IPVanish

A VPN with a secure browser and cloud storage attached

IPVanish is a subscription VPN whose footer reads "IPVanish, a Ziff Davis company", and the pricing page makes the relationship plainer still: the review quotes it shows from Mashable, PCMag and IGN each carry a note that the publication and IPVanish are both owned by Ziff Davis, Inc. The VPN is the core product, and the homepage describes IPVanish as a VPN provider "with additional Secure Browser and Cloud Storage services", the storage being Livedrive Cloud Storage included in select plans. As for who can buy it, the pricing page shows prices in US dollars and lists payment by credit card (VISA, Discover, American Express, Mastercard, Union Pay, Diners Club), PayPal, Google Pay, Apple Pay and Amazon Pay. The site carries a region selector with a Global option plus Australia, Brazil, Canada, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Spain, Sweden and the United Kingdom. The homepage tells new users to download the app from their device's app store, and the site lists apps for Windows, Mac, Linux and Chrome OS on the desktop, Android and iOS on mobile, Apple Vision Pro, routers, and streaming devices including Apple TV, Fire TV, NVIDIA SHIELD, ONN 4k, Google Chromecast and Nokia Streaming Box. The site does not name any country where the service is not sold.

Two named audits, and what they looked at

IPVanish's Trust Center lists two outside reviews of its logging. The first is the one its April 4, 2022 blog post announces: Leviathan Security Group, which the post says was given "unprecedented access to our team, documentation, and technology." According to that post, Leviathan interviewed the staff who maintain the VPN servers, inspected system configurations and technical documentation, and assessed server deployment procedures. It ran test traffic to generate potentially logged data, including forward and reverse DNS hostname lookups, traffic to uncommon UDP and TCP ports, SMTP, HTTP and TLS negotiations, and then examined a production endpoint server in which, the post says, evidence of that test traffic could not be found. The post reports that the auditor confirmed the service complied with the privacy policy's promise not to retain data about the content or destination of customer sessions. The Trust Center describes this as an audit of "no-traffic-logs privacy policy compliance."

The second is newer. The Trust Center lists an "Independent audit by Schellman of our no-logs policy compliance (April 2025)", and an April 10, 2025 blog post says Schellman Compliance, LLC completed that audit on February 21, 2025, covering interviews with engineering and operations staff, a review of server configurations, test traffic exercises and a review of change management. It quotes the report: "During the assessment, it was validated that no logs were retained by IPVanish and that a standardized change release process was in place." The site says customers can download both reports from the Security Reports section of the My IPVanish account portal and that the press can request them by email; the full reports are not published on the open site.

Separately from the audits, the provider's own claim is broad. The Trust Center states that IPVanish does not store data related to online activity or service usage, "including browsing history, traffic destination, metadata, DNS queries, or IPVanish-provided IP addresses." The 2022 post adds that the apps still use "minimal diagnostic data" and points to the privacy policy for details. The Trust Center also shows quarterly transparency reports on government, law enforcement and civil requests, running through April to June 2026, and says the company is moving to RAM-only servers, with the full transition "planned for completion in 2027". Until then, the pricing page describes a mix of HDD and RAM-only servers.

Apps, network and features

The homepage gives 3,400+ VPN servers, 150+ locations and 56,000+ IP addresses, with unlimited bandwidth. The feature menu lists Threat Protection Pro, Double Hop, a Kill Switch, Split Tunneling, WireGuard, OpenVPN and DNS Leak Protection, and the pricing page adds a SOCKS5 proxy, automatic connections, an ad blocker and IPv6 leak protection. Threat Protection Pro is described as blocking "malware downloads, phishing sites, and trackers" even when the VPN is off.

The defining feature is the absence of a connection cap. The pricing FAQ says the VPN "does not meter concurrent connections or app installations", so one subscription can cover every device a household owns, and devices without a native app can connect through an IPVanish-enabled router.

On streaming, the homepage says the service "Works with Netflix, ESPN, & more", which is the provider's own claim with no dated list of what was tested. The services page names Facebook, TikTok, WhatsApp and Kodi among the apps it says can be reached through the VPN, and it adds that the service "is not intended to be used to bypass copyright laws." The site does not describe a torrenting policy or port forwarding.

Plans, renewals and refunds

The pricing page is unusually complete about renewals. It shows two tiers:

• Essential: 2.49 dollars per month on the 2-Year plan, 59.76 dollars for the first 2 years, renewing yearly at 99.99 dollars. The yearly plan is 3.89 dollars per month, 46.68 dollars for the first year. Monthly is 14.99 dollars and renews at 14.99 dollars.
• Advanced: 3.59 dollars per month on the 2-Year plan, 86.16 dollars for the first 2 years, renewing yearly at 129.99 dollars. The yearly plan is 5.39 dollars per month, 64.68 dollars for the first year. Monthly is 17.99 dollars.

The FAQ spells out that 2-Year plans switch to a yearly cycle after the first term, and that the monthly plan bills every 30 days. Advanced adds Secure Browser, 1TB of cloud backup, file sync and phone support, and the Essential and Advanced tiers come with 3GB and 5GB of eSIM data from aloSIM respectively.

The refund terms are specific: yearly and 2-Year plans come with a 30-day money-back guarantee, and the pricing page states that monthly plans are "ineligible". The homepage also mentions a free trial on iOS and Android. Support runs through 24/7 live chat and email, with phone support for Advanced subscribers during business hours (9 am to 5 pm CT, Monday to Friday).

What stays open, and who it suits

IPVanish answers more of the usual questions than most: it names its owner, prices its renewals, gives an exact refund window and names two auditors with dates. What the open site leaves unsettled is narrower. Neither audit report is published in full; both sit behind a customer login or a media request, so the scope is known only through the provider's own blog summaries. The RAM-only move is still in progress by the site's own account. The streaming claim is a short list of named services with no testing date, and the site does not say whether torrenting is permitted beyond its copyright note. The sizable gap between introductory and renewal prices is published, but it is still a gap buyers should plan for.

The service suits households with many devices, since the absence of a connection cap removes the usual arithmetic, and buyers who want a named auditor and a stated renewal price before paying. It suits less well anyone who wants to read an audit report without creating an account, or who wants a refund option on a single month.