It seems like ExpressVPN has taken a bit of a beating from us here at Tom's Guide lately. After holding the top spot in our best VPN guide for several years, ExpressVPN fell to third place after our last review for a variety of reasons.

ExpressVPN was really expensive and offered few added extras to justify its high price compared to the likes of NordVPN and Surfshark. Sure, it's perfectly coded, easy to use, very secure, and great for unblocking streaming sites, but in a world where people are always asking for more, it just didn't feel like enough.

But for the first time ever, ExpressVPN has lowered its prices, and that's a big change. With the new two-year plans, monthly fees have dropped to within a few dollars of their biggest rivals, and while still a bit pricey, they are no longer spectacularly so.

More interesting, however, was the introduction of the Identity Defender feature in early November 2024. This is essentially fraud and identity theft insurance, clearly modeled after NordVPN's cyber insurance package. With the all-new NordProtect announced today, I thought it would be interesting to compare NordVPN's pricing side-by-side with ExpressVPN's pricing.

ExpressVPN and NordVPN take very different approaches to pricing, with ExpressVPN preferring to charge slightly higher and offer everything they have to offer, while NordVPN is free to choose what you want to pay for are perfectly happy to do so.

For example, ExpressVPN's 2-year plan (currently $4.99/month) offers:

NordVPN Basic 2-year plan - currently $2.99/month - offers:

As you move up the tiers, NordVPN Ultimate plan, which you can opt for. You'll get: [NordVPN Ultimate offers cloud storage, while ExpressVPN offers personal data deletion services. In fact, this one is cheaper.

Nord Security's all-new product, NordProtect, launches November 11, 2024 and includes cyber insurance and other credit-based protection. It is available through the impressively named NordVPN Prime plan, which at $7.89 per month is much more expensive than what ExpressVPN offers. Note, however, that these features are unique to NordVPN - at least for now.

It is clear that the market has responded favorably to upgraded VPNs that include a large number of other features. For a while, ExpressVPN was left in the dust, with only its high price and slim suite to brag about.

And this is nothing new. I have written before about why VPNs try to do whatever they do. But as a neutral party who puts the privacy of readers first, not the sentiments of the VPN companies, I am glad that ExpressVPN is developing such a tool.

This is the crux of the question, and honestly, it depends on what you are looking for in a VPN: if you are looking for a VPN for Netflix and just want peace of mind while browsing the web, NordVPN's basic plan is cheaper.

Despite the welcome discounts, ExpressVPN is still hampered by a rigid plan structure that offers almost generously everything it has for a single price.

However, if you are looking for a complete privacy suite and are even tempted by NordVPN's Ultimate or Prime plans, ExpressVPN may - if I do say so myself - start to look a bit more affordable in comparison. There is little difference between the two in terms of quality, so if you are guided by price, ExpressVPN may be the way to go.