ExpressVPN Review: Is it worth the price?

While NordVPN ultimately claimed our top spot for best virtual private network (VPN), we think ExpressVPN offers a better experience for folks wanting to stream the latest TV, sports, and movies from other countries. ExpressVPN offers tons of tutorials and guides, making it an excellent option for beginners trying out a VPN for the first time.

Still, ExpressVPN isn't perfect. It's one of the pricier VPN service provider subscriptions and offers fewer server options than the competition, despite an expansive list of locations in 94 countries.

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Regardless of the billing period you choose, you'll find the following features in every ExpressVPN subscription:

• VPN server locations in 94 countries
• Support for five simultaneous connections with unlimited bandwidth
• ExpressVPN app for Windows, macOS, Linux, Chromebook, Android, iOS, Kindle Fire, and routers
• Advanced features like a kill switch, Threat Manager, Lightway protocol, and password manager

We like that ExpressVPN offers the same features on every plan, but it's one of the more expensive paid VPNs we've used. You can score a competitive price by opting for the annual plan, which costs roughly $8.32 a month. This is about 35% cheaper than the $12.95 monthly plan.

Unlike the competition, ExpressVPN doesn't offer promotional pricing for your plan's first year or two. It's nice that the pricing is predictable and won't change, but a $40 discount could win over quite a few potential customers as it does on other brands.

ExpressVPN offers an extensive list of servers in 94 countries—more than other top VPNs we evaluated. The next closest competitor is Private Internet Access, with 78 locations. While ExpressVPN doesn't show a ton of servers like NordVPN, there's some customization if you choose different VPN protocols in the settings menu.

The VPN service maintained consistent speeds and video quality during our streaming service tests on Disney+ and Netflix. It also granted access to region-locked content not available in the US. Amazon Prime Video recognized that we were using a VPN provider and prevented streaming access to each server location we tried, but this was the exception rather than the rule.

Although we think ExpressVPN's best attribute is its streaming prowess, it offers some of the most user-friendly tutorials among paid VPNs. For example, we love how the ExpressVPN blog digs into news, safety tips, and educational articles—it's a great way to learn about terminology and current threats to watch out for.

On the support side, the ExpressVPN website is chock full of helpful tutorials explaining how to set up and use your VPN app. Most ExpressVPN setup tutorials include a helpful video showing the process from start to finish, while the rest guide you with plenty of screenshots. If you're still lost after checking out the tutorials, ExpressVPN's 24/7 live chat is an excellent resource. (The ExpressVPN app's super easy to install so you might not need the help.)

ExpressVPN performed well during our speed tests, boasting a median download speed of 121 Mbps compared to 289 Mbps without the VPN service. While this is a significant drop—about 58% slower—from our base connection speed, it's more than fast enough for streaming with practically no buffering.

The drop was less severe for upload speeds, with a median rate around 5 Mbps versus 8.5 Mbps with no VPN connection—only about 43% slower than our base speed. Fortunately, the ExpressVPN server's latency (12 milliseconds) was a big improvement over our home internet (18 milliseconds). With server response times like these, you won't have any problems with gaming and might even see a performance improvement.

While ExpressVPN isn't as fast as NordVPN in our experience, it's still more than capable of keeping up with bandwidth-heavy activities like streaming and gaming. You likely won't notice an impact on everyday tasks like email, browsing, and social media.

ExpressVPN boasts a few features that can help improve your security and VPN performance, but it's not too different from what you'll find with other VPNs.

• Network Lock: This is ExpressVPN's version of a kill switch to shut down your internet connection when the virtual server fails. We didn't see it in action during our testing, but it's a nice security feature to have when working with sensitive data online.
• Lightway VPN protocol: Lightway is a proprietary VPN protocol from ExpressVPN that the company says is faster and more reliable than existing options like OpenVPN. It seemed faster during testing, though it lacked the fast speed of the IKEv2 protocol. (Your experience may vary since VPN performance often depends on your location.)
• Threat Manager: This DNS traffic blocker prevents known trackers and malicious sites from accessing the information on your device. It seems capable of protecting sensitive info but only works with the Lightway protocol, so you lose some security with OpenVPN and IKEv2.
• ExpressVPN Keys password manager: The ExpressVPN iOS and Android apps include a built-in password manager to help you generate and store secure passwords. There's even a browser extension for Google Chrome so you can use it on desktop computers. It's not as flexible as Dashlane or LastPass, but it'll cut down on extra apps if that's your goal.

We think ExpressVPN is an excellent VPN provider for web browsing, streaming, and gaming. While it's not as fast as other brands we've tested, it's above average. At $12.95 a month, it's one of the pricier options available, but you can save a chunk of change with an annual plan.

Check out our list of the best VPN services to see how ExpressVPN fares against competitors like NordVPN and Surfshark.

ExpressVPN is secure and reputable—and has been a major brand in the virtual private network space for over a decade. Like every brand, it has its quirks, but our experience has been overwhelmingly positive. We recommend it to anyone looking for a great VPN server.

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