The most expensive mainstream VPN ($300 per 2 years, $30/mo monthly) with the most hostile refund stance: 'All sales are final and refunds are not possible once purchase is made.' What you buy is a legitimately strong censorship-evasion stack - proprietary StealthVPN/OpenWeb protocols, a Supercharged China server tier, VIP latency add-on, BTC and even Monero payment, unlimited household devices - wrapped in opaque, unaudited, closed-source software.
site reachable · checked 19 h ago · daily check
draft generated by Qwen3, fact-checked by the vpncomparison editorial desk · review version 5 · prose updated 2026-11-09 · facts as of 2026-10-01 · how we verify
Astrill VPN is a commercial service run by Veloxee Corp. in Liechtenstein, marketed heavily to expats in China and Gulf states. It offers strong censorship-evasion tools like StealthVPN and OpenWeb, supports Monero payments, and allows unlimited device connections. But you’re paying a premium for access - $300 every two years - with no refund option and no independent proof of its no-logs claims.
Astrill claims a no-logs policy but admits to collecting connection timestamps, IP addresses during active sessions, device types, app versions, and the last 20 connection records per account. Traffic byte counters are also stored per account. This data retention is disclosed in its privacy policy, which remains unverified by third-party audits. There is no warrant canary. Jurisdiction in Liechtenstein sits outside mass surveillance alliances, but the lack of audit evidence means its logging claims are policy-only - unproven. Cloudwards and vpnMentor note confusion around its privacy stance, with session IP tracking acknowledged and said to be deleted on disconnect.
Astrill charges $300 for the first 24 months - effectively $12.50/month - with no renewal price disclosed. The derived three-year cash total is $300, covering only 24 months, meaning you pay at least that again for continued service. There is no refund window: all sales are final, a rare and user-hostile policy. You can pay with BTC or XMR, but fiat is also accepted. Given the lack of renewal clarity and zero refunds, short-term testing is risky and long-term commitment is financially opaque.
Astrill supports OpenVPN, WireGuard, and its proprietary obfuscation protocols StealthVPN and OpenWeb, making it one of the few tools still functional against the Great Firewall. It includes a kill switch, split tunneling, multihop, and dedicated IP options. P2P and streaming are officially supported, though Reddit users report instability with Disney+ and high latency for gaming. Servers span 50 countries, but exact counts are undisclosed. Despite wide device support - including routers - user reviews cite reliability issues on ChromeOS and Apple TV. No independent performance tests have been conducted.
Astrill is operated by Veloxee Corp., registered in Vaduz, Liechtenstein. The company has not updated its refund policy since 2019, despite price increases, and publishes no transparency reports or audits. Red flags include a complete lack of refund options, opaque logging practices, and no public accountability. User voices from r/China and r/VPN describe outages, app instability, and frustration with support. While still recommended reflexively in expat circles, long-term users report abandoning it for alternatives or self-hosted solutions.
Astrill is built for censorship resistance with its proprietary StealthVPN and OpenWeb protocols, explicitly designed to evade firewalls like China’s GFW. It remains a go-to for expats in heavily censored regions, with dedicated “Supercharged China” servers and obfuscation baked into core functionality. However, reliability has reportedly declined, with users documenting full-day outages and connection drops during critical tasks. If you're in China, Iran, or Russia, Astrill is among the few that still attempt consistent access - but success is no longer guaranteed.
Only consider Astrill if you’re in a censored country and need a tool that still attempts to bypass the GFW, and you’re willing to pay $300 upfront with no refund safety net. It’s not for privacy-first users - no audits, closed source, and partial logging undermine trust. The money-trail note: Astrill runs its own affiliate program, paying $21 per sale in Bitcoin, which may influence its visibility on review sites.
| Intro price | $12.50/mo |
|---|---|
| Notes | No separate renewal-price disclosure found on the operator site - stays unknown, never guessed. |
See the 3-year total next to the marketing number: true-cost calculator →
| Sign up at | astrill.com |
|---|---|
| Identity check | required |
| Payment | BTC, XMR, fiat |
| Apps | Windows, macOS, Linux, iOS, Android, routers (DD-WRT/Tomato/ASUS Merlin) |
Check the renewal price above before any multi-year plan - true-cost calculator.
Astrill VPN is operated by Veloxee Corp.. Logging claim: 'No-logs policy' (Privacy Notice sec. 2): no browsing/activity logs, 'the very design of our VPN server software does not allow us to see which users accessed what websites'. BUT the same policy discloses: active-session tracking of connection time, IP address, device type and app version until disconnect (sec. 2.3); the last 20 connection records per account (time, duration, country, device type, client version) retained for support (sec. 2.5); per-account traffic byte counters (sec. 2.4). - evidence class: promise only (no proof). No incidents on file in our research - absence of evidence is not proof of innocence. Facts reported (not fully verified) as of 2026-10-01 - read the sources below.
Evidence classes and scoring: methodology · user experiences: meta-review.
has an affiliate program via in-house · published terms: 'Earn an average of $21 per sale, one of the highest in the VPN industry' - commissions calculated per subscription plan purchased; payouts in Bitcoin only ('Payouts are made in Bitcoin (BTC); no other payment methods are supported')
The only provider we verified that publishes a concrete average per-sale amount - and pays exclusively in BTC.
If we sign up for this program, every link here becomes rel="nofollow sponsored" and routes through /go/. Until then our links point straight to the provider's website with zero tracking. Ranking logic physically cannot read affiliate fields - here is the proof.
Captured by our screenshot bot from the live site (or its public archive). A capture is evidence of what the page showed at capture time - not an endorsement.
Before you pay: check the renewal price, the refund window, and whether a cheaper or free path covers your use case - the honest checklist.
Based on our checks as of 2026-10-01: Astrill VPN scores 4.4/10 in our weighted review. We logged 3 red flags (listed above). User reports, ownership and the incident record are documented with dated sources in the meta-review below.
You get access to Astrill’s full suite - StealthVPN, OpenWeb, multihop, split tunneling, P2P, streaming support, and unlimited devices - on a 24-month plan costing $300. No free tier exists, and all sales are final.
The renewal price is undisclosed. The three-year cash total is $300, but that only covers 24 months - so you’ll pay at least another $300 for the third year, possibly more.
None beyond its own policy. It logs active-session IPs, connection metadata, and the last 20 connection records. No third-party audit or court test verifies its claims - evidence class is policy-only.
It’s designed for it, using StealthVPN and OpenWeb to bypass firewalls. Many expats still use it, but Reddit users report increasing instability, outages, and connection drops.
Yes - Astrill accepts Bitcoin and Monero. However, it requires email and phone number verification, even for trials, limiting true anonymity despite crypto support.
You get no refund. The policy states all sales are final. If Astrill fails in your region, you absorb the full $300 loss with no recourse.
No free alternative reliably beats the GFW. For lower cost and better transparency, consider self-hosting with WireGuard on a $5-$10/month VPS, though setup requires technical skill and access to uncensored networks.
Comparable providers of the same kind only - a free app is never "an alternative" to a commercial VPN. Ranked by the same deterministic score.
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