An OK VPN for a Great Price

The iProVPN service is a relatively new entrant to the world of VPN subscriptions, having been launched in 2020. Yet it has been gaining popularity thanks to offering lifetime access deals and smart marketing. However, what does iProVPN offer that would steer you away from other, more established brands? I set out to answer that very question.

Logging policy

No Logs

Mobile app

Android and iOS

Number Of Servers

250+

Price Category

Budget

iProVPN is a competent VPN service with aggressive annual pricing. The software is simple to use, and performance is adequate if not mind-blowing. It would be nice to have servers in more countries, but overall the country list is well spread globally. Its privacy policies are favorable and operations are within the jurisdiction of the British Virgin Isles.

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Speed and Performance

The first thing most people care about when it comes to a VPN is how well it performs. It doesn’t matter if you have lots of neat features if it reduces your bandwidth by 90%. So, I set up the VPN client on my iPhone 14 Pro and ran a series of speed tests using my 5G connection. First, with no VPN active to set a baseline for comparison, then using a server location close to my real physical location (in South Africa), and then to remote servers in major locations like the USA.

For a local VPN server, the reduction in speed is significant but still blazing fast. So, no real complaints there, but once I tried to cross the oceans, of course, things got quite a bit slower. Still, staying north of 50Mbps even with servers on the other side of the planet is totally usable, just not particularly impressive.

Using iProVPN

If you’ve used any modern VPN client app, then there’s nothing particularly surprising about iProVPN’s offering. I put this down in the plus column because I don’t want to spend time learning a new app if I change services. Whether using the desktop client or the mobile client, it’s pretty much a matter of picking the country and then clicking or tapping the connect button.

I only tried the macOS and iOS clients, but there are numerous apps available from iProVPN’s site, along with instructions for running the VPN on devices that don’t have a client app. The mobile app worked correctly right away, but the macOS app didn’t. It would attempt to start the connection and then just stop, with no error message or indication of what went wrong.

Luckily, simply restarting my MacBook seemed to resolve this, so I could get on with using the service.

There’s not much in the way of advanced functionality. You can choose your VPN protocol manually if you like, do basic account management, and access a list of favorite servers. That’s pretty much it. However, you will find an option for Smart tunneling in the app, which is very useful for only having some sites go through the VPN tunnel, while leaving VPN-sensitive sites like your banking page out of it.

I counted 46 countries in the list within the app, which is quite a bit less than many premium VPNs offer, but the spread of these servers seems quite strategic, and there should be a server relatively nearby, no matter where in the world you are.

I had no issues switching regions on streaming apps either, so you don’t have to constantly turn your VPN on and off just to watch some Netflix.

iProVPN Pricing

The pricing for iProVPN is fairly aggressive. The $9 monthly plan is good value for a service that offers a 10-device limit, malware protection, unlimited bandwidth, and access to just about any traffic, including streaming and peer-to-peer networks. As of this writing, the annual price is $32, which works out to $2.66 a month, and there’s a three-year deal for $45.36, which works out to $1.26 a month.

Clearly, iProVPN doesn’t actually want you to take up the $9 plan or the company wouldn’t funnel you so hard to the longer plans, which I actually find mildly worrying because it suggests that perhaps iProVPN doesn’t expect most people to actually use the service that long or use much bandwidth. When you’re four to six times less expensive than other established VPN providers with massive customer bases, such aggressive pricing brings up concerns about sustainability. Then again, it might all be perfectly fine and this is just a way to get lots of users in the short term, and build long-term loyalty at higher pricing later. I’ll leave it up to you to decide.

The only optional add-ons at this time are additional logins in case the standard number doesn’t meet your needs. Overall, the pricing here is excellent, unbeatable even if we exclude the month-to-month option.

Privacy and Security

When it comes to the security and privacy tickboxes, iProVPN offers all the things you want to see on paper:

• It keeps no logs
• Supports the modern WireGuard protocol
• Blocks ads and malware
• Double VPN routing and encryption
• A VPN killswitch to prevent your connection from leaking

Of course, the only thing we have to go on is the company’s word. This is why independent security audits are important, and iProVPN has yet to undergo one, as far as I can tell. I did a basic set of DNS leak tests, and the software passed, but it’s important for security specialists to test these services to make sure they are airtight.

As for the promise of not keeping logs? There is never really a way to fully trust this, so the only advice I can ever give is that you shouldn’t do anything on the internet where logs of your activity could be a problem.

I encountered some concerns on various forums that iProVPN could be a reseller of a third-party VPN service. We posed the question directly to an iProVPN representative, and they stated:

…iProVPN owns and operates its own infrastructure. We do not work with third-party providers for our VPN servers, which allows us to maintain complete control over our network and ensure enhanced security for our users.

This elevates the service from a security standpoint in the sense that we only need to worry about the privacy promises and practices of one entity, and hopefully independent auditing will be happening in future.

Should You Subscribe to iProVPN?

It’s hard to recommend iProVPN at this point in its existence, because the only thing that it really has going for it is a low price. It’s a perfectly competent VPN with a straightforward and unremarkable user experience, but one has to ask whether that’s enough to change providers from one of the more established offerings.

The fact is, until some more time has passed and independent security auditing happens, no one knows whether the stated commitment or technical configuration for privacy holds water.

If you don’t care much about the privacy aspect, this can be an affordable way to buy years of region-unblocking for very little money, and no worries about bandwidth caps. If you mainly want to use a VPN for this purpose, iProVPN becomes much easier to recommend, and you can ask for your money back in the first 30 days if it doesn’t work for you. If not, check out our roundup of the best budget VPNs.

Logging policy

No Logs

Mobile app

Android and iOS

iProVPN is a competent VPN service with aggressive annual pricing. The software is simple to use, and performance is adequate if not mind-blowing. It would be nice to have servers in more countries, but overall the country list is well spread globally. Its privacy policies are favorable and operations are within the jurisdiction of the British Virgin Isles.

Pros & Cons

• Annual pricing is incredibly low
• A favorable privacy policy and juristiction
• No streaming service VPN errors
• Smart tunneling

• Mediocre performance
• Limited country locations