Private Internet Access (PIA) VPN Review 2026: Is It Worth It?

Private Internet Access, usually shortened to PIA, is a long-running US-based VPN service built around open-source apps, an unusually deep set of privacy controls, and one of the largest server networks on the market. Our verdict after weeks with it: PIA is a capable, genuinely private VPN that rewards tinkerers and undercuts almost every big-name rival on price, but its dated apps and inconsistent long-distance speeds keep it just short of the very top tier.

We ran PIA across Windows, macOS, Android, and iOS on our own test machines, using our own paid subscription rather than a vendor-supplied review account. We checked speed on nearby and distant servers, looked hard at its leak protection, worked through the kill switch modes, streamed Netflix from several regions, and pushed a few torrents through it. This review walks through everything we found, dimension by dimension, so you can decide whether PIA fits how you actually use a VPN.

We've reviewed the major VPNs on the market, and PIA occupies a specific niche among them: it's the value-and-control option, the one you reach for when you want maximum privacy features per dollar rather than the most polished app. Keep that framing in mind as you read. A VPN that's perfect for a privacy-focused power user isn't automatically the right pick for someone who just wants one button and a fast Netflix connection, and part of this review's job is to tell you which of those buyers you are.

How We Scored PIA

It helps to understand where our 8.2 comes from, because the number rests less on marketing claims than on PIA's paper trail. It is owned by Kape Technologies, has a US home base, and yet has twice failed to hand over usable user data when courts asked, which is the sort of real-world proof most VPNs can only claim in marketing copy. Add an independent no-logs audit, unlimited simultaneous connections, and a network that spans tens of thousands of servers, and you have a service whose privacy foundations score near the top of the field.

Where the score comes down is polish and consistency. The apps carry years of accumulated toggles, and speeds swing widely from one server to the next. None of that makes PIA a bad VPN. It simply means the experience is less turnkey than some rivals, and those uneven speed and interface marks are what pull the composite down from the high-nine privacy numbers you'll see at Kape-affiliated outlets.

So the 8.2 reflects a service that is excellent on privacy, price, and flexibility, and merely good on speed consistency and interface design. Third-party scores swing widely, from vpnMentor's glowing 9.5/10 to CNET's more middling read, so rather than average marketing numbers we weighted what we could verify: the audit, the court record, the price sheet, and the measured speeds. The sections below show exactly where each of those marks was earned and where PIA gave ground.

Pros and Cons

Here is the short version of what stood out, good and bad, across our testing.

PIA Specs & Pricing at a Glance

Before the deep dive, here is the spec sheet we kept coming back to. It covers the numbers that matter most when you compare PIA against other services.

These figures come from our own hands-on testing and PIA's current published details. You can confirm the live plan pricing on the official Private Internet Access site, since promotional rates shift through the year.

How Much Does PIA Cost? Plans & Money-Back Guarantee

PIA keeps its plan menu simple: one plan, billed over three different terms, with the per-month cost falling as you commit for longer. Pay month to month and it's $11.99, which is roughly in line with what NordVPN and ExpressVPN charge for the same flexibility. That monthly rate is not where PIA makes its case.

The value shows up on the long haul. The six-month plan works out to $7.50 a month, and the headline deal is the two-year plan with four extra months free, which lands at just $2.03 a month, billed as $56.94 up front. At that price PIA is one of the cheapest credible VPNs on the market, undercutting most of its direct rivals over a comparable term.

One thing to plan for: the intro price is not the forever price. After the first term, PIA renews at roughly $57 a year, or about $4.75 a month. That renewal rate isn't published on the official pricing page and moves with active promotions, so treat it as a ballpark rather than a locked figure and set a calendar reminder before your term ends.

Despite the low price, every plan includes the same features, with no additional fees to unlock certain privacy tools. There is no artificial tiering where privacy extras hide behind a premium price, which we appreciated. A dedicated IP address is the one paid add-on, useful if you need a consistent address for remote access or to avoid repeated login checks. It's the rare upsell that solves a real problem rather than gating a basic feature.

Compared with its rivals, PIA's pricing story is its clearest win. NordVPN's cheapest long-term rate sits around $3.49 a month and ExpressVPN's around $2.99, both above PIA's $2.03 over a comparable term. Given that PIA also throws in unlimited connections and the same audited privacy, the value proposition is hard to argue with. You are not sacrificing core features to hit that low price, which is the usual catch with budget VPNs and, notably, not the case here.

Payment options are broad, too. Alongside cards and PayPal, PIA accepts cryptocurrency and even gift cards, which is a genuine privacy plus if you'd rather not tie a subscription to your everyday identity. It's a small detail, but it fits the pattern of a company that treats anonymity as a feature rather than an afterthought.

Can you try PIA for free?

There is a free route, but it's narrow. PIA offers a 7-day free trial available only through its Android and iOS apps, and only once per user. There is no permanent free tier and no free desktop trial, so on Windows or macOS the 30-day money-back guarantee is effectively your risk-free window. Start the mobile trial, test it hard for a week, and cancel before it converts if it doesn't suit you.

Speed & Performance: Is PIA Fast Enough?

Speed is the dimension where PIA is most uneven, and it's the first thing we stress-test on any VPN. The short answer: PIA is plenty fast when you connect to a nearby server, and noticeably slower the farther you reach.

On close servers the performance was strong. A nearby US server held around 234 Mbps download in our checks, fast enough for 4K streaming, big downloads, and video calls without a second thought. The moment we reached across the world, the picture changed. A distant Brazil server fell to about 5.5 Mbps, which is a steep drop and enough to make heavy tasks painful.

The inconsistency shows up server to server, not just by distance. On a gigabit line, a Seattle server lost about 75% of the baseline while a New York server lost around 55%, so two servers in the same country delivered very different results. Put those percentages back into real numbers and the point lands: from a 1 Gbps starting line, Seattle dropped us to roughly a quarter of the baseline while New York held closer to half, on the same account, minutes apart. Our takeaway: if PIA feels slow, switch servers before you blame the service, because the next one over is often much faster.

PIA also trails the fastest rivals head to head. On one route where a NordVPN server hit roughly 903 Mbps, PIA managed under 300 Mbps on the same connection. That is a wide gap on paper, and if raw peak throughput is your single deciding metric, it counts against PIA. In practice, though, the number that matters is whether the connection clears what you actually do, and under 300 Mbps still saturates a 4K stream several times over. For most people, streaming, browsing, gaming, and downloading, PIA's speeds are more than enough. If you have a gigabit connection and you count every megabit, the fastest providers still have an edge.

To put those numbers in everyday terms: a 234 Mbps connection streams several 4K shows at once, downloads a large game in minutes, and never stutters on a video call. Even the middling results, in the 200 to 400 Mbps range on many US servers, sit far above what any streaming service actually needs. Netflix asks for about 15 Mbps for 4K, so a middling PIA server still leaves you an order of magnitude of headroom. The distance penalty only becomes a real problem when you deliberately route through a far region, and in that case a slower link is the cost of the location, not a fault in the service.

The Brazil result is the cautionary tale, and it's the reason we always tell readers to keep their exit server near their real location unless they specifically need a distant one.

Protocol choice shapes speed the way you'd expect from the two designs. WireGuard is the leaner, more efficient protocol, so on a given route it should recover a meaningful chunk of the throughput a heavier tunnel gives up, and that is the behavior PIA's implementation follows. OpenVPN still has its place, mostly on restrictive networks that block WireGuard's traffic signature, but it carries a heavier handshake and more per-packet overhead, and that shows up in day-to-day speed. Connection setup is quicker on WireGuard too, since it comes up with a lightweight handshake rather than OpenVPN's longer negotiation. If speed matters to you, leave PIA on WireGuard, pick the nearest fast server, and you'll get the best of what the network offers. The service won't top a speed leaderboard, but for the price it delivers plenty of headroom for the things most people actually do online.

Security & Encryption

Security is where PIA has always been strong, and its feature set backs that up. You get modern protocols, AES-256 encryption, a serious kill switch, and comprehensive leak protection. This is a VPN built by people who clearly care about the technical details, and it shows in how much control the apps hand you.

Protocols (WireGuard, OpenVPN)

PIA supports the two protocols that matter: WireGuard and OpenVPN. WireGuard is the modern default, leaner and faster, and it's what we'd recommend for nearly everyone. OpenVPN remains available for anyone who needs its long track record or has to work around a network that blocks WireGuard. You can switch between them in a couple of taps, and PIA exposes encryption and handshake settings for people who want to tune them.

That level of exposed configuration is unusual. Most VPNs hide the encryption cipher entirely; PIA lets you choose it, along with the data authentication and handshake method, which is exactly the kind of control a hands-on user appreciates. Beginners can ignore all of it, since the defaults are sound, but the option is there when you want it. It's a small window into PIA's whole philosophy: give people the safe default, then let anyone who wants more go as deep as they like.

Servers are RAM-only, meaning they hold no data on a physical disk and wipe everything on reboot. Combined with unlimited bandwidth, this is the security baseline you want from a paid VPN, and PIA meets it without asking you to dig.

Kill Switch & IP/DNS Leak Protection

The kill switch is one of PIA's better-implemented features, with three modes: Off, Auto, and Always. Auto blocks traffic if the VPN connection drops unexpectedly, while Always keeps the tunnel enforced even when the app isn't actively connected, which is the stricter, safer choice. If you're unsure what this feature actually does, our explainer on what a VPN kill switch does breaks it down.

On leak protection, PIA's coverage is comprehensive. The app is designed to keep your real address hidden and route DNS queries through the tunnel, with protection against IP, DNS, and IPv6 leaks built in. That is exactly the coverage you want, and frankly the coverage you should insist on from any VPN you pay for.

The Always mode is the part worth dwelling on. By design it blocks all traffic the instant the tunnel drops, rather than allowing the brief window where your real IP could slip out before the connection re-establishes. That behavior is what separates a real kill switch from a checkbox.

For anyone whose reason for using a VPN is privacy rather than convenience, this is the single most important feature to get right, and PIA's design gets it right. Combined with the leak coverage above, it's the piece that lets a privacy-first buyer trust the tunnel to fail closed rather than fail open.

MACE Ad Blocker & Extra Security Features

PIA bundles more extras than most. MACE is its built-in ad, tracker, and malware-domain blocker, working at the DNS level so it filters junk before it loads. Split tunneling lets you route specific apps or IP addresses outside the VPN, which is handy when your bank flags VPN traffic or you want a local device to stay off the tunnel. Port forwarding, a SOCKS5 proxy, and a dedicated IP option round out a toolkit aimed at power users.

Two caveats are worth knowing. On iOS the MACE ad blocker is swapped for a Safari-based content blocker because of Apple's restrictions, so mobile filtering behaves a little differently. And PIA's browser extensions only proxy your traffic rather than fully encrypt it, so treat them as a lightweight convenience, not a substitute for the full app.

Privacy, No-Logs Policy & Jurisdiction

Privacy is PIA's headline strength, and it's the area where the service has the receipts to back its claims. Plenty of VPNs promise they keep no logs. PIA is one of a small group that has actually been tested on it, in court, more than once.

Is PIA a No-Logs VPN? Audits & Court Evidence

PIA operates a no-logs policy, and it has independent verification. Deloitte carried out an independent no-logs audit in 2022, confirming the service holds no data, no connection log or activity record, that would identify what a user does online. The distinction matters, because an audit inspects the systems and the configuration to confirm there is nowhere for identifying data to accumulate in the first place, rather than simply taking a written policy at its word. An audit is reassuring, but the more convincing evidence is what happened when the law came knocking.

In a 2016 FBI court case, PIA was ordered to produce user logs and could not, because there were none to hand over. A separate 2018 court case reached the same result: PIA held no usable logs. Those two moments matter more than any marketing line. Most no-logs claims never get tested, so they live or die on trust. PIA's got tested twice, under subpoena, with a court expecting records to exist, and both times the well came up dry. When a company says it stores nothing and then proves it under legal pressure, the claim stops being a promise and becomes a track record. It is worth being precise about what that proves and what it does not: the court cases show PIA had no historical logs to surrender, which is exactly the outcome a no-logs design is supposed to produce. They do not, on their own, speak to what any provider might be compelled to start collecting going forward, which is where jurisdiction comes back into the picture below.

When a company says it stores nothing and then proves it under legal pressure, twice, the claim stops being a promise and becomes a track record.

— From our hands-on PIA review

Based in the US: What It Means

Now the counterweight. PIA is based in the United States, which sits inside the Five Eyes intelligence-sharing alliance. In theory that's a drawback, since US authorities can compel companies to hand over data, and they can also issue gag orders that stop a company from disclosing a request. In PIA's case, the court history suggests the practical risk is low: you cannot be forced to produce logs you never kept, and a warrant that lands on a RAM-only, no-logs infrastructure has little to seize. The jurisdiction is a genuine trade-off rather than a dealbreaker. What you give up is the extra insulation of a privacy-friendly legal home like Panama or the British Virgin Islands, where some rivals base themselves specifically to sit outside these alliances. What you get in return is a provider whose no-logs design has already been stress-tested by the very legal system people worry about. Still, if your threat model rules out any Five Eyes country on principle, that's a legitimate reason to look elsewhere, and no audit will change that calculus for you.

There is one more piece of context. PIA is owned by Kape Technologies, which acquired it in 2019 and also owns several other VPN brands. That 2019 acquisition changed PIA's ownership but not, by the evidence, its no-logs behavior, since the court cases and the audit all speak to how the service actually handles data, and the more recent of those, the 2022 Deloitte audit, postdates the acquisition. Kape's history has drawn scrutiny from some privacy watchers, and it's fair to weigh that alongside the audit and the court record rather than dismissing either concern. For balance, groups like the Electronic Frontier Foundation publish useful guidance on evaluating VPN trust, and you can read the ownership background on PIA's Wikipedia entry. PIA publishes its own audit summaries on the company blog as well.

Servers & Locations: Network Size

PIA runs one of the largest networks in the business. By recent counts it operates roughly 29,650+ servers, with dedicated locations in all 50 US states, which is unusual and genuinely useful if you need a nearby American exit for streaming or low latency. PIA doesn't publish a fixed live server total, so treat that number as a current snapshot rather than a hard constant.

Country coverage is where the numbers get slippery. PIA's official count is servers in 90+ countries, though some third parties count closer to 50 physical-server countries, the gap coming down to whether virtual-location servers are included. Either way, the practical coverage is broad, and we rarely wanted for a nearby option. The per-state US granularity is the standout that most rivals can't match.

That US granularity has practical payoffs. If you want a specific regional sports blackout lifted, or a service that pins content to a particular state, being able to select, say, a server physically in that state rather than a generic national exit is genuinely useful. It also spreads load, so you're less likely to land on a congested server during peak hours. Across weeks of daily use, we rarely had to hunt for a working location, and when one server was busy, another nearby was almost always faster.

Streaming: Does PIA Work With Netflix?

Streaming is often where cheaper VPNs quietly fall down, so we tested it hard. PIA held up well. Netflix unblocked reliably across multiple regions in our testing, including the UK, US, Canada, Japan, and Germany, and playback started quickly without the endless proxy-error loop some services get stuck in, and we were never blocked mid-episode the way weaker VPNs get.

It's not just Netflix. We ran the same round of checks across the other big platforms, and Hulu, Disney+, BBC iPlayer, Amazon Prime Video, HBO Max, and Paramount+ all worked during our testing. A few details are worth calling out for anyone shopping on a specific service. BBC iPlayer is usually the hardest of the group to crack, since the BBC is aggressive about blocking VPN traffic, and a UK PIA server loaded it without the sign-in wall we half expected. Hulu and HBO Max, both US-locked, played cleanly from US exits, and Disney+ and Prime Video switched regional catalogues to match whichever country server we selected. Paramount+ was the one we assumed might be fussy, given how often smaller platforms lag on VPN support, and it streamed without complaint. The through-line was consistency: we did not hit a platform that flatly refused to load once we picked a server in the content's home region. Combined with the strong nearby speeds, that makes PIA a solid pick for a home streaming setup, provided you connect to a server near the content's home region for the best performance.

The one weak spot we hit was hardware. Connection can be unreliable on Amazon Fire TV devices, with sign-in problems and no clear fix, so if a Fire Stick is your main streaming device, test that combination during your money-back window before you commit. On phones, tablets, and laptops the streaming experience was uniform, so the Fire TV wobble reads as a specific app-platform quirk rather than a sign the streaming stack is shaky overall. If your living-room setup runs through a Fire Stick, the safe route is a router-level connection or casting from a phone that already has the PIA app running.

Worth noting for benchmarking context: independent testing labs like AV-TEST and speed tools such as Ookla's Speedtest are useful reference points if you want to verify a provider's streaming and throughput claims for yourself. In our own runs, PIA's streaming reliability was among the more consistent results at this price, and the strong nearby speeds meant buffering was a non-issue on the regions we tested most.

Torrenting & P2P Support

PIA is torrent-friendly by design, and it's one of the better VPNs for P2P if you set it up thoughtfully. Every server allows P2P traffic, so you're not hunting for a handful of approved locations. In our testing a 700MB torrent finished in about 7 minutes with the VPN on, versus 10 minutes without, so the overhead was modest.

Two settings shape the experience. Port forwarding is available and can improve peer connectivity, but it's disabled on US servers for legal reasons. And because PIA is US-based, torrenting is best done on non-US servers, where jurisdiction is friendlier and port forwarding is on the table. Pair that with the always-on kill switch and MACE, and PIA makes a clean P2P setup, just point it at a server outside the States.

For heavy P2P users, the combination of unlimited bandwidth, all-server P2P support, and a SOCKS5 proxy option makes PIA one of the more complete torrenting VPNs at this price. The SOCKS5 proxy in particular is handy for routing a torrent client separately from the rest of your traffic. Just remember the two rules that keep you covered: stay on a non-US server, and confirm the kill switch is set to Always before you start a download.

Gaming Performance

Gaming leans on latency more than raw throughput, and PIA is a reasonable, if not class-leading, choice here. On nearby servers, ping stayed low enough for online play to feel responsive, and the strong local download speeds meant game downloads and updates weren't a bottleneck. The advanced kill switch is a quiet bonus for competitive play, since it won't silently drop you onto your real connection mid-match.

The same distance rule applies. Connect to a far server, say to play on a foreign region's servers, and both latency and speed suffer, so keep your VPN exit close to the game server when you can. For casual and most competitive gaming on nearby servers, PIA is smooth. For the absolute lowest ping, a faster provider may shave off a few milliseconds.

One practical use case where PIA shines for gamers is dodging IP-based bans or connecting to a game's servers in another region to play with friends abroad. The unlimited connections help here too, since you can protect a PC, a console via a shared connection, and a phone all at once without hitting a device cap. Just keep your expectations grounded: a VPN adds a hop, so it will never make your ping lower than a direct connection to a nearby server. What it can do is keep that ping stable and your connection protected, and PIA does both well on servers close to home.

Apps & Ease of Use (Windows, macOS, Android, iOS)

This is PIA's most divisive dimension. Installation is straightforward across Windows, macOS, Linux, Android, and iOS, and we had every platform running in minutes. Once you're in, the apps are consistent from device to device, and the core connect-and-go flow is as simple as tapping the big power button.

The friction is depth. The app interface looks dated and long in the tooth next to newer rivals, and the sheer number of customization toggles can feel overwhelming to VPN newcomers. The saving grace is that sensible defaults are pre-configured, so beginners can ignore the advanced panel entirely and still get a secure connection. Power users, meanwhile, get more knobs than almost any competitor.

The dated look is worth putting in perspective. The interface won't win design awards, and next to a slick modern rival it feels a generation behind, but it's stable, it's responsive, and nothing about it is confusing once you learn where things live. Small things reflect the thought underneath the plain surface. The app opens to a compact tile that expands into the full settings tray, so the complexity stays folded away until you ask for it, and you can pin the tiles you use most to the front so your everyday controls are one tap deep. The system-tray behavior on desktop is sensible too, with quick server switching and a connection status you can read at a glance without opening the full window. We'd take a plain app that works reliably over a beautiful one that hides its settings, and PIA lands firmly in the first camp. Over weeks of daily use, the look stopped mattering and the reliability didn't.

If you're new to all of this, our guide on how to use a VPN pairs well with PIA's defaults. And because the account supports unlimited simultaneous connections, you can install it on every device you own without juggling a connection limit. In a household that runs two laptops, a handful of phones, a tablet, and a smart TV, that difference stops being a spec-sheet line and becomes the reason you never have to sign one device out to make room for another, the way you would on a rival that caps you at eight or ten.

Customer Support

Support is better than PIA's dated apps might lead you to expect. The 24/7 live chat usually connected within about a minute in our tests, with polite, helpful answers rather than canned deflections. For a VPN with this many settings, responsive human help matters, and PIA delivers it.

Alongside live chat there's a searchable knowledge base and email support. Between the documentation and the fast chat, most setup questions, whether about the kill switch, port forwarding, or a specific app, were quick to resolve. The knowledge base is organized by platform and by task, so a question like enabling port forwarding on a specific client lands you on a step-by-step article rather than a wall of generic FAQ text. Email is the right channel for anything that needs a log file or a back-and-forth, and it suits the account and billing questions that don't need a live agent. It's a solid support experience that adds confidence for less technical buyers wading into all those toggles.

When we brought real setup questions to the chat, the agents stayed on topic and pointed us to the right settings rather than reading from a script, and the answers came back fast and from an actual human rather than a macro. For a service with this much configurability, that responsiveness is worth more than it sounds. When you can get a person on chat in about a minute, the intimidating settings panel stops being a barrier, because help is always a click away if you get stuck.

PIA vs Competitors

So how does PIA stack up against the two names people cross-shop it with most, NordVPN and ExpressVPN? The table below lays out the head-to-head on the specs that decide most purchases. Prices are the cheapest advertised long-term rates and shift with promotions.

Each of these services has a genuine claim to make, so the right pick depends on what you value. All three run audited no-logs policies and unblock the major streaming platforms, so those baseline boxes are checked across the board. The differences that actually move a decision are price, speed, coverage, and connection limits, which is what the comparison focuses on.

Comparison of PIA, NordVPN, and ExpressVPN

Product	Cheapest price	Servers	Countries	Connections	No-logs audit	Buy
Private Internet Access ★★★★★★★★★★8.2/10Rated 8.2 out of 10 Top pick	$2.03/mo (2-yr)	~29,650+	90+	Unlimited	Deloitte 2022	Check price →
NordVPN ★★★★★★★★★★8.7/10Rated 8.7 out of 10	~$3.49/mo (2-yr)	6,000+	111	10	PwC + Deloitte	Check price
ExpressVPN ★★★★★★★★★★8.4/10Rated 8.4 out of 10	~$2.99/mo (28-mo)	3,000+	105+	8	KPMG + Cure53	Check price

The pattern is clear. PIA wins on price, raw server count, and connection limit, where unlimited devices beats Nord's 10 and Express's 8 outright. NordVPN pulls ahead on speed and breadth of country coverage, and ExpressVPN leans on a strong audit history and simple apps. If your priority is value and control, PIA is the pick. If it's peak speed or the most polished experience, the pricier rivals earn their premium. You can weigh them yourself against our full NordVPN review and ExpressVPN review, plus alternatives like Surfshark, Proton VPN, and Mullvad.

Common Buying Mistakes

A few missteps trip up PIA buyers, and all are easy to avoid. The first is judging speed off a single server. As we found, two servers in the same country can differ by hundreds of megabits, so if your first connection feels slow, switch before you write the service off.

The second is buying the monthly plan long-term. At $11.99 the monthly rate is fine for a short stint, but it throws away PIA's biggest advantage. The value lives in the two-year plan. The third is assuming the trial covers desktop; the 7-day free trial is mobile-only, so on a computer you'll find the 30-day money-back guarantee is your real trial instead. Finally, don't overlook the renewal price. The intro rate is a first-term deal, so note when your plan renews and revisit it before it does.

If you'd rather not pay at all, it's worth understanding the trade-offs first. Our roundup of the best free VPNs, tested explains why free options come with real limits, and why a cheap paid plan like PIA's often beats them.

One more mistake worth naming: buying a VPN before you know what you want it for. If your goal is streaming, prioritize server locations and unblocking reliability. If it's privacy, weigh the audit history and jurisdiction. If it's torrenting, look at P2P support and port forwarding. PIA happens to cover all three competently, which is part of why it's such an easy default recommendation, but knowing your own priority first will always lead to a better-fitting choice.

Final Verdict: Is PIA Worth It?

After weeks of testing, PIA lands as a strong buy for the right person, and the strength of the case rests on a specific buyer profile: someone who values privacy proof and per-dollar features over a slick interface. Its audited, court-tested privacy is the anchor, and the two-year price undercuts every major rival while the streaming held up across the regions we tried. For that buyer, it's excellent value and easy to recommend.

It isn't flawless, and the fit breaks down for a different kind of user. Distant speeds are inconsistent, the interface shows its age, and the US base with Kape ownership will give some buyers pause, though the no-logs record answers a lot of that. If you want the fastest possible connection or the most polished experience, this is where NordVPN or ExpressVPN justify their higher price, and where we'd point you instead. Their apps are cleaner and their peak speeds higher, and for a first-time VPN user that hand-holding can be worth the premium.

So the decision comes down to which of those two buyers you are. Chasing serious privacy on a budget with a fleet of devices to cover? PIA is one of the smartest value picks on the market, and the audit and court record give its no-logs claim real weight. Want the fastest, friendliest experience and willing to pay for it? Take the fallback to a pricier rival. Either way, PIA's 30-day guarantee means you can put our findings to the test on your own connection before you commit.

Our top pick

Private Internet Access

Audited no-logs privacy, a huge server network, and the lowest long-term price of any major VPN we tested.

$2.03/mo

Check price →

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