How to Get a NordVPN Free Trial in 2021
NordVPN is one of our favorite VPNs, especially if you’re on a budget. However, it’s always nice to test the VPN service for free to make sure it’s the right fit. That’s why there’s a NordVPN free trial available for mobile devices — or the 30-day money-back guarantee for all devices — so you can try it out risk-free.
If you’re in the market for a VPN, you may notice that most of the best VPN providers offer deals if you sign up for multiple years. Because of this, it’s common to get VPN free trials or money-back guarantees before you get locked into a contract. In this article, we’ll go through how to get the NordVPN free trial.
Key Takeaways
- To start your NordVPN free trial on any device, buy a month-long subscription through the website. Within 30 days, ask the support team for a refund to get your money back, risk free.
- Mobile users can also use the NordVPN free trial on iOS and Android devices for up to seven days.
- NordVPN used to have a three-day free trial for all devices, but changed it to seven days on mobile devices because users were abusing the VPN free trial.
The best way to test NordVPN for free is to sign up for the monthly plan, then cancel the plan within 30 days as part of its risk-free money-back guarantee. This NordVPN “free trial” gives you unlimited access to the service. You’ll get access to all the advanced features on offer, and there aren’t any data caps when you use NordVPN for free.
Previously, NordVPN offered a three-day trial for free. However, as people began abusing this opportunity, the company changed it to a 30-day money-back guarantee — a kind of “risk-free trial.” The reason it can treat trial accounts like premium users is that you actually have to pay up-front, but you can get your money back if you ask within 30 days.
NordVPN does still offer free trials on mobile devices, but it ends after only a week and it only works on iOS or Android phones. We will show you how to access this, as well as the free-trial hack with the money-back guarantee. Read on for the steps.
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07/01/2021
Cloudwards.net updated this article to include a simple step-by-step layout and added information on the seven-day free trials for mobile devices.
NordVPN offers a trial on mobile devices. Although it doesn’t have a free trial on desktop, NordVPN’s money-back guarantee means that you can test the service out on all devices, knowing you can get a full refund.
The NordVPN mobile app offers a seven-day trial period for free before you make a purchase. You’ll need to sign up for a NordVPN subscription first, but you won’t pay until the seven days of free service are over.
For a free trial of NordVPN on your computer, just purchase a VPN plan as normal and request a refund before the 30-day money-back guarantee period is over.
You can cancel a NordVPN free trial by talking to the support team. Simply ask the chatbot for a refund to be redirected to a person, tell them why you want to leave and confirm the full refund is in process.
NordVPN Free Trial: 30-Day Refund vs Trial
Although not technically a free trial, there are benefits to using a 30-day money-back guarantee instead of the restrictive week-long trial on mobile devices.
From NordVPN’s perspective, satisfied users are less likely to request a refund, so there’s an incentive to give full access to its worldwide bank of servers and any premium features that it would have to block off or limit for a free trial — such as the automatic kill switch.
There’s also less risk for you with a tried-and-tested refund-based service. Free VPN services and VPNs with a free trial period have more reason to sell user data, log your activity or just run a worse service — otherwise, they have all the costs but no income. (If you want a quality free VPN that you can trust, read our best free VPN providers article — our favorite free VPN is Windscribe.)
The only issue with refund policies is if the VPN doesn’t give your money back. However, we’ve never had a problem with NordVPN during the years of regularly updating our NordVPN review. So, you should be fine as long as you aren’t trying to abuse the system.
If you really want to try NordVPN without paying, there is a seven-day free trial available for Android and iOS devices. It’s easy to get this on the NordVPN app, but it will limit you to only mobile devices. So, if you want to protect your PC, you’ll have to pay — at least temporarily.
How to Get 30 Days of NordVPN: Free Trial Hack
The NordVPN free trial hack uses 30-day money-back guarantees rather than a traditional free trial, so there are two sets of steps to follow. The first will walk you through paying for a NordVPN account, and the second will show you how to make a refund request if you don’t want to continue using this VPN service.
How to Sign Up for the 30-Day NordVPN “Free Trial”
Paying for and installing NordVPN is about as easy as it gets. All you need is an email address and a payment method NordVPN accepts: a credit card, cryptocurrency and some region-dependent, third-party systems like Amazon Pay, Google Pay and PayPal.
- Go to NordVPN’s Purchase Page
To use this free trial, you’ll need to go to the “purchase” page on NordVPN’s website.
- Choose Your Plan
Here, you can choose any of the three plans. The two-year option is the default, but a one-month plan is available if you don’t want to risk the full $89.
- Enter an Email Address and Payment Information
After you’ve selected your plan, you can put in an email address and payment information.
- Set an Account Password
After you’ve paid, it’ll ask you to choose an account password. If you want to use a secure password generator, check out our best password manager guide for our top choices.
- Download the VPN
Once you’ve created and set up your account, there will be a button to download the desktop app. You can also find this button on the NordVPN website on your account page.
- Use NordVPN for up to 30 Days
After you’ve downloaded it, NordVPN will guide you through the installation process. Then you can begin to use all of its features for online privacy or to trick streaming sites for up to 30 days.
How to Cancel NordVPN’s Money-Back Guarantee
Although we have a separate guide on how to cancel NordVPN and get a refund, we’ll do a quick recap here, too. Remember to wait until the 30-day money-back guarantee period is almost over if you want to get the most out of this free trial.
- Contact the Support Team Through the Website
At the end of the 30-day trial, you’ll need to contact customer support, either through the support email address or by clicking the chat bubble to enter a live chat support conversation.
- Follow the Instructions Given by the Chatbot
In the live chat window, NordVPN’s chatbot will ask you a series of questions, where you can ask to get a full refund.
- Ask for a Refund
After you ask for a refund, the chatbot will connect you to a member of the support team. Tell them why you want a refund and wait for them to confirm that it’s in progress.
- Cancel Your Automatic Renewal
As it may take time to cancel your account, you should also manually turn off the automatic renewal. Go into the “subscriptions” section of the “billing” page, click the three vertical dots and choose to “cancel auto-renewal.”
- Ensure Automatic Renewal Is Canceled
NordVPN will require you to click “cancel auto-renewal” several times, and then you’ll receive an email with a “cancel auto-renewal” button. Click this to ensure the subscription won’t repeat.
NordVPN 7-Day Free Trials
Although PC users are stuck with just NordVPN’s money-back guarantee, iOS and Android users can also take advantage of a seven-day free trial. This will give you all of the mobile features for a week before you have to pay anything.
However, you’ll still need a payment method and some account details — specifically, an email address and a password. So don’t expect this to be a fully anonymous experience, but if you just want free access to a VPN for a week, this is a great option.
How to Get a NordVPN 7-Day Free Trial
The NordVPN free version for mobile devices is available to all new accounts, and though you do need to have a valid payment method, no money will come out of your account. If you want to keep using NordVPN after the trial, just don’t cancel the ongoing subscription, and your account will remain active.
- Download NordVPN
Find the NordVPN app on the App Store or Google Play Store and install it.
- Create a New Account
When you open the app, choose to “sign up” and create a new NordVPN account.
- Get a NordVPN Subscription
In the subscription page, select any subscription length from the list.
- Confirm Your Subscription
Check that your payment details are valid and that the first payment won’t occur for seven days, then click “subscribe.”
- Cancel Your Subscription
At any time in the next seven days, go into the App Store or Google Play Store, find your subscription in your account settings and click “cancel subscription.” Even if you cancel this early, you can still use the app for the whole trial period.
What Happened to NordVPN’s 3-Day Free Trials?
Before 2019, NordVPN used to offer a free three-day VPN trial to all users. Much like the 30-day money-back guarantee, this trial had no restrictions. Users could access their favorite streaming services, take advantage of the DNS leak protection and torrent files with unlimited bandwidth and no data caps.
However, the NordVPN free trial had to come to an end due to users abusing the system. Despite it only lasting three days, people would create new email addresses to use it for free indefinitely. Now you can get a seven-day free trial on mobile devices, but you need to add your payment details and create a NordVPN account.
Luckily, for users who just want a regular free trial with no strings, NordVPN does give a 30-day money-back guarantee. It’s a bit of work to cancel and renew your subscription just to save a few bucks, but it’ll give you some more time if you really can’t afford the cost.
Final Thoughts: NordVPN Free Trial
We got our refund from NordVPN quickly and didn’t need to jump through hoops, which is as good as any other VPN provider with a similar system. Even though we don’t think NordVPN is quite as good as ExpressVPN, it’s worth trying the service to see if it’s the best option for you (we also have a piece on how to cancel ExpressVPN).
It’s worth mentioning that NordVPN was hacked in March 2018. However, it dealt with the vulnerability well, and we consider its security to still be among the best. With industry-standard encryption and features like an effective kill switch, it matches its top competitors, as you can read in our ExpressVPN vs NordVPN showdown.
Have you tried NordVPN before? Is the NordVPN free trial worth the extra work? Did you get a full refund? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below. Thanks for reading.
