Most "best VPN in India" pages quote a monthly figure and stop there. The monthly figure is almost never what you pay. This article records what NordVPN, Surfshark, Proton VPN, Mullvad, NordLayer, Tailscale and others actually publish on their own pricing pages, in the currency they publish it in, and explains the renewal mechanic that turns a $2.49 plan into a very different annual bill.
Prices below were read from the vendors' own pricing pages in September 2026. Promotional pricing changes often, sometimes weekly. Treat the structure as durable and re-check the numbers before you buy.
The first thing to understand: none of the big three publish rupee prices on their pricing pages
NordVPN's pricing page quotes US dollars and adds "GST may apply". Surfshark's quotes US dollars and adds "VAT may apply". Neither page shows an INR figure to a plain request. So when you search "nordvpn price in india" or "surfshark vpn price in india", the honest answer is: the vendor publishes a USD price, your card issuer converts it, and Indian GST is added on top at checkout. Anyone showing you a precise rupee figure has either converted it themselves or is reading a localised checkout page that may not match yours.
We do not convert currencies here. The dollar and euro figures below are the published ones.
NordVPN pricing, including the renewal price
NordVPN is unusually transparent about renewals — it prints the renewal price next to the promotional one, which most competitors do not. On the 2-year plans:
| Plan | Intro price (per month) | Intro total | Renews at |
|---|---|---|---|
| Basic | $3.49/mo | $94.23 for the first 27 months | $139.08/year |
| Complete | $4.39/mo | $118.53 for the first 27 months | $219.48/year |
| Complete Max | $6.39/mo | $172.53 for the first 27 months | $301.08/year |
The 1-year plans start higher: Basic $5.39/mo ($64.68 for the first 12 months), Complete $6.39/mo ($76.68), Complete Max $8.29/mo ($99.48) — all renewing at the same annual figures above. Monthly Basic is listed at $14.69/mo with no discount.
Read that table again. Basic's headline is $3.49/mo, but the renewal is $139.08 a year — roughly $11.59 a month equivalent. That gap is the entire business model, and it is the single most useful number on the page.
What separates the tiers is not the VPN. All three include the same "secure, fast VPN". Complete adds next-gen antivirus, dark web and identity monitoring, call and message protection, an ad and tracker blocker, a password manager and 1 TB of cloud storage. Complete Max adds a dedicated IP. If you already run a password manager and endpoint protection, you are paying twice — compare against /software/nordpass, /software/1password-business and the wider /categories/cybersecurity listings before you buy a bundle.
See the product page: /software/nordvpn.
Surfshark pricing — and the renewal number it does not print
Surfshark's 24-month pricing page lists:
| Plan | Price | Charged now |
|---|---|---|
| Starter | $2.49/mo | $67.23 for the first 27 months (was $444.15) |
| One | $2.79/mo | $75.33 for the first 27 months (was $511.65) |
| One+ | $4.49/mo | $121.23 for the first 27 months (was $589.95) |
All three carry a 30-day money-back guarantee, and Surfshark's differentiator is unlimited simultaneous devices — it does not cap connections per account, which matters for a family or a small founding team sharing one subscription.
The important omission: the pricing page tells you that on renewal "you will be charged the applicable renewal price" without saying what that price is. NordVPN prints its renewal figure; Surfshark does not. That does not make Surfshark expensive — it makes the second year unknowable until your card is charged. If you buy it, put a calendar reminder 25 months out.
Product page: /software/surfshark.
Proton, Mullvad and flat pricing
Proton VPN's pricing page loads its prices dynamically, so a plain read of the page returns placeholder text rather than a figure. We therefore quote no Proton VPN price here — check it at the source. What the page does state plainly is the free tier's shape: one device at a time, medium speed, and servers in 10 countries, against 140+ countries on paid plans. Proton's free tier is genuinely usable and does not run ads.
Mullvad takes the opposite approach to everyone else: a flat €5 per month whether you buy one month, one year or a decade, VAT included, with no introductory rate and therefore no renewal shock. Its pricing page states the rate has not changed since launch in 2009 and shows equivalents including $5.71. There is no tier ladder, no bundle, no upsell. For anyone who finds the promo-then-renew cycle exhausting, that is the point.
Compare: /software/proton-vpn, /software/mullvad-vpn, /software/expressvpn.
On "wireguard vs proton wireguard" and "mega proton"
WireGuard is an open protocol, not a product. "Proton WireGuard" is simply Proton VPN's implementation of it inside its own apps, with its own servers and key handling — the cryptography is the same WireGuard; what differs is who runs the servers, what they log, and what jurisdiction they sit in. Choosing "WireGuard" versus "Proton's WireGuard" is really choosing a provider, not a protocol.
Similarly, people comparing MEGA and Proton are usually comparing encrypted storage, not VPNs. Proton sells storage separately as Proton Drive (/software/proton-drive) and encrypted mail as /software/proton-mail; the VPN subscription is its own thing. Do not buy a VPN plan expecting the storage, or vice versa.
What a business actually gets from a consumer VPN: less than you think
A consumer VPN encrypts traffic between a device and the provider's server and hides the device's IP from the sites it visits. That is useful on untrusted Wi-Fi and for accessing region-locked services. It does not authenticate users, does not segment access to internal systems, does not stop phishing, and does not protect a laptop that is already compromised. If your reason for buying is "internet security", a VPN is one narrow control among several — endpoint protection, a password manager and MFA usually buy more safety per rupee. The /categories/cybersecurity and /categories/it-management listings on App Advisor cover those adjacent tools.
India's CERT-In logging directions and what they mean for VPN providers
The CERT-In directions issued under Section 70B of the IT Act, 2000 on 28 April 2022 are the reason several VPN providers pulled physical servers out of India. The text is public, and it says three things that matter here:
- Six-hour incident reporting. Service providers, intermediaries, data centres and body corporates must report listed cyber incidents to CERT-In within 6 hours of noticing them.
- 180 days of logs, held in India. All ICT system logs must be enabled and maintained securely for a rolling 180-day period, within Indian jurisdiction, and produced to CERT-In on order.
- Five years of subscriber records for VPN providers specifically. Data centres, VPS providers, cloud providers and VPN service providers must register and retain, for 5 years after a subscription ends: validated subscriber names, the hire period, IPs allotted, the email and IP address plus timestamp used at registration, the stated purpose for hiring the service, validated address and contact numbers, and the ownership pattern of the subscriber.
The directions state that failure to comply may invite punitive action under sub-section (7) of Section 70B.
That last requirement is flatly incompatible with a marketed no-logs policy, which is why providers responded by removing Indian servers and serving Indian users from virtual locations abroad. The practical consequence for you: a provider's "no logs" claim is a claim about its own jurisdiction, and an Indian business subject to the directions in its own right does not escape them by routing traffic through a VPN. Your obligations follow your company, not your packets.
When you need a business VPN or zero-trust access instead
The moment more than a handful of people need access to internal systems, consumer VPN subscriptions stop scaling: there is no central user directory, no way to revoke one person's access, and no record of who reached what. Published business pricing is far more legible than consumer pricing, because there is no promotional game:
| Product | Published price | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| NordLayer Lite | $8 per user/month | 5 users minimum; dedicated-IP server +$40/month |
| NordLayer Core | $11 per user/month | Adds basic network access control |
| NordLayer Premium | $14 per user/month | Granular segmentation, site interconnect |
| NordLayer Enterprise | From $6 per user/month | 200 users minimum, quoted |
| Tailscale Standard | $8 per user/month | Unlimited users |
| Tailscale Premium | $18 per user/month | Up to 300 ACL groups |
NordLayer charges in USD and adds applicable local tax, and offers endpoint add-ons at $2 per device/month and $9 per device/month. Tailscale's free tier covers up to 6 users and unlimited personal devices, and it sells a Mullvad add-on at $5 per month for every 5 devices — which is how a mesh network and a privacy VPN coexist without conflicting routes.
The deeper shift is architectural. A traditional VPN puts a device inside the network; zero-trust network access grants one identity access to one application, checks it every time, and logs it. If you are buying access control rather than IP-hiding, look at /software/nordlayer, /software/tailscale, /software/twingate, /software/perimeter-81, /software/cloudflare-one and /software/zscaler, and pair them with an identity provider such as /software/okta or /software/jumpcloud. Teams that want to self-host the tunnel rather than rent it still use /software/openvpn.
Practical buying rules
- Compare renewal prices, not intro prices. A three-year cost model is the only fair comparison. Where the vendor does not publish a renewal price, treat that as a risk, not a bargain.
- Buy the tier, not the bundle. If the antivirus and password manager in a bundle duplicate tools you already pay for, the cheaper tier plus your existing stack usually wins.
- Expect GST on top. Indian buyers pay tax added at checkout on a USD base.
- If the requirement is employee access to company systems, do not buy consumer VPN seats. You will migrate within a year.
FAQ
What is NordVPN's price?
NordVPN's published pricing page lists 2-year plans at $3.49/mo (Basic), $4.39/mo (Complete) and $6.39/mo (Complete Max), charged as $94.23, $118.53 and $172.53 for the first 27 months. The renewal prices are higher: $139.08, $219.48 and $301.08 per year respectively. One-month Basic is $14.69.
What is NordVPN's price in India, in rupees?
NordVPN does not publish an INR price on its pricing page; it quotes USD and notes that GST may apply. Your final rupee amount therefore depends on your card's conversion rate plus Indian GST added at checkout, so no fixed rupee figure can be quoted honestly.
What is Surfshark's price, and its price in India?
Surfshark's 24-month pricing is $2.49/mo for Starter, $2.79/mo for One and $4.49/mo for One+, billed as $67.23, $75.33 and $121.23 for the first 27 months, with VAT possibly applying. Like NordVPN, Surfshark publishes no INR price; Indian buyers pay the USD amount plus applicable tax.
What are NordVPN's charges after the first term?
After the promotional term, NordVPN states on its own pricing page that plans renew at $139.08/year for Basic, $219.48/year for Complete and $301.08/year for Complete Max. Those renewal figures, not the monthly headline, are what you will pay from year three onward on a 2-year plan.
WireGuard vs Proton WireGuard — what's the difference?
There is no cryptographic difference: WireGuard is an open protocol and Proton VPN implements it in its own apps. What you are choosing between is a self-run WireGuard tunnel and a commercial provider's servers, jurisdiction, logging policy and app features — not two different protocols.
Does India's CERT-In rule mean VPNs keep logs of me?
It means providers covered by the directions must retain subscriber records — validated name, hire period, IPs allotted, registration email, IP and timestamp, stated purpose, address, contact numbers and ownership pattern — for five years after a subscription ends, plus 180 days of ICT logs held in India. Several providers responded by withdrawing physical servers from India and serving Indian users from abroad.
Sources
Every figure above was read from the vendor's own pricing page or the official government document, listed below.
