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Free vs paid VPN: who pays the bill

FortiSafe team ·

Running servers costs money, so every free VPN is paid for by someone: through limits that push you to the paid plan, ads, users' data or paying subscribers. Trustworthy free VPNs exist, usually funded by people who pay. What matters isn't the price: it's knowing how the company makes money and what it keeps.

Who pays for a free VPN

How it pays its wayWhat it means for youWhat to check
Limits that lead to the paid plan Less data, speed, devices or countries. The free plan's limits, written on the service's own page.
Ads Ads in the app and, in the worst cases, ads injected into the pages you open. Whether the app shows ads and what the policy says about advertising partners.
Usage data Information about what you access may be used or shared. What the privacy policy says is kept and who it's shared with.
Other users' connections Part of the traffic may go through the connections of other people using the service, not the company's servers. Whether the service mentions a user network, bandwidth sharing or peer-to-peer.
Paying subscribers The free plan exists because other people pay. Whether the company says so openly and has paid plans.

Trustworthy free VPNs exist

Proton VPN says on its own page that its free plan is supported by paying users, with no data or speed limits, no ads and 1 device.

So free doesn't mean bad. The warning sign is a free VPN that doesn't explain how it pays its way.

What a study of 283 Android VPN apps found

  • 18% used no encryption in the tunnel, despite promising security to their users.
  • 16% may have forwarded traffic through other users' connections.
  • 2 apps injected advertising and tracking code into web pages, and one of them redirected online shopping traffic to advertising partners.
  • 4 apps intercepted secure (TLS) connections.
  • The study is by researchers at CSIRO, in Australia, and ICSI, in Berkeley, USA. It was published in 2016, with apps collected from Google Play in 2015; the stores' rules have become stricter since.

What the app stores require today

  • App Store: VPN apps may only be offered by developers enrolled as an organization, must state what data they collect before the service is used, and may not sell, use or disclose data to third parties for any purpose.
  • Google Play: the app must encrypt data from the device to the VPN server and may not collect personal data without prominent disclosure and consent, or redirect other apps' traffic to make money.
  • An APK downloaded outside the official store doesn't go through the review under these rules.

A browser extension isn't a device VPN

Many “free VPNs” are browser extensions. Chrome's documentation describes the interface these extensions use as the one that manages Chrome's own proxy settings.

The change applies to the browser. Your bank app, gov.br on your phone and your other apps keep going out through your normal connection.

What about FortiSafe?

FortiSafe has no free tier and no ads, and no free trial either. Plans start at US$ 2.99 a month, and if you buy on our website you have 7 days from the charge to ask for your money back, no reason needed.

What we keep, for how long and what we don't log is published, with deadlines, on our What we log page.

Sales and apps coming soon.

How to judge any VPN, free or paid

  1. Find out who the company is and which country it's based in.
  2. Read in the privacy policy what's kept, for how long and who it's shared with.
  3. Find out how the service makes money. If you can't tell, be wary.
  4. Download only from the official store or the company's website.
  5. Check that the connection is encrypted and which protocol it uses, such as WireGuard.
  6. Check whether there's a refund, and within how many days.

Sources

Pages checked on 13 September 2026.