If one of your New Year’s resolutions is to improve your cybersecurityit is not too late. Most of the holiday deals have now ended, but many services still offer great prices. With access to a virtual private network (VPN)you can hide your activity from your ISP and any advertisers you might sell that data to – all while streaming sporting events and TV dramas from around the world.

We strongly recommend using a VPNbut if you jump at the first deal you see, you could be stuck with a substandard app. It’s also easy to mistakenly pay more than you want, because otherwise respectable VPNs sometimes frame their prices in misleading ways, with advertised deals that don’t always work as they seem.

Even with all the caveats, there are some great bargains on the table. A lot of best VPNs — including our top pick, Proton VPN — have deals that can save you anywhere from 70 to 87 percent off annual subscriptions. Most of these discounts are only available if you sign up for a year or more, but if you split the cost over months of subscription, it gets cheaper over time.

Best VPN deals

Proton

This Swiss VPN is the top VPN selected by Engadget today, for reasons that I have laid out in full Proton VPN Review. It looks and works well on every platform, making it great for many home appliances. It keeps your browsing speed fast and latencies low, even over long distances. For those who need a VPN to remain anonymous, Proton VPN is the only service that implements full-disk encryption, which means that all of your traffic can be handled without Proton itself seeing anything.

ExpressVPN Basic – $78.18 for a two-year subscription with four months free (78 percent discount): This is one of the best VPNs, especially for new users, who can find apps and websites without headaches on all platforms. In tests for my ExpressVPN reviewit dropped my download speed by less than 7 percent and successfully changed my virtual location 14 out of 15 times. In short, it’s an excellent service all in all that only suffers from a slightly overpriced price – so I’m very excited every time I find it offers a decent deal. This discount, which gives you 28 months of ExpressVPN service, represents a 78 percent savings. Keep in mind, however, that this is renewable at a $99.95 per year price.

ExpressVPN Advanced – $100.58 for a two-year subscription with four months free (74 percent discount): ExpressVPN recently its price is divided into several levelsbut they all have the same discounts for long. In addition to the top-tier VPN service, advanced users get two additional simultaneous connections (for a total of 12), the ExpressVPN Keys password manager, advanced ad and tracker blocking, ID protection features and a 50 percent discount on an AirCove router. As above, note that this changes to $119.95 per year.

NordVPN Basic – $81.36 for a two-year subscription (70 percent discount): NordVPN gets the most important part of a VPN right. It’s fast, it doesn’t leak any of your data and it’s great at changing your virtual location. I noticed in my NordVPN review that it always connects quickly and includes a support page that makes it easy to get live help. NordVPN includes many cool features, such as servers that instantly connect you to Tor. This deal gives you 70 percent off the two-year plan.

NordVPN Plus – $93.36 for a two-year subscription (74 percent discount): NordVPN is also taking 70 percent off its Plus subscriptions. For a little more, you get a powerful ad and tracker blocker that can also catch malware downloads, plus access to the NordPass password manager. A Plus plan also adds a data breach scanner that scours the dark web for your sensitive information.

Surfshark Starter – $53.73 for a two-year subscription with three months free (87 percent discount): This is the “basic” level of Surfsharkbut it includes the entire VPN; everything in Surfshark One is an added benefit. With this subscription, you get some of the biggest envelope-pushing in the VPN world today. Surfshark can rotate your IP constantly to help you avoid detection – it even lets you choose your own entry and exit nodes for a double-hop connection. That all comes with an almost invisible effect on download speeds. With this year-round deal, you can save 87 percent over 27 months on Surfshark.

Surfshark One – $67.23 for a two-year subscription with three months free (87 percent discount): A VPN is great, but it’s not enough to protect your data on its own. Surfshark One adds several apps that can enhance your security beyond the VPN service, including Surfshark Antivirus (scans devices and downloads for malware) and Surfshark Alert (alerts you whenever your sensitive information is found in a data breach), including Surfshark Search and Alternative ID from the tier below. This super low deal gives you 88 percent off all features. If you go with Surfshark One +, you get data deletion through Incogni, but the price jumps enough that it’s not very useful in my eyes.

CyberGhost – $56.94 for a two-year subscription with four months free (84 percent discount): CyberGhost has some of the best automation you’ll find in any VPN. With its Smart Rules system, you can determine how its apps respond to different types of Wi-Fi networks, other than specific networks you know by name. Usually, you can set it to automatically connect, disconnect or send you a message asking what to do. CyberGhost’s other best feature is its streaming servers – I find better video quality and more consistent unblocking when I use it on streaming sites. Right now, you can get 28 months of CyberGhost for 79 percent of the regular price, but that will change to $56.94 per year.

hide.me – $69.95 for a two-year subscription with four months free (75 percent off): Hide.me is an excellent free VPN – in fact, it’s my favorite on the market, even EventVPN and the free version of Proton VPN as a competition. If you want to upgrade to a paid plan, however, the two-year subscription offers significant savings. Hide.me works well as a no-frills beginner VPN, with apps and a server network that should be straightforward to charge.

Windscribe – $69 for a one-year subscription (32 percent discount): It’s not as steep a discount as the others on this list, but Windscribe is cheap to begin with, so the 32 percent discount on the monthly price is a bigger savings than it might be. As I just covered a detailed Windscribe Reviewworth upgrading from the free service to get full access to all of Windscribe’s real server network (and remove the data cap on the free plan).

Private Internet Access – $79 for a three-year subscription with four months free (83 percent discount): With this deal, you can get 40 months of Private Internet Access (PIA) for a little under $2 per month – an 83 percent discount on its monthly price. You can also get a shorter one-year subscription for $40 ($3.33 per month). Despite being very cheap, PIA has a lot of features, with its own DNS servers, a built-in ad blocker and automation powers that rival CyberGhost. However, the internet speed may fluctuate while you are connected.

What makes a good VPN deal

Almost every VPN heavily discounts its long-term subscriptions throughout the year, with sharper discounts on occasions like holidays. The only notable exception is Mullvad, the Costco hot dog of VPNs (that’s a compliment, to be clear). When there’s always a big discount going on, it can be hard to tell when you’re getting a good deal. The best way to get extra savings is to look for seasonal deals, student discounts or exclusive sales like. Proton VPN coupon for Engadget readers.

A trick often used by VPNs is to add extra months to an introductory deal, pushing the average monthly price lower. When it comes time to renew, you usually won’t get these extra months. You can’t always renew for the same basic time period – for example, you can only renew a two-year subscription in one year. If you plan to stick with a VPN forever, check the fine print to see how much it will cost each month after the first renewal, and make sure that fits into your budget.

catheter @EngadgetDeals in X for the latest tech deals and buy advice.