NordVPN vs ExpressVPN vs Mullvad: what a VPN actually costs after year one

Mullvad doesn't play the game the other two are built around. It's a flat €5/month — about $5.44 — no discount tiers, no two-year plan, no promo code, and critically, **no renewal price increase**. What you pay in month one is exactly what you pay in month thirteen and month thirty-seven.

NordVPN and ExpressVPN both run the industry-standard playbook instead: an attractive multi-year rate to get you signed up, followed by a renewal price that jumps considerably once the intro term ends. NordVPN's month-to-month Basic plan is $12.99 — more than double Mullvad's flat rate — and that's before you look at what a lapsed long-term plan renews at. ExpressVPN's range runs $3.49 to $22.99 depending on term length and tier, and its own renewal-from-year-three pricing is, by its own numbers, higher than Mullvad's flat rate.

| | Monthly (flat, no promo) | Renewal price changes? |
|---|---|---|
| Mullvad | €5 (~$5.44) | never — same price always |
| ExpressVPN | up to $22.99 | yes, rises after intro term |
| NordVPN | $12.99 (m2m) | yes, rises after intro term |

The trade-off for Mullvad's honest pricing is a smaller feature set and a barer-bones app — no elaborate streaming-unblock claims, no bundled password manager, no antivirus upsell. NordVPN and ExpressVPN both build a broader security suite around the VPN core and put real engineering into unblocking geo-restricted streaming libraries, which is genuinely what a lot of subscribers are actually paying for.

If price predictability is what matters to you — you want to know the bill in year three without doing math — Mullvad is the only one of the three that guarantees it. If you want streaming access and a fuller app with support for it, NordVPN or ExpressVPN are still the stronger picks, but put a calendar reminder on your renewal date, because that's when the real price shows up.