The intro price is the deal. The renewal price is the actual cost of the service. Tom's Guide measured NordVPN's renewal jump at 241.89% over the intro rate. Surfshark Prime hits 349.78%. The pricing model assumes you won't notice. A reminder 30 days early is how you notice.
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Side-by-side intro and renewal rates from the providers' own public pricing pages.
NordVPN standard plan: first-year cost compared to the renewal year, more than double
CNET, August 2025
measured renewal price hike on NordVPN Basic, comparing the 2-year intro to the standard renewal rate
Tom's Guide, November 2025
Surfshark Prime renewal jump per month compared to the 2-year intro deal
Tom's Guide, November 2025
The intro discount is a customer-acquisition cost. Providers spend heavily on first-year deals because they expect a healthy percentage of customers to renew at the standard rate and never compare prices again. A signup at $2.88 a month becomes a renewal at $14.99 a month, and the difference is profit.
The math depends on you forgetting. The 30-day notification email is technically the warning, but it is also a piece of marketing language that mostly says "thank you for being a customer." The renewal price is usually a single line in the email, and it lands in inboxes that are already saturated with promotional mail.
VPN comparison sites like Tom's Guide, CNET, and Windscribe's own blog have all flagged this pattern publicly. Hide.me's pricing blog admits openly that intro pricing is lower than renewal pricing, with the implication that this is the industry standard rather than an exception.
A reminder 30 days out gives you all three of these. A reminder one day out gives you only the first.
Open billing chat and explain that the renewal price is too high. Many providers offer a discounted renewal rather than lose the customer. Reddit users report getting 30 to 50% off the headline renewal price this way.
Cancel auto-renewal, wait for the account to expire, then sign up fresh at the intro rate using a different email. More steps, biggest savings. Works because intro pricing is restricted to "new customers" but the definition is loose.
Pick a competitor running an intro deal in your renewal window. Black Friday and Cyber Monday usually have the year's best VPN pricing across the board. Switching every two years can permanently keep you on intro rates.
Without a reminder, the renewal happens, the higher price gets charged, and the 30-day money-back window starts ticking. Without a reminder, the only path back to a fair price is asking for a refund and dealing with the dark patterns providers use to keep you subscribed.
With a reminder 30 days early, you have three real options instead of one regret. You compare today's pricing, you talk to support, you switch if it makes sense. The cost difference between a planned renewal and a surprise charge is often $80 to $100 per year per VPN.
For the full reminder setup, see the VPN subscription reminder pillar. To turn off auto-renew before the next charge, see how to cancel VPN auto-renewal.
The first-year price is a discount designed to win the signup. The renewal price is the standard rate the provider actually wants to charge. Tom's Guide measured NordVPN's renewal hike at 241.89% over the intro rate, and Surfshark Prime jumps 349.78%. The headline price you remember is rarely what gets charged on renewal.
After the intro term, NordVPN renews at $179.88 per year for the standard plan. ExpressVPN renews around $99 to $149 per year. Surfshark renewal is roughly $120 per year for the basic plan. Compare that to first-year deals between $24 and $60 and the gap is two to five times.
Sometimes. Two paths usually work. Open a chat with billing support and ask for the renewal discount — many providers offer one rather than lose you. Or cancel, wait for the account to expire, and sign up again as a new customer at the intro rate, often using a different email. The second path takes more effort but often saves the most money.
Start 30 days before the renewal date. That leaves time to compare current intro pricing across providers, look at independent test results for speed and security, and migrate any router or device configs. Black Friday and Cyber Monday almost always run the deepest VPN discounts of the year, so timing a renewal near those windows can save more than the renewal itself.
Most large commercial VPNs do. NordVPN, ExpressVPN, Surfshark, CyberGhost, and Private Internet Access all run intro discounts that reset to a higher rate at renewal. A small number of privacy-focused providers like Mullvad and IVPN charge the same flat rate every month, with no intro pricing to expire from.
Log in to your VPN account and check the billing or subscription page. The renewal date and the renewal price are listed together. Provider terms also require a 30-day notification email before the renewal charge, but that email is easy to miss. A reminder on your own calendar puts the price in front of you on a date you choose.
Set a free reminder 30 days before your VPN renews. You'll have time to negotiate, compare, or switch — instead of paying the renewal price by default.
Set My VPN Renewal ReminderLast modified: