Did ExpressVPN just become a bargain?

Pattern of red price tags over a blue background — (Image credit: Rosa María Fernández Rz via Getty Images)

It feels like ExpressVPN has taken a bit of a battering from us here at Tom's Guide recently. Having held the top spot in our best VPN guide for several years, after our last ExpressVPN review it dropped down to #3 for a variety of reasons.

ExpressVPN was really expensive, and when compared to the likes of NordVPN and Surfshark, it offered fairly few added extras to justify that high price. Of course, it's flawlessly coded, easy to use, very secure and great for unblocking streaming sites – but in a world where people always want more, it didn't feel like enough.

More interesting, though, was the introduction of the Identity Defender feature in early November, 2024. It's essentially fraud and identity theft insurance, clearly modeled on NordVPN's Cyber Insurance package. With today's launch of the brand-new NordProtect, I thought it'd be interesting to compare NordVPN's pricing to ExpressVPN's side-by-side – and the results have surprised me.

Pricing preferences

ExpressVPN and NordVPN take a very different approach to pricing. ExpressVPN likes to charge a slightly higher price and give you everything it has to offer, while NordVPN is perfectly happy to let you pick and choose what you want to pay for.

For example, with ExpressVPN's 2-year plan – which currently costs $4.99 per month – you get:

ExpressVPN
ExpressVPN Keys (password manager)
Adult site blocker
Threat Manager (an ad, tracker and malware blocker)
Identity Defender (personal data leak monitoring, ID theft insurance, data broker removal)

The NordVPN Basic 2-year plan – which currently costs $2.99 per month – offers:

NordVPN
Threat Protection Lite (mobile ad and malware blocker)

A Pair of hands holding an Android phone with NordVPN — (Image credit: Future)

Head up through the tiers, and you can go for the NordVPN Ultimate plan, which tacks on tons of extras, and costs $5.89 per month. You'll get:

NordVPN
NordPass (password manager)
Threat Protection Pro (more powerful ad, tracker and malware blocker)
NordLocker (cloud storage)
ID theft and cyber extortion insurance

Now, the two rival plans are pretty similar – NordVPN Ultimate offers cloud storage, ExpressVPN offers a personal data removal service – which shows that actually, ExpressVPN is beginning to look like pretty good value. In fact, it's cheaper.

Nord Security's brand-new product, NordProtect, which launched November 11, 2024, includes Cyber Insurance and a bunch of other credit-based protections. This is available in the impressively named NordVPN Prime plan – but at $7.89 per month, it's far more expensive than anything ExpressVPN offers. Note, however, that these features are unique to NordVPN – at least for now.

ExpressVPN running on an iPhone 14 Pro — (Image credit: Future)

What's the point?

It's clear that the market is reacting well to upgraded VPNs that have tons of other features included – NordVPN certainly wouldn't be launching all of these extra tools if no one was using them. For a while, ExpressVPN was left in the dust with only its high price and slim suite to boast.

And this is nothing new. I've written about why VPNs are trying to do everything before. But, as a neutral who has the privacy of his readers at heart – not the feelings of VPN companies – I'm glad to see ExpressVPN developing these tools, if for no other reason than fair competition between the market leaders.

Which one is really better value?

This is the crux of the question, and honestly, it depends on what you're looking for from your VPN. If you're just looking for a VPN for Netflix and to give you some peace of mind when you're browsing the web, NordVPN's Basic plan is cheaper – you won't be paying for things you won't use.

Despite the (welcome) discounts, ExpressVPN is still hamstrung by its rigid plan structure that almost too generously offers everything it has for a single price.

However, if you're after a full privacy suite, and you're tempted by the NordVPN Ultimate or even Prime plans, ExpressVPN may start to look – and I can't believe I'm saying it – like a bit of a bargain in comparison. There's very little between the two in terms of quality, so if you're being led by price, ExpressVPN might be the way to go.

Mo has been rigorously testing, reviewing, and analyzing VPN services at Tom’s Guide for more than five years. He heads up the three-person Tom's Guide VPN team, and is passionate about accessibility: he believes that online privacy should be an option that’s available to everyone. NordVPN and ExpressVPN are the products he uses most on a daily basis, but he experiments weekly with all the top services, evaluating their privacy features, connection speeds across various protocols, and server reliability – among other things – so that he can make confident VPN recommendations that are backed by data. To see his latest advice, head over to Tom’s Guide’s best VPN and best free VPN guides.