RapidVPN can unblock Netflix but overall its service falls short.
RapidVPN is a small VPN with a basic feature set, but a wide range of plans and pricing options.
The network offers only 18 locations, and they’re not widely distributed: RapidVPN provides 12 in the US, one in Canada and five in Europe (Germany, Netherlands, Sweden, Switzerland, UK.)
P2P is supported, but on the Switzerland and Netherlands locations only.
Protocol support covers OpenVPN, PPTP, L2TP, SSTP and SoftEther (no IKEv2, unfortunately.)
RapidVPN only has apps for Windows and Android (don’t be confused by the iOS RapidVPN app, it’s a different provider), but the setup page also has configuration instructions for iOS, Mac, Linux, routers, Chromebook and more.
The service supports up to 4 simultaneous connections as standard. You can add more, up to a maximum of 99, but it’s expensive at an extra 40% of your base subscription cost per connection. Especially as companies like GooseVPN, Surfshark and Windscribe allow unlimited connections at no extra cost.
Support looks limited, at least compared to the best of the rest. There’s no web knowledgebase or live chat, and customers are directed to a web form with a quoted response time of ‚under 5 hours.‘ We’ve seen worse, but ExpressVPN’s live chat has never even left us waiting 5 minutes.
RapidVPN may not beat the competition on features, but it tramples all over them for pricing options, with more plans and choices than just about anyone else.
The Dynamic VPN plan is the one you’ll probably want, giving you full access to all 18 RapidVPN locations. It’s priced from a low $7.20 a month, but you can also subscribe for two months (and it falls to $6.95), three ($6.17), six months ($4.98) or a year ($3.54.)
A Torrent VPN plan only supports one of the Swiss or Netherlands locations, but even lower prices – from $5.90 billed monthly to $2.99 billed annually – could make it interesting, even if you’ve not the tiniest interest in P2P.
The company offers dedicated IP plans with addresses in Canada,5 European countries (Germany, Netherlands, Sweden, Switzerland, UK) and 12 US locations (Philadelphia, Boston, Ashburn, Bend, Chicago, Dallas, Denver, Garden City, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Miami, Phoenix.)
Dedicated IPs are far more likely to get you access to US Netflix or whatever other service you need in your target country, and far less likely to be blocked in future.
Prices vary depending on location, but they’re never expensive. US dedicated IPs are priced from $7.90 to $10.50 billed monthly, for instance, while European locations range from a monthly $5.90 to $9.50, and they all have similar subscription options to the other plans (1,2,3,6 and 12 month options, with discounts for longer deals, so a $7.90 a month dedicated US IP costs $4.41 over a year.)
A bonus Trust scheme adds extra days if you don’t break RapidVPN’s rules (send spam from your account, use torrents on any servers but Switzerland or Netherlands.) For example, if you have no violations at the end of a 6-month subscription, RapidVPN gives you 20 free days.
You can get a dedicated IP for life, nothing more to pay, from $210 (Philadelphia) to $390 (Chicago) in the US and $144 (Switzerland) to $346 (UK) in Europe. Lifetime plans may look appealing, but you have to trust that you’ll want to use them for a long, long time. A New York dedicated IP costs $52.90 for a single year, and $356 on the lifetime plan, so you’d have to use it for approaching 7 years before you’d get close to seeing any benefit.
Still, we’re happy to see RapidVPN provide the option, and overall, the company offers reasonable prices and a lot of billing flexibility.
Payment options look great, too, with support for card, PayPal, Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, Perfect Money, Web Money and more.
RapidVPN no longer adds extra fees for particular payments types, either (the company used to add 5% for cards,10% for PayPal or Perfect Money,25% for Bitcoin,20% for other cryptocurrrencies.) Now, you’re only charged the standard price, however you’re paying.
There’s one remaining gotcha in the ’30-day money-back guarantee‘, though, which looks generous, but doesn’t apply if you’ve transferred more than 400MB data.
