--- title: "Tailscale review: pricing, pros and cons" description: "The device-to-device network done properly: a WireGuard mesh between your own machines with SSO, SCIM, access policies and an API on flat per-user pricing, free for up to six users. It is not a privacy VPN unless you add a Mullvad exit node for $5 a month per five devices, and there is no fixed IP." canonical: "https://saaskly.com/category/vpn/tailscale" last-updated: "2026-09-07" --- # Tailscale review: pricing, pros and cons > Saaskly verdict: **4.0/5**. The device-to-device network done properly: a WireGuard mesh between your own machines with SSO, SCIM, access policies and an API on flat per-user pricing, free for up to six users. It is not a privacy VPN unless you add a Mullvad exit node for $5 a month per five devices, and there is no fixed IP. - Category: [VPN](https://saaskly.com/category/vpn.md) - Vendor website: https://tailscale.com - Last updated: 2026-09-07 ## Pros and cons **Pros** - WireGuard mesh between your own devices with SSO, SCIM, policy file, device approval and an API, free for up to six users - Flat per-user pricing, no intro deal, no renewal cliff; open-source clients and a Linux CLI - Mullvad exit-node add-on turns it into a privacy VPN when you need one **Cons** - Not a privacy VPN by default; no fixed public IP; no kill switch in the VPN sense - No public audit or bug bounty; closed-source coordination server; no refunds - Email support in US hours; a run of control-plane outages in 2025–26 ## Pricing Month-to-month price first (what you pay without committing), then the annual-commit rate. - **Standard**: $8/mo, same price on any term - Includes: Per user per month, flat, USD, monthly billing; Personal free for 6 users / unlimited devices; Premium $18/user; Mullvad exit-node add-on $5/mo per 5 devices; no refunds; 14-day business trial. Minimum commitment: **$8** ($8/mo × 1 seat × 1 months). ## Specification | Attribute | Value | | --- | --- | | Month-to-month | $8/mo | | Longest plan, per month | $8.00/mo | | Renewal, per month | $8.00/mo | | Renewal premium* | 0% | | Pricing pattern | Per user | | Type | Mesh overlay | | Jurisdiction | United States (contracts); Canada (HQ) | | Owner | Independent | | No-logs audit | n/a (no exit servers) | | Devices | Unlimited | | Fixed IP | Not offered | | Device-to-device network | Core feature | | WireGuard | Yes | | Port forwarding | No | | UK servers | No | | Business plan | Yes | | SSO | Yes | | Linux client | Yes | | Open-source apps | Yes | | API | Yes | | MCP server | No | | Trustpilot (reviews)† | 3.7 (23) | | RAM-only servers | No | | Kill switch | No | | Split tunnelling | Yes | | Multi-hop | No | | Ad / tracker blocking | No | | Free tier | Usable free plan | | Money-back (days) | 0 | | 24/7 live chat | No | | Support channels | Email (9am–6pm ET, Mon–Fri), Paid Silver / Gold support packages, Community (Discord, Reddit) | *Renewal premium: how much more the longest plan costs per month after its introductory term than during it, as a percentage of the intro rate. VPNs advertise the intro rate; you pay the renewal every term after. 0% means the advertised price is the real price. Prices are per month, effective (plan total ÷ months), as shown to a UK visitor on the research date, in the currency the vendor bills UK customers in; see each profile for the VAT basis. †Trustpilot: uk.trustpilot.com TrustScore and review count on the research date. Three cells are weak signals and are shown for completeness: Cloudflare (1.4) is mostly non-customers blocked by CAPTCHAs on other companies' websites and no review mentions WARP; Tailscale (23 reviews) and Mullvad (186) are tiny unprompted samples. NordLayer has no Trustpilot profile, so its cell is blank. ## Our review Tailscale (Tailscale Inc., Toronto; new customers since September 2024 contract with Tailscale US Inc., Delaware; founded 2019 by ex-Google engineers Avery Pennarun, David Crawshaw, David Carney and Brad Fitzpatrick; $160 million Series C led by Accel in April 2025; WireGuard's author sits on its advisory board) is a different animal from the rest of this grid, and the copy has to say so. Each device runs an open-source client; a Tailscale-run coordination server exchanges public keys and policy; traffic then flows device to device over WireGuard, or via encrypted relays when a NAT gets in the way. By default it routes only traffic between your own devices and leaves your internet traffic alone: it is an overlay, not an anonymity tool. Point any device at the internet as an exit node, or buy the Mullvad add-on at $5 a month per five devices, and it becomes a privacy VPN with Mullvad's network behind it (Mullvad never learns who you are). Pricing changed on 8 April 2026: Personal is free for up to six users with unlimited devices; Standard is $8 per user per month; Premium $18; Enterprise custom. All are flat, monthly, in USD, with no intro pricing and no refunds. Subnet routers and app connectors give you site-to-site; Funnel publishes a service on a public hostname, but there is no dedicated public IP product at all. SSO covers Google, Microsoft, Okta, OneLogin, GitHub, Apple, passkeys and any OIDC provider; SCIM for Google, Entra and Okta from Standard up; a deny-by-default policy file, device approval and an API on every plan. Where it is thin: security posture is enterprise-style (a Latacora assessment available on request, SOC 2 Type II under NDA, no public audit and no bug bounty). The coordination server is closed source (Headscale is a community alternative Tailscale does not support). Support is email in US Eastern business hours unless you buy Silver or Gold packages. The control plane has had a rough year: a two-hour outage on 12 August 2025 and, by Tailscale's own January 2026 post, about nine partial-downtime periods in one month. The data plane kept working, but logins did not. Trustpilot is 3.7 on 23 unprompted reviews, too few to weigh. For a small team that wants its laptops, office NAS and cloud box on one private network with proper identity controls, and does not need a country picker, nothing else here comes close. Tailscale has no affiliate programme; this placement earns Saaskly nothing. *Not yet tested by Saaskly: assessed on published pricing, documentation and third-party reviews.* --- Researched and drafted with AI assistance; reviewed and approved by Tim Meredith. 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