NordVPN 2 Year Vs 1 Year Plan – Which One Could Fit the Bill for You?

A good VPN service doesn’t have to be super-expensive. Take the case of NordVPN, for example. While NordVPN’s monthly plan’s cost might be a barrier for you (it starts at $12.99), the long-term plans are cheaper than many other equivalent plans of other VPN providers. This brings us to the question of whether the 1-year or the 2-year plan is worth it.

Well, there can’t be an objective answer to this question. However, by the time you finish reading this, you would be able to come out of this dilemma.

Many VPN providers have a straightforward yet tiered subscription model. You typically get access to all of its features for a specific plan tier irrespective of the duration you choose. NordVPN’s Basic plan, as the name implies, only has the VPN functionalities.

Go for Plus, and you get anti-malware protection, advanced browsing protection, ad and tracker blocker, and many other features that you would normally find in top-rated antivirus programs. If you go for the Complete plan, you will get 1 TB of encrypted cloud storage besides all the features of the Basic and Plus plans. The last one is more of a full-spectrum security suite than a VPN.

The thing is, these features do not change depending on which duration you choose. The cost, however, goes down as you move up the duration ladder. In plain terms, you get lower per-month cost when you choose NordVPN’s longer duration plans, such as NordVPN 3 year plan.

NordVPN 1 Year and 2 Year Plans – Can You Find a Better Deal?

When you look at the long-term plans for the top VPN providers, you’ll notice that the month-to-month cost of each of these VPNs is significantly low. However, NordVPN still stands out as the best value-for-money VPN.

At $2.99 a month, you can get the Basic Plan, plus 3 months extra. You will be billed $80.73 upfront too. Sure, it’s not the rock-bottom cheapest option out there – Surfshark cheapest price is $1.99 a month, and with 4 extra months thrown in, you need to pay just $55.72 upfront. However, NordVPN’s no-logs policy have been audited multiple times, and its security suite is one of the best in the industry.

Private Internet Access (PIA) comes in at $2.19 a month. But NordVPN is laden with more features, its speed is a lot better, and its far more reliable.

Open-source ProtonVPN’s 2-year plan, as I found it, is far more expensive than that of NordVPN – you need to pay $4.49 a month (billed at €107.76 for the first 24 months). However, NordVPN still pulls ahead when it comes to reliability and user experience. The only area where ProtonVPN excels is that it has a very good free-forever plan that lets you access all of its features, albeit with limited device support.

ExpressVPN is in many ways a market leader, but it is also the priciest VPNs out there. NordVPN falls in the middle actually. It is a strong contender to ExpressVPN when it comes to features, but it has better speeds, more servers, and a smoother overall experience than a low-cost premium VPN such as Surfshark.

Should You Commit for Two Years or One Year?

As I stated it earlier, NordVPN’s per-month cost for its two-year plan is significantly lower than many of the top-grade VPNs out there. However, the only reason to lock in a flat price for two years (plus wherever extra free months you get) is that you won’t be hit hard by the impending software inflation storm.

As cost of living surged in the post-pandemic world, so did the software prices. Higher costs of electricity, chip shortages, AI investments, and rising wages are driving the software price hike. Software industry inflation was a reality in 2024, and the picture is not going to change soon. You might not be able to find the same price two years or two and a half years down the line.

Of course, you can take advantage of the NordVPN discount codes and seasonal sales, but any changes in core pricing means you would end up paying more during renewal.

To wrap it all up, any NordVPN plan you choose, whether it’s Basic, Plus, or Complete, whether it’s 1-year, 2-year, or even 1-month, should fit in your requirements. If you are a beginner and you have never used a VPN before, you might consider the monthly plan.

If you are all too familiar with VPNs and you have a business, the 2-year plan might be ideal for you. It all hinges on your precise requirements.