty good job on the streaming front. You can watch PBS, BBC iPlayer, Hulu, HBO Now, and Sling TV in Australia. That said, the service should work on adding more streaming servers if it wants to compete with the best VPNs in the market. P2P support is available with the free trial.

A subscription VPN comes at $1.19/mo. Just like CactusVPN, its 30-day money-back guarantee also comes with some limitations. However, you’re eligible for a refund under this if you haven’t availed of the refund offer before, haven’t violated the terms and conditions, and more.

The free trial from Ivacy VPN has many strong points. It is easy to set up, offers unadulterated access to 3500+ servers, unblocks US Netflix and other streaming sites, and allows you to surf the web safely while keeping your online privacy intact.

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9) AVG Secure VPN – User-friendly VPN with a free trial

AVG VPN is a Czech-based VPN service that offers a fully-functional 7-day VPN free trial with no credit card to Windows and Mac users. Download the AVG VPN app on your preferred device to use this VPN with free trial.

AVG VPN maintains servers in 36 countries worldwide. All these servers are available in the free trial. For Australia, you get a server in Melbourne.

Although the AVG VPN free trial does not log your online activities, it keeps a record of your connection time stamps and the amount of bandwidth you use to maintain the functions.

Additionally, it stores the IP address of the servers you connect to and the subnet of your originating IP address. The company claims to delete this data after 30 days.

The Windows version of the AVG VPN app uses OpenVPN tunneling protocol for securing your communications, while the Mac version relies on L2TP/IPsec tunneling protocol. Encryption is achieved with the help of AES 256-bit ciphers.

In terms of speed, AVG disappoints a bit. We connected to one of its US servers and noticed a significant speed drop of 40%. However, the speed test delivered an average download speed of 60.56 Mbps and an upload speed of 43.88 Mbps on a 100 Mbps connection.

As far as streaming goes, the AVG VPN free trial works with most major OTT video platforms, including US Netflix, Hulu, HBO Now, and NBC in Australia.

However, the torrenting support is fairly limited, with eight P2P servers available at your disposal. These servers are located in Paris, Prague, Amsterdam, Frankfurt, New York, Miami, Seattle, and London. Apart from Windows, the service supports other platforms, including Mac, Android, and iOS.

It is available for $0.99. As for its refund policy, you can cancel your AVG Secure VPN subscription by filling out a refund request form. You only need to give them a reason and get your refund! After filling out the form, it might take 5-7 days for a refund.

In case you want more details about this provider, make sure to go through the AVG Secure VPN review.

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10) HideMyAss VPN – Free VPN trial providing coverage in 190+ countries

HideMyAss is a UK-based VPN company that offers a 7-day unrestricted free trial to allow users to test its services. However, you need a credit card to activate the trial.

If you’re looking for a longer trial period, just opt for its 30-day money-back guarantee, which allows you to enjoy its service risk-free for 30 days to make a decision.

HideMyAss provides 1040+ servers in more than 190 countries worldwide. That’s quite impressive coverage. You get access to all these servers in the trial period. In Australia, the company maintains a total of 15 servers, all located in Sydney, Perth, and Melbourne.

Security with HMA VPN is never a concern. You have robust tunneling protocols like OpenVPN and IKEv2 protecting your web traffic. In addition, the company uses the military-grade AES 256-bit system for encryption.

Likewise, HMA does not record your online activities, which is good from a privacy standpoint. However, it does store your date of connection and the amount of data you use.

The HideMyAss 7-day VPN free trial offers the same speed as what you get with the premium plan. Do we consider the service fast? Not really. We put a few of its US servers through a couple of online tests and found below-average upload and download speeds of 42.16 Mbps and 32.18 Mbps, respectively.

As for streaming, the HMA VPN free trial works with all major US and UK streaming services. These include US Netflix, Hulu, HBO Now, BBC iPlayer, etc. You can even get Viu TV in Australia using this VPN.

The available servers for streaming are limited and can cause buffering issues on busy days. The VPN service provides 180+ P2P-optimized servers in the US, France, Czech Republic, Germany, Netherlands, and the UK.

If you subscribe to its 30-day money-back guarantee, it costs $4.39/mo. Nearing its end, then it’s time you cancel the subscription before being charged for another month (unless you want that, of course). You can do that by submitting a refund request to HMA’s support.

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Which VPN Gives Free Trial Without Credit Card?

Well, the VPNs above aren’t the only ones offering free trials to users. In fact, 3 more options offer a free trial without requiring any credit card details. Let’s check out the VPN free trials with no credit card needed:

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Which VPN Free Trial Should We Avoid?

Here are the VPN free trials that need to be avoided:

• SiteLock: This service does not offer a free trial, and you can only get your money back if the VPN barely performs throughout the month. You need to submit your request, and the VPN decides if you’ll receive your money back.
• Hotspot Shield: Another VPN to avoid is Hotspot Shield. Even though this VPN offers a 7-day free trial to users, the service lags multiple times, and there’s frequent disconnection on the network. Moreover, since the service is based in the US, using this VPN is always a risky choice.

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Are Free VPN Trials Secure?

A free VPN trial allows you to test a VPN service with all its bells and whistles. So, if you are trying a free trial from a premium VPN service provider, you can expect it to be fully secure, like the paid version of the service.

Now that you know are free trial VPNs safe, let us tell you that all the ten free VPN trials we have recommended provide excellent online security. 

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Do Free VPN Trials Log My Activity?

The logging policy of a VPN service provider usually remains the same, regardless of whether you use its full premium service or free trial. So, if a VPN promises to keep no records of your online activities, you can expect it to honor its commitment with the free trial as well.

But, if you wondering “Do free VPNs keep logs,” then yes they might. Therefore, we only recommend VPNs that implement a strict no-logs policy.

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How to Make the Most out of a VPN Free Trial?

It depends on you how you make the most out of VPN free trials. For instance, ExpressVPN offers a generous 30-day money-back guarantee that is enough to explore its various features like Network Lock (kill switch), MediaStreamer, simultaneous connections, etc.

Apart from this, you can unblock various streaming services like Netflix, Disney Plus, Hulu, HBO Max, etc., using its efficient streaming unblocking feature.

Similarly, NordVPN also offers a great mix of security with privacy features like a kill switch, double VPN, multi-logins, DNS leak protection, etc., alongside an attractive 30-day money-back guarantee.

In a nutshell, you can avail a bunch of exciting features using any free trial VPN in Australia of your choice from the list mentioned above.

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Do VPN Services with Money-back Guarantees Always Honor Their Guarantee?

As far as ExpressVPN is concerned, the service offers its users a crystal-clear 30-day money-back guarantee feature. It means you do not have to answer any questions regarding your cancellation decision and will get your refund within the stipulated time period.

However, other VPN services do not offer such luxury to their new subscribers. They can ask different questions to discover why you are not willing to continue using their services. They can force you to continue using their services at discounted rates.

That said, reputable VPN providers like ExpressVPN keep their promises and do not delay in paying refunds to their customers.

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FAQs