ExpressVPN review: A stylish, minimalist VPN service with solid privacy practices — and a steep price

UPDATE: Aug. 29, 2023, 5:00 AM EDT We’ve revisited this review as part of an ongoing overhaul of Mashable’s VPN coverage based on stricter criteria and hands-on testing. Our analysis will continue to evolve as we keep using ExpressVPN over the coming months.

Founded in 2009, ExpressVPN is one of the oldest and most respected names in the online privacy space for good reason. It’s great at what VPNs need to be great at — that is, abiding by a strong privacy policy — and user-friendly to boot, with a widespread server network for reliable connections worldwide and an intuitive, unintimidating Corporate Memphis app. But its sky-high price, coupled with a limited suite of features compared to other premium VPNs and a parent company with a sketchy background, may give some users pause.

ExpressVPN subscriptions start at $6. 67 a month for a year’s worth of coverage, which comes with an extra three free months. Six-month subscriptions cost $9.

99 per month, and monthly plans go for $12. 95. Both longer-term subscriptions let users connect up to eight devices per account, while the monthly option supports up to five simultaneous connections.

All plans are covered by a 30-day money-back guarantee and can be purchased via credit card, PayPal, cryptocurrencies (including Bitcoin), and online transfer payments. ExpressVPN works on iOS, Android, Windows, Mac (which we tested), Linux, Chrome, smart TVs, Kindle Fire, and gaming consoles (via routers and hotspots). It also sells a VPN-enabled WiFi 6 router called the Aircove, which retails for $189.

90 on Amazon and includes a 30-day trial. Once installed, ExpressVPN starts up in a fraction of a second with a single button-click in a small window; its background is red when the VPN is off and lime green when it’s on. Users are automatically connected to the fastest nearby server — for me, it was a local one in Chicago — but can choose from a list of others in 94 countries across the globe.

Clicking the drop-down menu in the top left corner of the app pulls up some options to see a list of server locations, adjust user preferences, view support tools (including DNS leak and IP address checkers), set up other devices, and refer a friend for 30 days of free service. That preferences tab opens another window where you can tweak your startup settings, enable a “Network Lock” kill switch, customize the shortcuts you see on the app, install an ExpressVPN browser extension, activate a “Threat Manager” tracker blocker (on desktop), and pick a protocol. ExpressVPN automatically selects an unspecified protocol for you that it deems “most appropriate for your network,” but you can manually opt for OpenVPN, IKEv2, or its in-house Lightway protocol, which is open-source and audited.

ExpressVPN offers a split tunneling tool that lets you choose what traffic it encrypts — a good way to optimize speeds white streaming — but the catch is that it’s only available for Windows and Macs running a version of macOS earlier than Big Sur , which came out in 2020. It also doesn’t offer multi-hop connections that let you run your traffic through multiple servers for extra protection, unlike some of its more competitively priced peers. On the plus side, several DNS leak tests proved that ExpressVPN was consistently concealing my actual IP address.

Browsing with ExpressVPN was a breeze, and I honestly forgot it was running unless a site I visited flagged my connection. The only ones I encountered during two weeks of steady use were Ticketmaster, which thought I was a bot; the ExpressVPN website itself, which prompted me to sign in when it detected its own service; and AZLyrics, which noticed “unusual activity” from my network when I was using a server outside the U. S.

(I needed to memorize the “Heated” outro before my Renaissance World Tour show, OK?) Skirting geo-restrictions and playing shows on ITVX was a cinch when I connected to one of ExpressVPN’s British servers. (Netflix UK and the BBC iPlayer were also easily unblocked. ) Load times felt a little slow, but they were never so bad to the point of unusability, and I didn’t experience any buffering or lagging once shows starting playing.

On the flip side, domestic streaming content wasn’t impacted by ExpressVPN at all: Movies on Max and Disney+ loaded fast and played smoothly while I was connected to my local VPN server. Ookla Speedtests I ran did show a slight drop in my download speed and higher ping when ExpressVPN was on (compared to my regular internet connection), especially when I chose a server abroad. That explained the longer load times when I was accessing international streaming content and is to be expected, since my data had to travel farther.

ExpressVPN is an industry leader in privacy with one notable asterisk. The company’s privacy policy lays out a “core mission” of keeping user information private and clearly states that browsing history, IP addresses, timestamps, session durations, and other activity logs are never collected. “Even if a government were to physically seize one of our VPN servers,” the policy reads, “there would be no logs or information that would tie any individual user to a particular event, website, or behavior.

” This held up in 2017 when Turkish authorities seized an ExpressVPN server in an attempt to find logs in connection with an investigation, and came up empty . Furthermore, ExpressVPN shut down its servers in India in 2022 after the country introduced a new data law requiring all VPN providers to store users’ real names and usage patterns (among other identifying data) for at least five years. Perhaps more importantly, ExpressVPN’s privacy policy is also transparent about the type of data it does retain, emphasizing a “guiding principle” of only collecting “the minimal data required” to operate its services.

This includes personal information associated with accounts (like email addresses and payment information), some usage statistics, and diagnostic data that users can opt into (like crash reports). Users’ personal data is controlled and stored solely by ExpressVPN and not sold or leased to third parties. ExpressVPN wrote in a blog post that it considers audits “a central pillar of our commitment to users,” and it shows.

The company has commissioned and published 12 different audits since early 2022 — more than any other provider in the industry, it claims — including assessments of its privacy policy , server technology , Lightway protocol , Aircove router , mobile apps , and desktop apps . ExpressVPN has also offered a bug bounty program since 2020 and upped its bonus award to $100,000 in 2022. In terms of reputation, the only ding against ExpressVPN is its parent company’s past: Kape Technologies, which acquired it in 2021 (and owns other popular providers CyberGhost VPN and Private Internet Access), used to be an adware distributor called CrossRider .

It may help to know that Kape doesn’t control or store any of ExpressVPN’s user data, per its privacy policy. A well-established VPN with a global server network and a stylish, user-friendly app is worth a pretty penny (especially in this crowded market), but ExpressVPN might just be a tad too expensive when you factor in its lack of support for multi-hop connections and limited split tunneling tool. The issue of ExpressVPN’s ownership is also unfortunate.

I have zero reason to believe that Kape is still engaging in any nefarious activities, but I can’t fault users who side-eye it. .