With Bitcoin and other alternative payment methods becoming more popular, some users are looking for VPNs and other service providers that don’t require a credit card.
Mullvad is the perfect option for this audience — unlike many other VPNs, they accept credit and debit cards along with Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash, Giropay, PayPal, Swish, bank wires, and more. You can even mail them cash in an envelope along with your payment token. Mullvad currently accepts cash in the form of USD, EUR, GBP, SEK, DKK, NOK, CHF, CAD, AUD, and NZD. With that in mind, they clearly offer the best payment options of any of the cheapest VPNs in 2023.
Mullvad is unique for its incredibly transparent list of servers, which shows their current status along with other information such as the server’s speed and whether it’s owned or rented by Mullvad. They’ve also committed to annual security audits, with the last one taking place in December 2020. While that audit uncovered vulnerabilities, they have since taken steps to address those issues. It’s worth noting that none of the vulnerabilities included information that could potentially compromise user privacy.
Mullvad’s pricing system is simple — 5 euros per month (approximately $5.90), with no long-term commitments and a 30-day money-back guarantee. You don’t even need to provide an email address or any other personal information. The only caveat to that is that they offer a 10% discount for cryptocurrency payments to incentivize more private payment methods.
Mullvad is still only a few years old, but it has quickly developed a reputation in the cybersecurity community. Security-focused reviewers appreciate being able to create an account and open a subscription without providing an email address, credit card, or other sensitive information.