The free plan yes or no split comes first
Free plan coverage in this group splits cleanly. 12VPN, AzireVPN, Banana VPN and ExpressVPN answer no to a free plan, so a reader watching spend has to weigh the refund window instead. Another group answers yes: Amnezia VPN, Avast SecureLine VPN, ClearVPN, Cloudflare, F-Secure VPN, Google Cloud, Hide Expert VPN and hide.me. The Free VPNs ranking puts that group in one place, and the VPNs ranking shows how the paid tiers line up around them.
Price is the easy part of the question, because a free plan costs nothing at the start. The harder part is what the free plan refuses to do. Speed caps, thin server choice, blocked streaming and device limits all sit behind the paid tier at several of these brands, so a free plan can be a preview rather than a substitute.
The other number worth holding next to it is the refund window, because it is the only protection you get where a free plan is absent. Across the group those windows span 7 days at AzireVPN, 14 at GoodAccess, 31 at FastestVPN, 30 at Astrill VPN and 45 at Betinternet.
What each free plan actually allows
Amnezia VPN keeps its free service narrow: it reaches only blocked websites, offers no location selection, runs at a reduced speed cap, blocks YouTube, allows unlimited data and needs no registration. Unlimited data with no sign-up is unusual, and it is the reason Amnezia VPN suits a reader who mainly wants to reach a blocked site rather than browse anywhere.
hide.me states its free allowance as Unlimited data, restricted speeds, 8 locations, 1 connection. Read that line as a shopping list of trade-offs: data volume is not the constraint there, restricted speed and a short server list are. ClearVPN is narrower still, with the free version covering ad blocking in the app and the free browser extension, while the VPN connection, extra devices and advanced ad blocking sit behind Premium.
Hide Expert VPN takes a different route again: ask for free access by email, get it for a short stretch, and no cap sits on the data you push through it. Two entries here are free for adjacent reasons rather than VPN features. Cloudflare is marked as having a free plan, though its own note for this product says otherwise and puts Email Security on Contract plans only. Google Cloud is marked as having a free plan too, with a free tier spread across many products, each with its own monthly allowance, and a separate credit allowance for new customers.
Trials that stand in for a free plan
Where no free plan exists, a trial or a refund window does the same job for a short while. Avast SecureLine VPN is the clearest case: its free antivirus is free indefinitely and may prompt you to reactivate that free subscription later, it adds its free Cleanup and BreachGuard extras, and the VPN itself arrives as a 60 day trial that needs a payment method to activate. A trial that requires a card is a trial, not a free plan, so keep it separate in your notes. The Avast SecureLine VPN review is the place to read what follows it.
F-Secure VPN offers its standalone tools free, including the Online Scanner, Link Checker and the rest of that set, while the full VPN version runs free for a trial period and then renews annually. That renewal detail matters: a trial that converts automatically is a paid subscription in waiting, not a free option.
The brands with no free plan sit in the same category, only without the trial wording. 12VPN offers 14 days, AzireVPN offers 7 days, and Banana VPN offers 30 days. A longer window gives you more room to judge connection quality on your own network, which is the part no free tier can show you.
Refund windows as the fallback number
Where a free plan does exist, the refund window still tells you how much room you have before paying. AirVPN gives 30 days, hide.me gives 30 days, ClearVPN gives 30 days, and ExpressVPN gives 30 days despite having no free plan. CyberGhost publishes a variable window that reads 14 to 45 days, so the term you are offered can differ from the headline.
At the tight end, Hide Expert VPN lists 3 days, the shortest window in the group, and it pairs awkwardly with a free offer that is already limited in length. GoodAccess and Amnezia VPN both sit at 14 days, while CactusVPN, Goose VPN and Betinternet are more generous at 30 days, 30 days and 45 days.
The pattern worth noticing is that a brand without a free plan often compensates with a longer refund window, while a brand with a free plan often keeps the window at the shorter end. That is the trade-off you are actually choosing between when you start on a free tier.
How to compare the group without getting caught out
Weigh the same points in the same order. Start with price, since a free plan removes the entry cost entirely. Move to limits: read the speed cap, the number of locations you can pick, whether streaming is blocked, whether you must register, and how many devices you can run at once. Features come next, and the gap between the free and paid tier is usually where streaming and multi-device use live. Weigh reliability last, because a free tier rarely behaves like the tier you would pay for.
Then check the fine print shape of each offer. A trial that needs a payment method, a free antivirus that prompts you to reactivate later, and a free access period granted on request all behave differently, and only a plan you can keep for nothing costs you nothing at all.
Once you have those answers, the per-brand review pages carry the detail on connection behaviour, and the VPNs ranking lets you line the paid tiers up against each other before you commit to anything longer than a free plan.