Surfshark Starter: VPN features, devices and price explained

If you're the kind of person who balks at ordering the house wine, booking economy airline seats or buying non-'Pro' tech devices, the idea of settling for Surfshark's Starter VPN plan may seem an unattractive option.

As you'll discover in this article, however, it's far from an inferior product. In fact, for most people seeking a new VPN to bolster their online security or open up a world of new streaming options, it should prove an ideal low-cost option.

Below we explain what Surfshark Starter is, the features and tools it includes, how much it costs and whether your online security needs would be better catered for by one of Surfshark's more premium plans.

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What is Surfshark Starter?

Surfshark Starter is the VPN provider's entry-level plan, making it the most affordable option available from the company.

It includes Surfshark's core VPN (virtual private network) tool, channelling all of your internet traffic through its encrypted tunnels.

You can use Surfshark on an unlimited number of devices with all of the provider's plans, including Starter. There are apps, clients and extensions available on Windows, macOS, Linux, Android, iOS, Chrome, Firefox, Edge, Apple TV, FireTV and selected Smart TVs.

You get the benefit of AES-256 encryption across more than 4,500 VPN servers across 100 countries.

Surfshark Starter subscribers get a choice of VPN protocols, including OpenVPN, IKEv2 and WireGuard.

What features does Surfshark Starter include?

Surfshark Starter also includes the following features. Some are standard to most other VPN providers, while others go above and beyond the features offered in the entry-level plans of the competition.

Bypasser
This is Surfshark's name for split tunneling. The tool allows you to exclude certain apps or websites from the VPN tunnel.

Take an example where you only want to turn the VPN on to stream something on an overseas Netflix catalog but prefer that the rest of your internet traffic is unaffected, Bypasser gives you that agency over your connection.

Unlike a lot of VPNs that provide split tunneling, Surfshark makes Bypasser available across all the most popular operating systems: Windows, macOS, Android and iOS.

Clean Web
Sign up to Surfshark Starter and you also get access to a suite of blocking tools that restrict the number of ads you see (including video ads) and trackers following you around the internet. It also includes malware blocking.

Installing the Surfshark browser extension for Chrome, Firefox or Edge gives the most effective protection, adding cookie pop-up blocking, WebRTC protection and data breach alerts into the mix.

Dynamic MultiHop
You may know this tool by another name: double VPN. MultiHop channels your internet traffic through not one but two secure tunnels, giving you a double layer of encrypted protection. So if security and anonymity is the name of the game, it's a reassuring feature to have access to.

You can either let Surfshark automatically decide what pair of servers are used, or you can choose them yourself from a selected list of options.

Rotating IP
Thanks to the underpinning of Surfshark's Nexus network infrastructure, it's able to offer Rotating IP – a feature that automatically changes your IP address at regular intervals.

It's a good way to circumvent the kind of tracking and monitoring caused by sticking around on one IP address for too long. That includes incessant CAPTCHA tests, location-based dynamic ticket pricing and, if you're a gamer, DDoS attacks.

Alternative ID
Launched a couple of years ago, Alternative ID remains a tool that's exclusive to Surfshark, and the provider continues to make it available as part of its entry-level Starter package.

If you're fed up of entering your personal details to set up yet another online account every time you want to stream something or read some content, this is the tool for you. It generates a sham email address, name, birth date and address for you to use, thus narrowing the amount of third parties you're giving your details to.

How good is Surfshark Starter?

Put simply, Surfshark is one of the very finest VPN providers currently out there – and that's in a very crowded market.

At the time of publication, it sits at position #2 in our chart of the overall best VPNs and, in our latest Surfshark review, we gave it an impressive rating of 4.4 out of 5.

Some of the elements that most impressed us about Surfshark during our latest testing included:

• Speed and performance: Surfshark's connection speeds aren't just fast; they're so fast that the provider tops the list of the fastest VPNs for outright speed. We recorded a performance of 848 Mbps when using a 1 Gbps line and connecting to a local UK-based server. It means that you're extremely unlikely to hit any lags when Surfshark is connected. Speed and performance score: 10/10
• Unblocking sites and content: If your intention is to use your VPN to unblock streaming sites when overseas, Surfshark has proved itself very capable. We used it to successfully unblock Netflix catalogs in the US, UK, Australia, Canada and Japan, while it also worked a treat on regional sites such as BBC iPlayer, ITVX, Channel 4, 9Now and 10 Play. Unblocking score: 9/10
• Privacy and security: Most reputable VPNs offer watertight encryption, but it's Surfshark's commitment to transparency and data handling that stands out. Independent audits from Deloitte and Cure53 have confirmed the efficacy of its no-logging policy. Additional tools like its kill switch, DNS leak protection and Rotating IP (described above) are all included with Starter, too. Privacy and security score: 9/10
• Apps: Not only is Surfshark available on Windows, Mac, Android, iOS and Linux, its apps and clients are some of the most intuitive to use of any provider we've tested. Its browser extensions for Chrome, Firefox and Edge are strong as well. Apps score: 9/10
• Ease of use: Set-up is a doozy, day-to-day operation self-explanatory and it's straightforward to dig around in the more obscure settings. You'll never be left wondering whether you're connected or what server your traffic is running through. Everything is obvious and clearly explained. Ease of use score: 9/10

How much does Surfshark Starter cost?

VPN prices change all the time, and Surfshark is no exception. But the one thing that is consistent is how reasonably priced this provider is – it has looked down on the rest in our best cheap VPN guide for about as long as we can remember.

Prices vary in various territories, but we'll give you the current USD pricing for Surfshark Starter as a rough guide.

Right now, it costs an effective $1.99 per month (paid in full at the start) if you sign up for the two-year plan. That also includes an extra three months' use for free, so it's 27 months in total.

We'd say that's on the lower side of how much Surfshark Starter can cost, with prices sometimes up around the still-reasonable $2.49 per month-mark.

If you don't wish to commit to two years, you can sign up for 15 months for $3.19 per month.

You pay a large premium if you want the flexibility of paying on a rolling monthly basis – it costs $15.45 each month.

What other VPN plans does Surfshark offer?

Make no mistake that Surfshark Starter will be sufficient for most casual VPN users.

If all you want is the peace of mind that encrypting your internet traffic brings or if streaming is the aim of the game, then there's little point in looking beyond Surfshark Starter.

However, you do have the option of upgrading to one of Surfshark's more premium tiers: Surfshark One or One+.

We discuss in depth which Surfshark VPN plan you should choose in our dedicated guide, and you can see a comparison of their features in the reference table below.

In short, you should consider going for a Surfshark One plan if you're looking for an all-encompassing cybersecurity package that integrates a number of online security tools in one single package.

In addition to the core VPN and the other Starter features detailed above, Surfshark One gives you a whole suite of traditional antivirus tools that include real-time and scheduled malware scanning.

It also makes Surfshark Alert (a service that searches for possible situations where your personal data has been leaked online) and Surfshark Search (a private organic web browser that eschews tracking and cookies) available.

The provider's most advanced plan, Surfshark One+, is quite a bit more expensive and adds a personal data removal service called Incogni.

Sign up for this plan and Incogni will contact any online data brokers it finds that includes you in their database to request your removal. It then tracks this thereafter, to make sure that you aren't added back on to any of them.