Windscribe
The independent's VPN: founder-owned, no two-year plan on principle, $69 a year that renews at $69, unlimited devices, a $2-a-month London static IP, a $5-a-seat team plan and a 10 GB free tier, with open-source apps, a founder acquitted in a Greek court for having no logs, and one honestly disclosed 2021 server-seizure lapse.
How we testWindscribe (Windscribe Limited, Toronto; founded 2016 by Yegor Sak, Alex Paguis and Mark Ulicki; bootstrapped, no investors; ended all paid marketing and its affiliate programme in January 2021) makes a point of the pricing: "we deliberately don't offer a 2-year plan … just to spike your bill later" and "the price you sign up at is the price you keep." Pro is $9 a month or $69 a year ($5.75 a month), in USD to everyone, and the one-year plan renews at $69. Build A Plan lets you buy individual locations at $1 each from a $3 minimum. Unlimited simultaneous connections on every tier including the free one, which gives 10 GB a month with a confirmed email. The features are broad for the money: WireGuard, OpenVPN, IKEv2, Stealth and WStunnel, an always-on firewall rather than a reactive kill switch, split tunnelling, double hop, R.O.B.E.R.T. DNS blocking with a thousand custom rules on Pro, ephemeral port forwarding, open-source desktop and mobile apps, a Linux app, router configs. Two things a small business wants are here cheaply and honestly labelled: a Static IP in London datacentre space at $2 a month, which Windscribe says plainly is "allocated to a handful of customers" (shared, not dedicated), and which enables permanent port forwarding; and ScribeForce, a team plan at $5 a seat a month from five seats with central billing and a shared static IP, though no SSO or SCIM. There is no device-to-device feature.
The record is unusually candid. On 24 June 2021 Ukrainian authorities seized two OpenVPN servers that were running a legacy stack with an unencrypted private key on disk; Windscribe disclosed it on 7 July, explained the four conditions an attacker would have needed, and moved every key into memory by 20 July. In 2023 the founder was charged in Greece over activity through a Finnish Windscribe server; the case was dismissed on 11 April 2025 because there were no logs to produce, at a cost Windscribe put at "5+ figures". A Dutch server removed without a warrant in February 2026 turned out to be a RAM-only Ubuntu install. There is no ISAE-style no-logs attestation; the closest is Packetlabs' June 2024 audit of the server infrastructure, published in full. Support is an AI bot, tickets answered within a day, a subreddit and Discord (no human chat or phone). Refunds are seven business days and under 10 GB. Trustpilot is 4.7 on 13,286 invited reviews with 2% one-star. Windscribe pays no affiliates; this placement earns Saaskly nothing.
Not yet tested by Saaskly: assessed on published pricing, documentation and third-party reviews.
Pros
- +Flat pricing: no two-year plan, one-year renews at the same $69; unlimited devices, usable free tier
- +London static IP at $2/mo, permanent port forwarding, a $5-a-seat team plan, open-source apps
- +Founder-owned, no paid marketing, candid incident disclosure and a court case won on having no logs
Cons
- −Static IP is shared, not dedicated; no device-to-device network; no SSO on the team plan
- −No ISAE-style no-logs audit (infrastructure audit only); the 2021 seizure exposed an unencrypted key
- −Support is a bot and tickets, no human chat or phone; 7-day refund window; USD billing
Pricing
Minimum commitment: $69 ($5.75/mo × 1 seat × 12 months). The least you can spend before walking away; excludes numbers, minutes and add-ons.
Pro (1-year)
$9/mo · month-to-month
$5.75/mo on an annual commitment
Month-to-month costs 57% more
- ✓Per account, unlimited devices; $69 a year, renews at $69 (no two-year plan by policy); USD shown to UK visitors, VAT not stated; Build A Plan from $3/mo; ScribeForce $5/seat/mo from 5 seats; Static IP $2/mo (London, shared) or $8/mo residential (North America only); free tier 10 GB/mo.
Specifications
| Rating | 3.8 |
| Month-to-month | $9/mo |
| Longest plan, per month | $5.75/mo |
| Renewal, per month | $5.75/mo |
| Renewal premium* | 0% |
| Pricing pattern | Flat |
| Type | Privacy VPN |
| Jurisdiction | Canada |
| Owner | Independent |
| No-logs audit | Packetlabs, 2024 |
| Devices | Unlimited |
| Fixed IP | Paid add-on: $2.00/mo, UK available |
| Device-to-device network | Not offered |
| WireGuard | ✓ |
| Port forwarding | ✓ |
| UK servers | ✓ |
| Business plan | ✓ |
| SSO | No |
| Linux client | ✓ |
| Open-source apps | ✓ |
| API | No |
| MCP server | No |
| Trustpilot (reviews)† | 4.7 (13,286) |
| Countries | 69 |
| RAM-only servers | ✓ |
| Kill switch | ✓ |
| Split tunnelling | ✓ |
| Multi-hop | ✓ |
| Ad / tracker blocking | ✓ |
| Free tier | Usable free plan |
| Money-back (days) | 7 |
| 24/7 live chat | No |
| Support channels | AI chat bot (24/7), Ticket (24 h aim), Subreddit / Discord |
*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.
Researched and drafted with AI assistance; reviewed and approved by Tim Meredith. How we use AI
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