The price that got you to sign up is not the price you’ll pay next year. That’s not a scandal, it’s how the entire industry prices its product, but the size of the jump is bigger than most subscribers realize until the bill arrives.
How big the jump actually is
Renewal pricing varies by provider, by plan length, and by which specific promotion you originally bought into, which makes it hard to quote a single universal number. But the pattern is consistent: intro rates on 1-year and 2-year plans are priced to acquire customers, and the renewal rate is priced to retain revenue from people who don’t shop around.
Reported cases in 2026 include 2-year plans renewing at several times the original monthly rate, and annual plans jumping by 50-65% year over year in some instances. The jump tends to be steepest on the deepest initial discounts: a plan that looked like an unbeatable deal at signup is often the one with the biggest renewal shock, because the intro price was discounted furthest below the provider’s actual target revenue per customer.
Why this happens industry-wide
VPN providers compete primarily on the price a new customer sees on a comparison page like this one. That number needs to be as low as possible to win the click. What happens 12 or 24 months later, when the customer isn’t actively comparing prices anymore, matters much less to that same competitive pressure. Auto-renewal being the default (rather than requiring active opt-in) means the provider doesn’t need the customer’s continued active consent to keep charging, only their inaction.
This isn’t unique to VPNs (streaming services, gym memberships, and software subscriptions all use versions of the same mechanic), but VPN pricing pages tend to advertise the intro rate far more prominently than the renewal rate, which is usually only disclosed in checkout fine print or the terms of service.
Want to compare all VPNs side by side? Check our full VPN comparison table with scores across 18 criteria.
The two providers that don’t do this
Mullvad and Windscribe are the notable exceptions in our comparison database. Both charge the same flat rate regardless of how long you’ve been a subscriber, with no intro-discount-then-hike structure at all. Mullvad in particular has built its entire brand around refusing this kind of pricing gimmick: what a brand-new subscriber pays and what a five-year subscriber pays is identical.
The tradeoff is that Mullvad’s flat rate isn’t the cheapest number on the page when you first compare prices, since it doesn’t compete on an artificially low headline price the way discount-then-hike providers do. Over multiple years, though, a flat-rate provider can end up cheaper in total than a discount provider whose renewal price you forget to manage.
How to actually stop it happening to you
Set a calendar reminder before you sign up, not after. The single biggest reason renewal shocks happen is that nobody’s actively watching the account until the higher charge already went through. Put a reminder 2-3 weeks before the renewal date, at the moment you first subscribe, not as an afterthought.
Cancel before renewal, then resubscribe as a “new” customer. Because promotional pricing exists to acquire customers, canceling and signing up again (sometimes with a different email, though this varies by provider’s terms) often gets you back to something close to the original intro rate rather than the renewal rate. Check the provider’s specific policy on this; some restrict it.
Check NordVPN’s current pricing
Ask support directly before canceling. Retention discounts exist precisely because providers would rather offer you a lower renewal price than lose you outright. It costs nothing to ask via live chat what the current promotional rate is and whether it can be applied to your renewal.
Read the terms before you buy, not after you’re charged. The renewal rate is usually disclosed, just not prominently. It’s worth the two minutes to check before the deepest-discount plan tempts you into a longer commitment than you’d otherwise choose.
When it becomes a legal question, not just an annoyance
Auto-renewal at a higher price is standard practice and, on its own, not improper. It becomes a legal issue when a provider fails to clearly disclose the terms at signup or makes cancellation unreasonably difficult to execute before the charge lands. At least one major provider has faced litigation on exactly these grounds in 2026, alleging unclear disclosure and cancellation friction rather than the existence of renewal pricing itself.
The distinction matters for how you should react as a consumer: a price increase you were told about clearly is a business practice you can choose to accept or avoid. A charge you weren’t meaningfully warned about, or couldn’t reasonably have canceled in time to prevent, is a different and more serious problem.
Almost every VPN except Mullvad and Windscribe prices its intro plans well below what it actually charges at renewal, sometimes by several multiples. This isn't inherently dishonest, but it does mean the sticker price on any comparison table (including ours) is only the first year's story. Set a renewal reminder the day you subscribe, and treat the renewal date as a second buying decision rather than something that happens automatically.
Keep reading: VPN 1-Year vs 2-Year Plan: Which Should You Buy in 2026? and NordVPN Lawsuit Over Auto-Renewal Practices.