Surfshark VPN

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There's a lot to like about Surfshark VPN: unlimited device connections, tons of servers around the globe, speedy downloads, and excellent mobile apps. On the flip side, upload speeds are slower than in previous tests, and the company has raised its prices since our last review. While its new monthly subscription price is the highest we've seen, an annual subscription offers a much lower, more reasonable per-month cost. In a crowded field of ever-evolving and improving VPNs, though, you might want to shop around. If you're daunted by Surfshark's monthly price, you should look to our Editors' Choice winners NordVPN and Proton VPN, which are both more affordable and offer similar features.

How Much Does Surfshark VPN Cost?

Surfshark's monthly subscription costs $15.45. The VPN-only tier is called Surfshark Starter and is the highest-priced monthly VPN we've tested, compared with an average of $10.16 per month among other services. Meanwhile, other feature-rich VPNs like Proton go for $9.99 per month, while Mullvad costs just 5 euros per month ($5.42 at the time of writing). The company does offer a seven-day free trial, but it's only accessible if you sign up on an Android, iOS, or macOS device.

If you access Surfshark on Windows or directly through its website, you will not be able to test the service for free before signing up for either a monthly or yearly subscription. When asked about this, we were told, "Offering free trial option through our website is more challenging due to potential for abuse, however, we are considering this functionality, as that would allow us to reach a much broader audience."

Like many VPNs, Surfshark offers discounts if you sign up for a long-term commitment. An annual plan starts at $44.85 and renews the following year for $59.76. A two-year plan costs $59.13 but renews at that same price every year after the first two. While it's a bit confusing, that annual renewal price is just a bit more than the $57.61 per year average for VPNs we've reviewed, which brings it back in line with its competitors.

Each plan includes three free months, bringing the total to 15 months and 27 months of service, respectively. However, we don't review promotional rates, as we can't guarantee you'll see the same discount when signing up for service on your own. Generally, we advise against starting with an annual or long-term VPN subscription. Instead, use the shortest option—or a free subscription—and test the VPN on all your usual sites and services. Note that when it comes to pricing, our reviews place the most weight on monthly fees, not long-term contracts or limited-time deals.

When we asked about the monthly price increase compared with last year's $12.99 per month subscription, a representative told us, "Our target audience values security and privacy, seeing our service as a continuous necessity rather than a one-time solution. Our priority is to offer affordable long-term plans, with the monthly plan serving as an introductory option."

Long-term plans may save you money, but we always recommend starting with the shortest possible subscription (or a free trial) to ensure the VPN works for you. Due to myriad variables like server locations, local performance, and stream unblocking in your region, the only way to know which VPN is ultimately right for your use cases is to try the service before you commit to it. Only then should you move to a longer subscription plan if you like the service and it meets your needs. If you're already a Surfshark customer, or if the features it offers match your needs perfectly, the price increase won't matter much to you.

You can use the free trial to test things out, but only if you have access to one of the platforms mentioned above. Note that the free trial was added recently and only became available after the monthly price increase.

Alternatively, there are several cheap VPNs and even a few worthy free VPNs to consider. Proton is one of the only free VPNs that doesn't impose a data limit on user traffic. Also, keep in mind that other services, such as IVPN and Mullvad, even accept cash payments, so you can use them without revealing personal information.

While the monthly plan is expensive, Surfshark offers an unlimited number of devices with one account. But so does Windscribe, which only costs $9 per month.

What Do You Get for Your Money With Surfshark?

Surfshark's real strengths are its features. For example, NordVPN and others supply private, static IP addresses, useful when your VPN connection is blocked. Surfshark offers dedicated IP addresses for $3.75 per month and also allows you to access static servers for free, while other providers charge for the privilege. Anyone who uses a Surfshark static server shares an IP address with everyone else on the same server.

Surfshark provides a custom DNS service called Smart DNS and an ad-blocker branded as CleanWeb. Both of these are fairly common features. More rarefied is Surfshark Alert, which is much like HaveIBeenPwned and alerts you to compromised accounts, and a privacy-respecting search tool called Surfshark Search. Note that both Surfshark Alert and Surfshark Search are only available as part of the Surfshark One package. This security suite bundles the core VPN with antivirus for $17.95 per month or $79 per year (discounted to $49.08 for the first year). Surfshark One goes beyond detecting malicious sites, which many VPNs do, and also provides real-time protection and on-demand virus scanning. However, we found these features lukewarm in testing.

Surfshark One's pricing is higher than that of its closest competitor at the moment, NordVPN with Threat Protection Pro. That subscription costs $13.99 per month or $71.88 per year. During our testing, we found Surfshark One prices fluctuating between $15.95 per month (just 50 cents more than Surfshark Starter) and the $17.95 listed above.

While VPNs and the emerging pack of VPN/security suite hybrids are powerful, they can't solve all your privacy problems. There's a wide range of ways to track you online. We recommend using the privacy tools built into most browsers and a standalone ad or tracker blocker. Note also that the free Tor anonymization network makes it even harder to track your online activity. We highly recommend creating unique and complex passwords with a password manager, enabling multi-factor authentication wherever possible, and using standalone antivirus software.

VPN Protocols

There are many ways to create a VPN connection. We prefer WireGuard, as its open-source roots mean it has been picked over for potential vulnerabilities. WireGuard also uses newer technology and is much faster in our tests than other protocols like OpenVPN.

Surfshark offers WireGuard and OpenVPN in its Android, iOS, macOS, Linux, and Windows apps. The IKEv2 protocol is also available on Android, iOS, macOS, and Windows. The service also provides a browser extension that functions as a proxy—meaning it encrypts only your browser traffic with TLS but routes that traffic through its network of servers.

Servers and Server Locations

Surfshark has VPN servers in 100 countries, well above average and more than the 95 countries covered by ExpressVPN and the 85 by Hotspot Shield. That said, HMA has VPN servers in 190 countries, and PureVPN claims to have servers in 140 countries. (There are 195 in the world.)

Having a lot of server locations across the globe to choose from means you're more likely to find one close to home or wherever you might be traveling, and it provides plenty of options for spoofing your location to access geo-locked content.

Surfshark says it relies on trusted third-party data centers to provide its server infrastructure. The company also uses tamper-resistant RAM-only servers. This means if someone were to physically remove the server to access the data inside, the server would be immediately wiped. A blog post from the company details how diskless servers prevent private encryption keys from being stolen from server configurations.

Is Surfshark Trustworthy?

Surfshark privacy policy and terms of service documents are readable by laypeople, with breakout sections explaining concepts in plain English. TunnelBear has a similar approach, and other companies should emulate this practice. However, we noticed some quirks in the latest versions, which Surfshark should address.

In its policy documents, Surfshark stresses that it does not log IP addresses, browsing history, bandwidth usage, or network traffic. That's exactly what you want to hear from a VPN company. The company confirmed to us that it only generates money from the sale of subscriptions, not from the sale of customer data.

The policies also say the company does not log connection timestamps, but that's only partly true. The document goes on to say that the company does log connection time stamps with a user ID but deletes them 15 minutes after you've terminated your connection. This is to prevent someone from abusing the company's unlimited simultaneous connections by connecting absurd numbers of machines. That makes sense, but Surfshark should clarify this contradiction in its documentation. The company does collect some additional information, including anonymized aggregate analytical data, account information, and billing history. While we appreciate that time stamps are deleted, other VPNs police abuse of their services without gathering this information. Mullvad, for example, gathers far less data than its competitors by offering no recurring subscription payments at all.

In 2022, Surfshark merged with Nordsec, of NordVPN fame. The company was previously incorporated in the British Virgin Islands, and a company representative explained that it continues to operate under BVI law for the sake of consistency. Both companies are currently owned by a Netherlands-based holding company called Cyberspace. The company was initially founded in Lithuania and now operates offices in Amsterdam, Berlin, Vilnius, and Warsaw.

The company's transparency report has a live warrant canary. If law enforcement were to contact it for information, the company says it would be unable to identify an individual user.

Many VPN companies commission third-party audits to verify company statements about customer privacy and security. Surfshark was audited twice by Cure53, a cybersecurity firm based in Germany that has audited several other VPN service providers. The first audit, in 2018, focused on the Surfshark browser extension, while the second audit, from 2021, looked at Surfshark's infrastructure and VPN configuration. Finally, in January 2023, the company completed an audit by Deloitte that confirmed Surfshark was complying with its stated policy to not keep user activity logs. While they are imperfect tools, a commitment to audits is a valuable step a VPN can take toward establishing trust. TunnelBear, for instance, has committed to annual audits of its service. We're happy to see the positive results from this latest round and hope Surfshark continues to do such audits in the future.

Hands On With Surfshark for Windows

We tested Surfshark on an Intel NUC 13 Extreme Kit (Raptor Canyon) PC running the latest version of Windows 10. On Windows, Surfshark offers a small, stylish app with flat shades of blue and a smart design that expands and contracts to show more or less information. We especially like that it has a clear, obvious way to get online. It's not quite as user-friendly as TunnelBear, but it's clean in the way the best mobile apps are.

A kill switch feature prevents your computer from sending web traffic in the clear should the VPN become disconnected. Also notable is the option to block or allow local network traffic, which is handy for streaming to other devices or accessing network printers.

We did encounter one noteworthy issue while testing Surfshark. After quitting the application and seeing that Surfshark's app was still running a background process on our machine, we ran a Wireshark evaluation of all traffic coming to and from our test box. During this evaluation, we saw the background process continue to communicate with Surfshark's servers. We couldn't determine what this traffic was or its intended purpose. We asked Surfshark about the issue, but couldn't get a clear answer.

Hands On With Surfshark for Other Platforms

Surfshark is available on many different platforms, including Android, Apple TV, ChromeOS, custom routers, iOS, Linux, macOS, and Windows. You can also use the service via a browser extension on Chrome, Edge, Firefox, and Safari. Surfshark's iOS app is a solid choice for beginner VPN users looking for an attractive and easy-to-use app.

Rather than greeting first-time users with a skippable tutorial, the Surfshark app gives descriptive labels to each element so you can learn how a VPN works. For example, after logging in, you see a white-and-gray dashboard featuring the Surfshark logo and an alert reading “Unprotected: Connect to stay safe.” After tapping the Quick-Connect button, the alert changes to “Protected: Your connection is safe.”

There are also clickable horizontal tabs with labels assuring you that your location is hidden and your online activity is encrypted. When you click the tabs, a window opens, explaining what encryption means and that your IP address is hidden. After opening the app, choose from a list of countries and cities where Proton servers are located.

There is an IP Rotator feature available on mobile and desktop that changes your IP address at various intervals while connected to the VPN. When this feature is enabled, an additional horizontal tab appears on the dashboard, with a timer showing when your IP address is scheduled to change. Other features include auto-connect, a kill switch, NoBorders mode, and CleanWeb, which blocks ads, malware, and trackers while you’re connected to the VPN.

Does Surfshark Work With Netflix?

The majority of streaming services use some form of geo-restriction regarding what you can and can't see on their sites. For example, while some shows are only available on, say, Peacock in the United States, you'd have no issues watching the full series on Netflix in the UK due to local licensing deals with the major studios.

We were disappointed to find that only three of the five servers we tested on Surfshark, including Canada, the UK, and the US, had Open libraries. The others were Limited, meaning Netflix couldn't really tell where we were, and just offered content available in any region, like Netflix Originals. You can read more about how we qualify these results in the chart above, as well as in our guide on how to unblock Netflix with a VPN. And check out our recommendations for the best VPNs for Netflix.

Surfshark Speed Performance

Generally, using a VPN lowers your upload and download speeds while increasing your latency. To understand that change, we calculate a percent change between batches of tests run with a VPN and those without, using the Ookla Speedtest tool. To learn more about how we gather and interpret this data, read our guide on how we test VPNs.

Surfshark performed better in download tests than in the past, where it reduced results by 24.27%, placing it roughly in the middle of the pack. However, its upload results were significantly worse than in our last test. We found that Surfshark reduced upload speeds by 127.96%, a huge jump from its already middling scores of 62.1% from our last test and more than 50% slower than the next slowest result, Hotspot Shield. Its latency numbers did improve, however, down to 41.80% from over 100% the last time we tested. Each of these runs includes 10 back-to-back speed tests, which we ran twice (a total of 20 tests).

The chart below shows how Surfshark stacks up to the competition. We update these results throughout the year with new results and products, so what you see is the latest testing data.

Keep in mind our results are from using this VPN at a particular time of day and in a particular location. Your results will likely differ unless you're also testing from Manhattan during the busiest time of day, which is part of the reason we shy away from recommending a VPN based on speed testing alone.

Verdict: Surfshark Is Solid, But There Are Plenty of Fish in the Sea

Surfshark VPN has a generous unlimited devices policy, letting you hook up as many as you'd like, and the app itself is designed well for novices and experts alike. The service is also stacked with features, but that's to be expected given the cost. While pricing is much better on an annual subscription level, Surfshark showed middling speed test results. Given the large pool of quickly evolving competition, we recommend you check out Editors' Choice award winners NordVPN, which offers even more in the way of features, and Proton VPN, which has equally excellent apps and better speed scores.

Max Eddy contributed to this review.