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Prices and details checked in October 2026. Prices change, so we give ranges where plans vary.
The mistake that costs a small team most with a business VPN is signing up month to month before checking whether a client portal wants a fixed address. ExpressVPN sells its dedicated IP only with one-year and two-year plans, and NordLayer adds a required $40 monthly server to Core.
Three steps avoid that detour: list what staff must reach, price the plan for your headcount with its add-on, then pick the plan that needs no extras. Every price below was read on the publishers’ own pages.
Contents
Step 1: write down what the team must reach
The need picks the plan, so name it before you look at a single price. A VPN, or virtual private network, encrypts the link between a laptop and another network. A business VPN adds a console where a manager hands out licenses and takes them back.
Most small companies fall into one of three cases. The first is a client portal or a cloud tool that only accepts known IP addresses. That team needs a dedicated IP, a fixed address that the client’s firewall can allow.
The second case is an office server, a NAS or an internal app. Here you want a private gateway, which NordLayer Core and Proton VPN Professional build around a dedicated server. The third case is simpler: staff who work from airports, hotels and coffee shops and only need safe browsing.
Two facts settle the shortlist. If your company signs in with Okta or Microsoft Entra ID, single sign-on matters. And NordLayer, ExpressVPN and Surfshark sell five licenses at minimum, while Proton starts at two.
A design studio of six in Austin that uploads files to a client’s locked-down server sits in case one. That studio should skip the monthly plan on day one, because ExpressVPN’s own page lists the fixed address only on its longer plans.
Step 2: run the numbers for your headcount
The yearly bill of a business VPN depends on two figures: the price per seat and the fixed add-on.
Yearly cost = (price per user × number of users + monthly add-on) × 12.
At ten users, NordLayer Core comes to $150 a month with its required server. That is $1,800 a year. ExpressVPN for Teams on the two-year plan costs $2.85 per seat, so the licenses total $342 a year.
Its dedicated IP adds $390 a year per location. The full bill reaches $732, less than half of NordLayer’s.
The second calculation shows why the add-on hurts small teams most. At five seats, ExpressVPN moves to its 5 to 9 tier, $3.05 per user on two years. With the IP, the team pays $573 a year, about $115 per person.
At ten seats the same plan costs about $73 per person. NordLayer follows the same curve: $228 per person at five users, $180 at ten. Each new hire dilutes the fixed address.
Step 3: pick the business VPN plan that matches
NordLayer Core: the office network pick
It is the business VPN for a team that reaches company servers from home. Core is priced at $11 per user a month on the yearly view of the page, five licenses minimum. The page lists single sign-on, IP allowlisting, split tunneling and DNS filtering.
The dedicated IP server is the line to watch: the page marks it “required” at $40 a month, so put it in the first quote. Linking two offices with site-to-site access needs Premium, at $14 per user. Lite, at $8, stays on shared gateways in more than 40 countries. See NordLayer’s plans.
ExpressVPN for Teams: the cheapest fixed address
This is the plan for a small team that only needs one known IP. At ten to nineteen seats, the price is $9.09 per user on monthly billing, $4.37 on one year and $2.85 on two years.
The dedicated IP is sold only on the one-year and two-year plans, and a 30-day money-back guarantee applies to new users. The publisher advertises “23+” independent audits of its no-logs policy and security, and servers in 113 countries on its teams page.
Trustpilot gives ExpressVPN 4.4 out of 5 from nearly 30,000 reviews. See ExpressVPN for Teams pricing.
Proton VPN Professional: privacy and identity control
It suits a firm that handles sensitive files and wants single sign-on. The plan costs $9.99 per user a month on yearly billing, from two users, with SCIM provisioning and organization-wide two-factor enforcement listed on the page.
The yearly quote shown for two users, $719.64, already includes a dedicated server. Subtracting the licenses leaves $479.88, or $39.99 a month. VPN Essentials, at $6.99, drops the dedicated server.
The iPhone app holds 4.6 out of 5 from about 126,000 ratings on the US App Store. See Proton VPN for business pricing.
Twingate: access to apps instead of a whole network
Twingate fits a team that wants to open only specific apps to each person. Starter is free up to five users. Business costs $10 per user a month billed yearly, or $12 month to month, and signs in through Okta or Entra ID. Static IPs are an add-on of the custom Enterprise plan. See Twingate’s plans.
Surfshark for Teams: safe browsing for people on the move
It is the budget business VPN for staff on public Wi-Fi. On a one-year plan, Starter starts at $5.90 per user a month and One at $6.90, five users minimum. The company’s FAQ states that user activity tracking and dedicated IPs are not part of the team offer. See Surfshark for Teams.
Recap table: one need, one plan, one yearly bill
| Your case | Plan | Price per user a month | Add-on | Yearly at 10 users |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Fixed IP, tight budget | ExpressVPN for Teams, 2 years | $2.85 | IP $390 a year | $732 |
| Fixed IP, one-year commitment | ExpressVPN for Teams, 12 months | $4.37 | IP $390 a year | $914.40 |
| Office servers and SSO | NordLayer Core | $11 | Server $40 a month | $1,800 |
| Two offices linked | NordLayer Premium | $14 | Server $40 a month | $2,160 |
| Privacy, dedicated server | Proton VPN Professional | $9.99 | Server $39.99 a month | $1,679 |
| Access to chosen apps | Twingate Business, yearly | $10 | none | $1,200 |
| Safe browsing on the road | Surfshark One | from $6.90 | not offered | $828 |
The gap between the cheapest fixed IP and the most complete office plan is about $1,400 a year. That money buys site-to-site links and a private gateway, not extra speed.
What buyers say about these apps
The comments below were read on Trustpilot’s US pages, where each publisher has one page for all its products, not only the team plans.
On Trustpilot, a US customer who has used ExpressVPN for more than seven years says there has been no hacking since.
On Surfshark’s page, rated 4.3 from more than 31,000 reviews, another US customer calls the customer service “really good” and says the agent “understood my concern completely”.
A second US reviewer gives four stars for solid protection, spoiled only by the app occasionally forgetting a network marked as safe. Surfshark’s reply points to the usual fix: update the app, then contact support if it happens again.
How we compared
Each price is the US-dollar figure on the publisher’s own page, read in October 2026 and shown before sales tax. Dollar amounts are all we quote for Proton, whose page offers euro and franc selectors but showed us dollars.
Proton’s server price is our subtraction from its two-user quote. The yearly totals are our arithmetic, and the star ratings come from Trustpilot and Apple’s US store listing for Proton VPN.
Tips for everyday use
Before paying for a fixed address, send one email to the client whose portal you open and ask if it filters by IP. A no saves $390 a year at ExpressVPN, or about $480 with Proton’s server.
Make two-factor sign-in compulsory in the admin console before anyone installs the app. Proton lists organization-wide enforcement on its plans. Free up a leaver’s seat before the laptop comes back, since each idle seat is billed every month.
ExpressVPN lists a 30-day money-back guarantee for new users, and Twingate a 14-day trial. Use that window on the client portal itself, not on a speed test.
Questions and answers
What is the best business VPN for a team of ten?
NordLayer Core for teams that reach office servers, at $1,800 a year with its server. ExpressVPN for Teams if you only need a fixed IP, at $732 a year on two years.
Does a small team need a dedicated IP?
Only if a client’s firewall or a cloud service keeps a short list of allowed addresses. For staff who just browse from hotels, the shared addresses of any plan are enough.
Is Twingate a VPN?
Not in the classic sense. Instead of a tunnel into the whole office, each person gets a route to named apps, and static IPs are an add-on of the Enterprise plan.
Our verdict
For most teams that reach company servers, NordLayer Core is our pick. One client portal and a tight budget point to ExpressVPN for Teams on two years, which costs under half as much.
Further reading
Shared logins need their own lock, covered in our guide to the team password manager. A self-hosted n8n server is often the first internal tool a VPN must reach, and our Zapier vs Make vs n8n comparison prices it out. Our Ahrefs vs Semrush vs SE Ranking guide applies the same per-seat arithmetic to SEO software.
How we work
At Biz Deals Corner, we check prices and official statuses at the source, never in competing comparison sites. We detail what is billed outside the plan, we flag solutions wrongly presented as certified, and we give no personalized tax, legal or financial advice: for that, consult a qualified professional. Our affiliate policy.
