I’m going to tell you about a VPN I have no financial reason to recommend.
Mullvad doesn’t have an affiliate program. They’ve never offered me anything. I earn $0 if you sign up after reading this. Most “Best VPN” sites won’t touch them for exactly that reason — there’s no money in it.
I lead with Mullvad anyway because it’s what I use, and because if you read enough about it, you’ll understand why almost every other VPN feels like a marketing operation by comparison.
This is the long review. If you want the short version: Mullvad costs €5/month flat, doesn’t know who you are, has been raided by police and had nothing to hand over, and will probably bore you with how little they try to sell you. If that sounds good, go to mullvad.net and skip this article.
The 2023 raid is the whole story
In April 2023, Swedish police arrived at Mullvad’s office in Gothenburg with a search warrant. They wanted customer data related to an ongoing investigation.
They left with nothing.
Not because Mullvad refused to cooperate, but because Mullvad had nothing to give them. No account names. No email addresses. No usage logs. No connection timestamps. No IP address records. The company demonstrated this to the officers on site, the officers verified it, and they left without taking any data or equipment.
Mullvad published a blog post about it the same day. Not for marketing, they didn’t run ads on it, but because their warrant canary policy required disclosure.
This is the single most important fact about Mullvad. Every VPN claims “no logs.” Most have never been tested. Mullvad’s claim has been tested under actual police pressure with an actual search warrant, and it held. That’s not marketing copy. That’s the load-bearing reason I use them.
The signup is the second weirdest thing about them
Most VPNs want your email address, a password, ideally a phone number, and your credit card. Mullvad wants none of those.
When you sign up at mullvad.net, you click “Generate account number.” That gives you a random 16-digit number. That’s your entire account.
- No email address
- No password
- No username
- No “personal information” of any kind
You log into the app using just that number. You add time to the account using just that number. If you lose the number, you lose the account – there’s no “forgot password” flow because there’s no password and no recovery email. The first time you sign up, you write the number down somewhere safe like you would a Bitcoin seed phrase, because that’s effectively what it is: your only key to the account.
This sounds extreme until you realize it’s the only design that makes “no logs” actually possible. If they collect your email at signup, they have your email. If they take your credit card, they have your name and billing address. The only way to truly know nothing about a user is to never ask in the first place.
Payment options that match the privacy posture
You can pay Mullvad with:
- Monero (XMR) – actually private cryptocurrency
- Bitcoin / Bitcoin Cash – pseudonymous, not as private as Monero but workable
- Cash sent in an envelope to their Swedish office – yes, literally cash in the mail. You write your account number on a piece of paper, put it in an envelope with cash, mail it to Sweden, and they credit your account when it arrives.
- Credit card, PayPal, bank transfer (if you’re not optimizing for anonymity)
I pay with crypto. The cash-in-the-envelope method is famous in privacy circles and worth knowing about even if you don’t use it – it tells you everything about the kind of customer Mullvad designed for.
What the apps are like to actually use
Mullvad’s apps are boring in the best possible way. They have:
- A connect button
- A server picker
- A handful of settings (kill switch, DNS preferences, split tunneling on some platforms)
- That’s it
No “WireGuard Pro Plus Shield” branded features. No “AI-powered server selection.” No daily push notifications offering you discount upgrades. No fake “your IP is exposed” warning popups designed to scare you into renewing.
The app on macOS, Windows, iOS, Android, and Linux all look and behave the same way. They’re open source on GitHub and built reproducibly, which means independent researchers can verify the apps you download match the source code. Almost no other VPN does this.
WireGuard, since 2017
Mullvad was among the first commercial VPNs to ship WireGuard, the modern VPN protocol that’s faster, more efficient, and has a smaller code surface than OpenVPN. They’ve been running it in production for years. Most providers caught up around 2020-2021.
For most users, WireGuard is what you want. It’s faster, more battery-efficient on mobile, and uses modern cryptography. Mullvad runs it well – speeds on my residential gigabit fiber are typically within 5-15% of unprotected connection, depending on server location.
Independent audits
Mullvad has been independently audited multiple times:
- Cure53 – full security audit of apps and infrastructure
- Assured AB – audit of their server infrastructure and no-logging claims
- Radically Open Security – audit of their VPN servers
The audit reports are published in full on their site. You can read them. This matters because “we don’t keep logs” is a claim – audits are an attempt at evidence. Combined with the 2023 raid, the no-logs claim has roughly as much real-world support as any commercial VPN’s claim can have.
The price is the third weirdest thing
€5 per month. Flat. Forever.
No annual discount. No “save 84% with our 5-year plan.” No introductory pricing that triples when your year is up. No tiered plans where the cheap tier is missing features you actually need.
Every month is €5. Pay for one month, pay for a year, pay for a decade — same rate. If you stop using it, you stop paying. If you only need it for a trip, you buy a month.
This is approximately the opposite of how the rest of the VPN industry prices. It’s also the only honest pricing model in the industry. The “$2.49/month for the 3-year plan!” offers from competitors are a way of locking you in before the autorenewal kicks in at $12.99/month. Mullvad doesn’t play that game.
What I don’t like about Mullvad
This is an honest review, so here’s what’s worth knowing on the negative side:
Streaming is hit or miss
Mullvad doesn’t run “Netflix-optimized servers” or actively rotate IPs to beat streaming geo-blocks. Sometimes you can watch your home country’s Netflix from abroad with no issue. Sometimes Netflix blocks the Mullvad IP and you need to disconnect to watch. If unblocking streaming is your main reason for getting a VPN, Mullvad is not the right choice. Surfshark or NordVPN are better for that. I cover this in my streaming-focused VPN guide.
No free trial, no money-back guarantee beyond 30 days
You pay for a month upfront. They don’t offer a 7-day free trial. The 30-day money-back guarantee exists but is shorter than competitors’ 45-day windows. Not a dealbreaker, but worth knowing.
Server network is smaller than the big-name competitors
Mullvad has around 50 countries covered. NordVPN claims 100+. ExpressVPN claims 105. If you need a server in a very specific country for a specific reason, Mullvad may not have it. For the vast majority of use cases, privacy, security, ISP avoidance, working remotely — the country count doesn’t matter. For obscure regional needs, it might.
Customer support is functional, not warm
Support is via email (or a contact form). There’s no live chat. Response times are usually within a day, sometimes two. The replies are direct and technical — they answer your question without sales pressure or upsell attempts. If you want hand-holding, this isn’t the VPN for that. If you want competent answers, it works.
The lifetime subscription doesn’t exist (and that’s a feature)
Some readers ask about “lifetime VPN deals.” Mullvad doesn’t do them. The reason: a lifetime deal is a one-time payment that the VPN company has to amortize across forever. Either they’re going out of business soon, or they’re going to need to cut corners on infrastructure to make the math work. Mullvad’s flat monthly pricing is more honest, and it means the company can sustainably keep running good servers.
Who shouldn’t use Mullvad
This is the part most “Best VPN” articles skip. Mullvad isn’t right for everyone:
- If your main goal is streaming geo-unblocking – get Surfshark or NordVPN instead
- If you need a VPN with an integrated password manager, email, and cloud storage — Proton VPN’s ecosystem is better suited for this
- If you want the cheapest possible per-month price – Mullvad’s €5 flat is competitive but not the absolute cheapest if you’re willing to commit to 2-3 year plans elsewhere
- If you need help-desk-style support – Mullvad’s support is email-only and direct, not coddling
- If you need a server in a specific obscure country – check their server list first
Who should use Mullvad
You should use Mullvad if:
- Privacy is the actual reason you want a VPN — not just unblocking streaming
- You value editorial integrity over marketing polish
- You’d rather pay a fair flat rate than navigate confusing tier pricing
- You want a VPN with a track record of holding up under actual legal pressure
- You’re comfortable with minimalist software that doesn’t try to upsell you
- You can write down your account number and not lose it
How to sign up (the process is short)
- Go to mullvad.net
- Click “Generate account number”
- Write the 16-digit number down somewhere safe. Bitwarden, a password manager, a piece of paper in a drawer — pick something you’ll still have access to in a year
- Add time to the account using your preferred payment method (€5 per month)
- Download the app for your platform from mullvad.net
- Open the app, enter your account number, click Connect
That’s the entire flow. There’s no email confirmation. No “verify your identity” step. No “tell us about your VPN needs” survey. You’re connected within 5 minutes of starting.
The honest bottom line
Mullvad is the VPN I use. It is the VPN I recommend to my family. It is, in my opinion, the closest thing the consumer VPN market has to a product designed for privacy rather than for selling subscriptions.
It is not the right choice for everyone. If you came here because you want to watch BBC iPlayer from Toronto, get a different VPN. If you came here because you want a privacy tool that has been tested in the most adversarial conditions a commercial VPN gets tested in, police with a warrant, Mullvad is the answer.
The fact that they have no affiliate program is also why almost no other review site will tell you this. I’m telling you this because it’s true.
If Mullvad isn’t right for your specific situation, see my honest Mullvad alternatives guide, products I actually recommend for the situations where Mullvad falls short.
This review reflects my personal use and opinions. I have no affiliate relationship with Mullvad. See my Affiliate Disclosure for how this site earns money on other products. See my methodology for how I evaluate VPNs in general.