The best VPN for small businesses in 2026: Expert tested and reviewed

Your team is scattered across home offices, coffee shops, and client sites. Every time someone jumps on public Wi-Fi or accesses company files remotely, that data is exposed. A good business VPN encrypts that traffic and keeps sensitive information out of the wrong hands.

The hard part is picking the right one. Business VPNs range from lightweight consumer tools to full-blown enterprise platforms with Zero Trust architecture, with the price difference between them being significant. I tested the top VPN options so you can cut through the noise.

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What is the best VPN for small businesses right now?

My pick for the best small-business VPN right now is Surfshark. For just $1.99 a month on a two-year Starter plan, it covers unlimited simultaneous device connections across your entire team. That kind of coverage at that price is genuinely rare.

Also: The best VPN services: Expert tested and reviewed

The best VPN for small businesses of 2026

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Surfshark’s Starter plan gets you unlimited devices, 4,500+ servers, ad-blocking, split tunneling, IP rotation, and a no-logs policy — all for $1.99 a month on a two-year commitment. For a small team where everyone’s running a laptop, phone, and tablet, the unlimited connection policy alone saves you from doing awkward per-seat math. That’s not something most VPNs offer at this price.

Setup took me under 10 minutes. The desktop app is clean, server selection is two clicks, and I didn’t need to consult any documentation. If you’re handing this to a non-technical employee, they’ll be up and running without hand-holding.

Review: Surfshark VPN

The main catch is the renewal rate. After two years, Surfshark renews at $79 per year (around $6.58 a month), which is still competitive but a noticeable jump from the intro price. It also doesn’t offer the centralized admin tools that larger teams might need. For a small business that just wants solid, no-fuss protection, though, it’s the easiest win on this list.

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If your business handles regulated data, Proton VPN deserves a serious look. It operates under Swiss jurisdiction, which provides stronger legal privacy protections than most other countries, and every app is open-source and independently audited. That kind of transparency is not something you commonly find in this category.

Business plans start at $6.99 per user per month on annual billing or $12.99 per user per month for the full Proton Business Suite. The Suite is worth paying attention to, because it bundles VPN access with Proton Mail, Calendar, Drive, and Pass in a single subscription. For a small team already paying separately for those tools, the consolidation could add up to meaningful savings.

Review: Proton VPN

Secure Core routes your traffic through hardened servers in Switzerland, Iceland, or Sweden before exiting to the destination, which adds a useful extra layer of protection for sensitive sessions. It slows things down a little, but the tradeoff is worth it for high-risk use cases. I also appreciated the 14-day free trial, which requires no corporate card upfront — plenty of time to properly evaluate the platform.

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Screenshot by Kennedy Otieno/ZDNET

NordLayer is built specifically for businesses, and the difference from a consumer VPN is obvious the moment you log in. The admin dashboard gives you clear visibility into users, active sessions, and gateway health, and adding new team members is a genuinely fast process. I had a test organization up and running in about 10 minutes, which matched the company’s own claim.

Plans are structured around what your team actually needs. Lite covers basic VPN access and centralized billing. Core adds biometric authentication, auto-connect, and site-to-site capabilities. Premium unlocks network segmentation, API access, and SSO integrations with providers like Azure AD and Okta. Pricing starts at $8 per user per month on an annual plan, with a minimum of five users. That minimum is lower than many competitors, which often require 10 or 20 seats to start.

Also: NordLayer set to release a new security-focused browser for the enterprise

NordLayer also meets SOC 2 Type 2, ISO 27001, PCI-DSS, HIPAA, and GDPR standards, which matters if you’re in a regulated industry. For a growing business that wants to build proper security infrastructure now rather than retrofit it later, this is the most mature option on the list.

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Screenshot by Ritoban Mukherjee/ZDNET

OpenVPN is the open-source protocol that underpins much of the VPN industry, but now the company offers it as a managed business product under CloudConnexa. The free Starter plan covers up to three seats with core VPN and Zero Trust networking features, with no credit card required. The Essential plan at $7 per seat per month adds LDAP/SAML integration, IPsec support, SIEM log streaming, a public API, and 24/7 priority support. Premium at $9.50 per seat goes further with SCIM provisioning, advanced access controls, a dedicated account manager, and a 99.9% uptime SLA.

The big appeal here is transparency. Because the protocol itself is open-source, security-conscious teams can audit the underlying code in a way that’s simply not possible with proprietary solutions. CloudConnexa also supports micro-segmentation, content filtering across 40+ categories, and built-in threat defense against malware, phishing, and DDoS.

That said, this is not a point-and-click experience. Setting up OpenVPN properly, especially the Access Server self-hosted option, takes real technical work, and the interface lags behind competitors in polish. For teams with a dedicated IT person who values configurability, it’s a compelling pick. For everyone else, the learning curve will be frustrating.

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ExpressVPN has been one of the most reliable VPNs on the market for years, and a significant pricing overhaul in late 2025 made it far more competitive. The new Basic plan starts at $2.44 per month on a two-year plan with four extra months included. There are also Advanced and Pro tiers that add a password manager, identity monitoring, and a dedicated IP, giving you a clear upgrade path as your needs evolve.

Speed is where ExpressVPN earns its reputation. The proprietary Lightway protocol is purpose-built for fast, stable connections, and it performed consistently in my tests even when switching between servers. The TrustedServer infrastructure runs entirely on RAM, which means no data is written to hard drives and everything is wiped on every reboot. That, combined with an audited no-logs policy, is a credible privacy setup.

Review: ExpressVPN

The honest caveat here is that ExpressVPN is a premium consumer VPN, not a purpose-built business platform. There’s no team dashboard, no SSO, and no ZTNA. For a solo business owner or a very small team that just wants a fast, trustworthy VPN with minimal friction, it’s an easy recommendation. If you need management tooling or compliance documentation, look at NordLayer or Proton instead.

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VPN platform	Starting cost	Customizable?	Integrations	Easy to use?
Surfshark	$1.99/month (2-year Starter plan)	Limited	Not natively; manual setup available	Yes
Proton VPN	$3.59/month (2-year Plus) / $6.99/user/month (Business, annual)	Moderate	Supported on business plans: SSO, Proton suite	Yes
NordLayer	$8/user/month (annual, 5-user minimum)	Highly customizable	Supported: Okta, Azure AD, Google Workspace, JumpCloud	Yes
OpenVPN	Free (up to 3 seats) / $7/seat/month (Essential)	Highly customizable	Supported: LDAP, SAML, IPsec, SIEM log streaming	Requires some IT knowledge
ExpressVPN	$2.44/month (2-year Basic plan)	Limited	Not natively supported	Yes

Choose this VPN…	If you want or need…
Surfshark	The most affordable coverage for unlimited devices, with solid security and no per-seat cost structure. Great for lean teams on a tight budget.
Proton VPN	A privacy-first VPN with Swiss-based legal protections, open-source transparency, and the option to bundle email, calendar, and storage. Best for compliance-focused businesses.
NordLayer	A dedicated business security platform with ZTNA, SSO, centralized management, and documented compliance support. Best for teams investing in proper security infrastructure.
OpenVPN	A highly configurable, open-source VPN available self-hosted or cloud-deployed. Best suited for technically capable teams that value transparency and deep customization.
ExpressVPN	A premium, fast, and polished VPN for solo owners or very small teams who prioritize performance and reliability over business management features.

The right VPN isn’t just about encryption. It’s also an operational decision, and the needs of a five-person team look very different from those of a 40-person distributed company.

Pricing model (per-seat vs. flat rate): Consumer VPNs like Surfshark and ExpressVPN charge a flat monthly rate covering all your devices. Business platforms like NordLayer bill per user, which scales costs quickly as headcount grows. Think ahead about which model fits your trajectory.
Centralized team management: If you’re managing more than a handful of employees, you need admin controls, user provisioning, and visibility into who’s connected. NordLayer and OpenVPN CloudConnexa provide this natively. Surfshark and ExpressVPN largely don’t.
SSO and identity integration: For teams already using Azure Active Directory, Okta, or Google Workspace, SSO support makes onboarding and offboarding much faster. NordLayer (Core and Premium), OpenVPN Essential, and Proton VPN Business all support SAML-based SSO. The others don’t.
Compliance requirements: If you operate in healthcare, finance, or any regulated space, you need a VPN that can document its compliance posture. NordLayer holds SOC 2 Type 2, ISO 27001, HIPAA, and GDPR certifications. Proton VPN’s Swiss legal jurisdiction adds another layer of protection on top of its technical controls.
Deployment complexity: Consumer VPNs install in minutes. Business platforms like OpenVPN Access Server can take days to configure without in-house IT resources. Be realistic about what your team can actually manage on an ongoing basis.
Kill switch and leak protection: This feature cuts your internet connection if the VPN drops unexpectedly, preventing your real IP from leaking. All five tools on this list include it, but it’s worth double-checking that it’s enabled by default in your settings.
Server network and geographic coverage: Broader server coverage means better speeds and fewer connection headaches, especially for teams that travel or work across multiple countries. ExpressVPN covers 105+ countries; Proton VPN reaches 120+.

When I built this list, I focused on a few things: pricing transparency, ease of deployment for non-IT teams, and the quality of business-specific features like centralized controls and SSO. I’ve spent most of my journalism career analyzing and reviewing B2B software.

I set up real accounts and tested each platform across multiple devices, working through both the end-user and admin experience wherever applicable. For slightly more consumer-leaning options like Surfshark and ExpressVPN, the focus was on setup speed, connection stability, and whether a non-technical employee could get going without help. For business-specific platforms like NordLayer and OpenVPN, I paid closer attention to the admin dashboard, access controls, and how realistic the onboarding process actually felt.

Pricing documentation was verified directly from vendor sources rather than third-party aggregators. Renewal rates and per-seat minimums often don’t make it onto the headline pricing page, so I specifically looked for those. My goal throughout was to surface the information that actually matters to a small business owner making this decision, not just a list of features.

For very small teams with simple needs, a flat-rate consumer VPN like Surfshark can work just fine. Once you need centralized user management, audit logs, or SSO with your identity provider, a purpose-built business VPN becomes necessary. The gap between consumer and business products is real and meaningful at scale.

There’s always some overhead, but modern protocols like WireGuard and ExpressVPN’s Lightway have made the performance impact much smaller than it used to be. For everyday tasks like email, file sharing, and video calls, most users won’t notice a difference, especially when connected to a nearby server.

A traditional VPN gives authenticated users broad access to the network once connected. ZTNA is more granular — it verifies every connection based on identity, device health, and context before granting access to specific resources. Tools like NordLayer blend both approaches, which makes them a meaningful step up from basic VPNs for growing teams.

In most countries, including the US, UK, EU member states, Canada, and Australia, using a VPN for business is entirely legal. Some countries restrict or regulate VPN use, though. If your team works in or travels to places like China, Russia, or the UAE, check local regulations before deploying.

Other VPNs to consider

Kerry Wan/ZDNET

One of the largest server networks in the industry at 35,000+ servers, with a proven no-logs track record and affordable multi-device pricing for budget-focused businesses.

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Kerry Wan/ZDNET

A simple, privacy-focused VPN for small teams that don’t need complex setup or enterprise features. Reliable, friendly, and easy to deploy.

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