Astrill VPN refund policy: no money-back guarantee and what to do instead

Astrill VPN does not refund your subscription money. The service's refund window is 0 days, and the terms state outright that all sales are final. It also specifically says your money will not come back because of device incompatibility or because your internet provider blocks the VPN. The service does not publish any special rules for monthly plans, purchases through the App Store and Google Play, or unused time.

Routers are the only exception

Pre-configured Astrill routers come with a 6-month warranty: a faulty device will be replaced or you will receive credit to your Astrill account. There is no cash refund here either.

How to test the service without risking a yearly payment

There is no free trial, so the closest thing to one is the shortest plan. A month costs $30, a year $180 ($15 per month), two years $300 ($12.5 per month). A mistake with the monthly plan will cost you $30; with the two-year plan, ten times more.

Spend your test month on the things a refund would not cover anyway. Connect every device you plan to use the VPN on: there are apps for Windows, macOS, Linux, iOS and Android, while the service publishes nothing about apps for TVs. Then test your own network. Astrill advertises that it works on restricted networks and in heavily censored countries, yet its own site notes that OpenVPN is blocked in China; for networks like these it offers its own StealthVPN protocol, which masks your traffic. If StealthVPN fails as well, you have lost a month, but at least you stop paying after that.

Yearly and two-year plans renew at the same price, and cancelling with Astrill simply means you stop using the service; what you have already paid is not returned. How to avoid the next charge is covered in the guide to cancelling Astrill VPN.

How the refund terms affect the score

Astrill scores 1.3 out of 10 with us for pricing and terms. Besides the high price and the missing trial, it loses points for the zero-day refund window and for publishing no refund rules for monthly plans or unused time. The full wording is in Astrill's refund policy. If buying without a guarantee feels wrong, look at VPNs with a 30-day money-back guarantee.