ZDNET’s top pick for cheap VPN is Atlas VPN. It’s a surprisingly good service for the price, according to our analysis. It offers unlimited connections across 38 countries for only $2.05 per month. This service provides top-tier security along with unlimited connections, making it a potentially cheaper alternative to other top VPNs like NordVPN and ExpressVPN. Plus, you get a 30-day refund guarantee — that’s hard to beat.

The best cheap VPN for you depends on various factors besides price. If choose a low-cost service, but you can’t unblock the streaming services you want to use, then what did you really save? Start by asking yourself why you need a VPN. Then, test out a reputable provider that has high standards for security.

If you want to learn more about how VPNs work and how to choose the best one for you, check out our guide: What is a VPN is and how does it work?

Also: The fastest VPN services may surprise you 

Price narrowed our list, but it’s not the be-all and end-all when choosing the best cheap VPN. There are a number of cheap and free VPN services that simply aren’t trustworthy. Saving a little bit of cash isn’t worth putting your privacy at risk.

For ZDNET to recommend a VPN, it needs to meet certain minimum standards, like having a kill switch. We also looked at the server networks, money-back guarantee periods, privacy policies, and the number of simultaneous connections allowed.

If you want your data to be secure, then yes. VPNs offer protection no matter what kind of device you use to transmit and receive data. Before you commit to a VPN service, it’s a good idea to test it out and see how well it works with all of your devices. The best VPN for Android may not be the same as the best VPN for iOS, and vice versa.

A VPN may help you get cheaper flights by connecting you with foreign servers and hiding your IP address. But airline prices shift based on a variety of factors, and the impact of changing your location could be negligible, or at the very least, hard to confirm. It’s worth trying to use a VPN to save money on flights, but don’t expect huge discounts.

Let’s be clear: Yes. Using a VPN will slow down your connection because your data is encrypted, decrypted, and sent through intermediate servers. Your online gaming experience might suffer. You might have enough lag to miss shots if you’re a first-person shooter player. That said, both computers and VPNs have gotten much faster. Years ago, VPNs caused everything to slow down to an unbearable c-r-a-w-l. 

But now the negative impact is almost unnoticeable, especially with the fastest VPN services. Most (but not all) VPN providers also limit the number of devices you can connect to simultaneously, so you may have to pick and choose which home devices to connect to.

We’re spotlighting paid services in this article, although some of them offer a free tier. I don’t recommend free VPN services because I don’t consider them secure. Running a good VPN service requires hundreds of servers worldwide and a ton of networking resources — it’s expensive. If you’re not paying to support that infrastructure, who is? Probably advertisers or data miners. If you use a free service, the company is selling either your data or your eyeballs. What’s the point of a VPN if it doesn’t keep your data secure? 

However, I want to make it clear that no one tool can guarantee your privacy. First, anything can be hacked. Second, a VPN protects your data when it transits from your computer to the VPN service, but it doesn’t protect what you put on servers or whatever cloud-based application you’re using. It doesn’t offer password security or multi-factor authentication. Privacy and security require you to be diligent throughout your digital journey, and VPNs, while helpful, are not a miracle cure.

There is no shortage of reputable VPNs that get the job done.

If what we’ve highlighted here doesn’t suit your needs, you can try out other services, like Surfshark, IPVanish, and ProtonVPN. All three of these VPNs made it onto our best VPNs list and come with money-back guarantees. They’re worth trying out if you’re still shopping around.