VPN Simultaneous Connections: How Many Devices Each Allows
Surfshark suits a household with more devices than most plans allow, because it puts no cap on simultaneous connections and costs least of the nine VPNs on the site's own 12-month prices. A year of it comes to £24.48 less than a year of Hide.me, the dearest on those prices.
| Provider | Devices at once | A year, 12-month plan |
|---|---|---|
| Surfshark | Unlimited | £26.28 |
| Private Internet Access | Unlimited | £35.88 |
| IPVanish | Unlimited | £40.80 |
| ProtonVPN | 10 | £43.08 |
| NordVPN | 10 | £49.08 |
| IVPN | 5 | £45.36 |
| Mullvad | 5 | £50.16 |
Device caps usually stop short of unlimited
Tech Advisor puts the usual range at somewhere from five to ten devices at once. CyberGhost falls inside that range, capping devices at 7 in the site's own data. Hide.me caps a subscription at 10 devices. Mullvad and IVPN sit at the bottom of the range. Both still cost more for a year than Surfshark.
Surfshark has used its lack of a device limit to win customers for years, Tech Advisor noted. The VPN Advisor's own comparison data, last checked in October 2026, prices Mullvad at £4.18 a month on its 12-month plan.
Surfshark's unlimited plan has two exceptions
Surfshark lets its Starter, One and One+ plans run on as many devices at once as you like. Its support page says the app installs on any number of devices too. Surfshark has no bandwidth limits, so adding a device does not slow the others. Sharing with family is allowed, by passing on the account sign-in.
Surfshark Antivirus sits outside that policy. It also runs only on Android, Windows and macOS. The VPN app covers far more ground, from Windows, macOS, Linux, Android and iOS to Apple TV, Fire TV, Android TV, routers and browser extensions for Chrome, Firefox and Edge. Surfshark warns that it may act against people who abuse the policy, naming unauthorized resellers and anyone running illicit schemes on huge numbers of devices. For a console with no VPN app, its Smart DNS can reach geo-restricted content, though without the VPN's protection, ZDNET reports. Its apps are closed source. Surfshark has no free trial for testing it across your devices, though the App Store and Google Play offer a 7-day one. Every plan is covered by a 30-day money-back guarantee, the 1-month one included.
Private Internet Access dropped its cap in 2023
Private Internet Access removed its device limit entirely on 16 March 2023, Tech Advisor reported, so subscribers can connect as many devices as they want at once. The change reached existing subscribers as well as new ones. Trusted Reviews says the move put PIA in an exclusive club with Surfshark and Windscribe. It adds that the policy assumes nobody connects hundreds of devices. PIA's apps are open source. Its engineering director, Jose Blaya, told Tech Advisor that PIA first gave 10 device connections, more than most VPNs offered.
On our Surfshark vs Private Internet Access page, PIA's 4.1-star rating sits beside Surfshark's 4.5. ITPro counts PIA apps for Windows, Mac, iOS, Android and Linux, plus Chrome, Opera and Firefox extensions and support for routers. Tech Advisor adds an Amazon Fire TV app and a Linux app with a graphical interface to that list.
NordVPN counts every proxy as a connection
NordVPN writes its cap into its terms of service, and each proxy connection counts against it separately. Its support page names six routes to one server, from HTTP and SOCKS5 proxies to NordLynx, NordWhisper and OpenVPN over TCP or UDP. A router running NordVPN takes a single slot while covering every device on the network. Its app protects a whole device, so every user account on that machine is covered. Two users on one installation can't run it at once.
ExpressVPN caps you at eight devices
ExpressVPN lets you install its app on every device you own but connect only eight at once, whatever the platform, virtual machines included. Each extra subscription on an account adds another eight. MediaStreamer devices never connect to the VPN, so they sit outside the cap, but they lack the VPN's security and privacy. A router running ExpressVPN counts as one device however many phones and computers sit behind it. Every subscription includes that router software, and Aircove, the company's own Wi-Fi 6 router, has the VPN built in. A Windows PC can also share its VPN connection over Wi-Fi to get past the cap. Those eight connections cost £47.88 for a year on ExpressVPN's 12-month plan. Cancel within 30 days and ExpressVPN gives a full refund.
Surfshark for big households, PIA for open code
Households that connect more devices than any cap allows should pick Surfshark, because it never counts them and costs least of the nine. Privacy-minded readers should know Surfshark is based in the Netherlands, a 14 Eyes member, according to ZDNET. Readers who want unlimited connections from open source apps should pick Private Internet Access, because PIA publishes its code and still sets no device limit. PIA costs more each year than Surfshark. ExpressVPN suits a home ready to buy its Aircove router, though that router's VPN needs an ExpressVPN subscription on top.
