The Best Business VPNs Compared | A Curated List

Here we take a look at a few business VPN solutions out there to help you make the right choice.

A virtual private network (VPN) is a powerful tool required for businesses of all sizes to keep their cyber safety in check. In addition to antivirus software and firewalls, business VPNs are inevitable to counter the spiking rates of cyber-attacks and data breaches, given the fact that business data is now one of the most valuable assets. If you looks at the stats of the global cybercrime damage in the past year, it amounted to $16.4 billion a day which translates to approximately $190,000 per second.

But, setting up a VPN Network is not an easy task, especially for small and medium businesses which might not have a dedicated IT department. Also, setting up and maintaining a hardware-based VPN solution could be prohibitively expensive for such businesses and it is something that only large enterprises could afford. Fortunately for them, there are solutions that enable easy and fast VPN deployment and network management at a fraction of the cost compared to hardware-based solutions.

How are Business VPNs Different

Business VPN solutions often stand out with their business-centric features, from the regular consumer-based VPNs that are available in abundance in the market. Business VPNs have a few specific requirements that make them ideal tools for securing business networks:

1. Dedicated IP addresses: This allows IP whitelisting to restrict access to your business’s local or cloud resources only via the VPN’s dedicated IP address, which will effectively block any unauthorized access to your resources.

2. Easy Server Deployment: Today’s businesses want lean solutions and the case is not different with VPN server deployment and management. Ideal business VPNs should support automated, on-demand server deployment.

3. Secure Remote Access: Safely access business network resources and databases even when not in the office.

4. Easy user management: Business VPNs should enable easy management of multiple employees on your organization’s network.

5. Network Monitoring: To monitor user activity on a business network, they should be logged and be visible to authorized users.

How we compared the Best Business VPNs

In this article, we are examining the top three business VPN solutions available today and will be comparing them in terms of the features they offer. Most business VPN comparison and ranking articles I found online were heavily biased. They were written by affiliated companies and they give better ratings for VPN providers who paid more, though they claim otherwise. Here, I try to cut the crap and give a neutral opinion based on what is on offer.

While features like encryption are standard across all VPN solutions, we would be looking at the value additions each provider offers. We will also be examining each production in terms of cost-efficiency and quality of customer support which will help you choose the best option that suits your business requirements.

This might be a lengthy post as I tried to incorporate all the necessary details into my review to help you choose the right solution for you. If you just want my verdict, you can scroll down to the end of the post.

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The Best VPNs for Businesses in 2022

The order of the products listed below does not represent any ranking. I will be summarizing my product preference when I wrap up this article. The contenders are Perimeter81, UTunnel VPN and NordVPN Teams(now renamed as NordLayer)

1. Perimeter 81: A Versatile Business VPN Service

Israel-based Perimeter 81 is the first contender as the best business VPN solution. The product was developed in 2018 by the founders of Safer VPN, a popular consumer VPN that was later acquired by NetProtect, a subsidiary of a big technology company, J2 Global. Now, Perimeter81 is independent and has raised almost $50 million in the form of VC funding. Their solution provides great usability and is exclusively cloud-based. It features single-click deployment, unlimited bandwidth, and easy team management.

--> Perimeter81 Features:

Perimeter81 meets all the requirements for a Business VPN solution that were specified above. It comes with a management portal that lets organizations add multiple private gateways with dedicated IPs and assign them to different teams, giving each team access to specific resources. Currently, they are offering dedicated servers located at 26 locations in eight countries: USA, UK, Canada, Japan, Netherlands, France, India, and Singapore. Most of the data centers are leased by Perimeter81 from third-party cloud providers (they haven’t mentioned names of providers) and a few are owned and managed by Perimeter81.

Perimeter 81 offers a robust set of features for a business VPN solution. It offers automatic WiFi security, which turns on VPN when connected to new or unknown networks. It comes with several security features such as two-factor authentication, a kill switch, DNS leak protection, and multiple encryption protocols (OpenVPN, L2TP, IKEv2, and PPTP). It also gives you a view of network activities which is helpful to identify any unusual activity. Apart from the features above, Perimeter81 also offers the option to use private DNS servers and allows you to set up split tunneling. Both the above features are greatly useful for business use cases.

The features listed above are available for all of Perimeter81’s pricing plans. We’ll look deeper into pricing plans later. For now, let’s look at some functionalities that are available on its Premium and Enterprise plans only. One is the DNS filtering feature. This lets businesses restrict websites that can be distracting, and block sites that are known malware traps.

The other premium feature is Single Sign-On integration. It allows Single Sign-On via G Suite, Okta, Microsoft Azure, and Active Directory. Another feature accessible only on premium plans is access to public VPN servers. They provide access to around 700 public VPN servers spread across 36 countries. Though such publicly shared VPN servers are not the best choice for business use cases, it’s nice to have the option.

If there is one feature missing from Perimeter81, it is the ability to set up your VPN server on-premise. Also, users don’t get a choice to set up the gateway on a cloud provider of their choice and they are stuck with the dedicated servers provided by Perimeter81(which are quite pricey). It would have been better if they provided the option.

Last, but not least, let’s take a look at the client applications that are offered. You can run Perimeter81 on all major platforms such as Windows, Linux, Mac OS, Android, and iOS. All the apps provide easy connectivity to the VPN network and are minimalistic and easy to use.

--> Perimeter81 Pricing:

Now that we have briefly covered the product features, let’s see if Perimeter81 makes sense from a cost standpoint. They offer four plans — Essentials, Premium, Premium Plus, and Enterprise and the pricing varies based on two components: the number of Gateways and the number of users.

The cost per month for a private gateway/server is $50/month. If you want more than one, it costs $50/month for each additional server. This is a bit expensive for small and medium-sized businesses. Also, they are quite opaque about the server specifications (Memory / CPU / Storage). When the price is this high, the customers would be better off knowing what they are paying for. There is no mention of their VPS (Virtual Private Server) specs anywhere on their website or support pages. All they have is a list of their data center locations, out of which few are operated by them directly and the rest are managed by third-party cloud providers. Except for the Perimeter81 operated data-centers, the users will not have any prior knowledge about which cloud provider they will use to set up their private gateway.

Now, let’s discuss the user licensing plans offered. Each user license allows up to 5 devices. The cheapest is the Essential plan, which will cost a minimum of $100 per month. Though the pricing page displays $10/month/user, there is a minimum purchase of 5 user licenses required for the essential plan, which translates to $50/month. Now, you need at least one private gateway to use the service, which will cost another $50/month, making the minimum cost $100/month. This plan misses some advanced features like DNS Filtering, Single Sign-On integration, and does not provide access to Perimeter81’s public VPN servers as discusses earlier.

Similarly, the Premium plan has a requirement of a minimum of 10 users and is billed at a rate of $15/month/user, which translates to $150/month for user licenses. Adding the cost of one gateway, which is $50/month brings the cost to a minimum of $200/month.

The Premium plan becomes even pricier with a requirement of a minimum of 20 users and is billed at a rate of $20/month/user, which translates to $400/month for user licenses. Adding the cost of a gateway ($50/month) brings the cost to a minimum of $450/month.

All these plans are available for annual billing as well, and they offer a 20% discount on switching to annual billing. But, in this case, the minimum upfront cost goes up to $960 for the basic essential plan. If you are planning to stick to this provider for the long term, you can go with the annual billing. But, bear in mind the flexibility one can get with a monthly subscription, where you can switch to a different provider or stop the service any month.

--> Perimeter81 Support:

Perimeter81 offers live chat support on their website. They are responsive to queries but are a bit too pushy in my opinion. When I asked a few queries as a non-customer they kept pushing their questions to gather more information about me rather than answering my queries. This raised some red flags for me. I had to explain to them that I will be moving forward with my subscription only if I get my queries answered and then they finally budged. The same sequence happened with 2 different reps and so I assume that’s how they are trained. Technical queries took time for response as I assume they are focused on sales via chat. Overall my experience was lukewarm at best.

--> Summary:

Pros

1. Clean Web-UI for managing the business VPN Network. The console is user-friendly and has everything placed at convenient locations.
2. Designed for businesses of all sizes. More suitable for medium-sized businesses and enterprise customers.
3. Tons of advanced settings and options available. Most of them will be useful for advanced users only though.
4. 30-day money-back guarantee. That’s ample time for anyone to test the service and see if it works for them.

Cons

1. Expensive, especially for small businesses. The minimum price of $100 per month is not really small business-friendly.
2. The minimum purchase requirement is a huge bottleneck. If you want to use some features available for premium plans, you are forced to buy more user licenses even though you don’t require that many user licenses.
3. VPN gateway pricing is not flexible based on requirements. For instance, the gateway cost of $50/month even for the basic subscription (Essential Plan) is a lot to ask for. A small business with 5 users might not need the computing power of a VPS costing $50 per month as it might be overkill.
4. Related to point 3 above, there is a lack of transparency regarding the VPN gateway specifications and third-party providers. You don’t get to know what you are paying for.
5. Not so friendly customer support. You cannot call a customer support good if they keep asking questions instead of answering you.

2. UTunnel VPN: A Practical Business VPN Solution

Next in the line contesting for the best Business VPN solution is UTunnel VPN / utunnel.io. Launched in 2019, it is based in the United States and is owned and managed by the internet security startup Secubytes LLC. utunnel.io is a strong player in the business VPN space when it comes to flexibility, features, and cost-efficiency.

--> UTunnel VPN Features:

utunnel.io comes with all the features that a typical business VPN would require, which were mentioned earlier in this post, and more. It is very user-friendly and offers one-click deployment of dedicated cloud servers. In this case, users are offered a choice of cloud servers located at 25 locations spread across 9 countries: USA, UK, Canada, Germany, Finland, Japan, Netherlands, India, and Singapore. These server locations are made available with Utunnel’s integration with cloud providers like Digital Ocean, Linode, Hetzner, and UpCloud. The users can choose the cloud provider of their choice for their VPN deployment. Furthermore, the users can choose their preffered server specifications (Memory/ CPU/ Storage) based on their requirements.

Utunnel offers more than just cloud server deployment. If you want to go the traditional route to set up your on-premise VPN server on a machine in your office, Utunnel will still work for you. All you would need is a static IPv4 address, Ubuntu 18.04 server installed on the device and 4 commands to be run on the server to set it up as a Utunnel VPN server. Similarly, you can go the same route to set up a VPN server on a VPS with any cloud provider like AWS, Azure, Google Cloud, Oracle Cloud, or whichever provider you might be using.

User management and server management are quite easy from Utunnel’s well-designed dashboard. Setting up teams (called Groups in here) is quite effortless and you can manage role-based access to different business network resources. You can view your server stats graphically on the console, which includes bandwidth usage, number of VPN sessions, CPU and memory utilization, and total data usage.

Utunnel is no slug when it comes to features. It also comes with a host of features like DNS leak protection, two-factor authentication, a kill switch, and multiple encryption protocols i.e. OpenVPN and IKEv2. You even have the option to run OpenVPN on a custom protocol (UDP/TCP) and custom port (any port of your choice) in just a few clicks. Users also have the option to download VPN configuration files manually and use them to connect to the VPN server. Utunnel comes with a built-in DNS and firewall designed to safeguard users from malicious websites. Utunnel also offers Single Sign-On integration and it supports signing in via Google-suite, Okta, Azure, and OneLogin.

UTunnel offers two types of subscription plans when it comes to user licensing — Basic and Standard. While all the above functionalities are available with the Basic plan, there are some which are available only for the pricier Standard plan. A standard Utunnel subscription provides an option to use an external DNS server, allows you to set up Split Tunnelling, and helps you monitor activities on your network with the network logging feature. The standard plan comes with priority customer support as well.

Considering the features available on both plans, it’s the standard plan that works well for most business use cases. The Basic plan offered by Utunnel looks suitable only for freelancers or small businesses who only need to have an easy solution to set up and manage a private VPN and nothing more.

Coming to client applications for Utunnel VPN, they offer well-designed and user-intuitive VPN clients for Android, iOS, Windows, Linux, and macOS. Connecting to the VPN and switching servers and protocols are quite easy on these apps.

--> UTunnel VPN Pricing:

Given the fact that all the features have been discussed, we’ll analyze the cost efficiency of Utunnel VPN, to see how well it fares among the competition. Let’s explore the pricing plans offered. The user licensing plans comes in two variants, the Basic and Standard plans as we had already mentioned. The overall cost depends on the number of user licenses you want to have. The Basic plan costs $5/month/user and the Standard plan costs $7.5/month/user and there are no minimum purchase requirements.

The other factors that decide the price you pay per month: the number and type of VPN gateways/servers. The price ranges from $5/month/gateway for a cloud instance with 1GB Memory, 1CPU, and 1TB Data Transfer, $10/month/gateway (2GB Memory/ 1 CPU/ 2TB Data Transfer), and $20/month/gateway (4GB Memory/ 2 CPU/ 4TB Data Transfer). These gateway rates are industry standard and the options give the customer the flexibility to choose what they require.

Apart from setting up a VPN Gateway with one of Utunnel’s partner cloud providers, you have an option to bring your own server. You can use a server in your office or a cloud server(VPS) on your own account with a cloud provider to set up a Utunnel VPN server. In that case, you will only have to pay for the number of user licenses you subscribe and there are no charges you need to pay for deploying your VPN server.

So, to round up, you can have your private cloud VPN server with a single basic user license for a minimum of $10/month (1 Basic License: $5, 1 Cloud Server: $5), which is quite inexpensive. I would recommend the standard license for most business use cases, which will cost a minimum of $12.5/month (1 Standard License: $7.5, 1 Cloud Server: $5). If you bring your own server, then the minimum license cost for basic and standard licenses becomes $5/month and $7.5/month.

--> UTunnel VPN Support:

UTunnel VPN offers support via support tickets or you can directly send your queries to their support email. My queries were answered within a few hours during business hours and the support team gave personalized responses to my technical as well as non-technical queries. They offer priority support on their standard plan and you could expect faster response times. Overall the support is good, except for the fact that they don’t offer support via live chat.

--> Summary:

Pros

1. A well-designed management console for setting up and managing a business VPN Network. The web dashboard is easy to use and provides all the necessary server stats a user would need.
2. Low deployment cost as there is no minimum purchase requirement or long-term contracts.
3. Suited for small and medium businesses. This product is more oriented towards small and medium businesses rather than large enterprises.
4. Flexibility and control provided to the user, in terms of choosing the VPN gateway specifications and cloud provider. Bring your own server option just extends the level of flexibility.

Cons

1. Though monthly billing provides flexibility, the absence of an annual billing option rules out a discounted annual subscription plan.
2. Payment options are limited to credit cards. PayPal would have been a great addition.
3. Customer support available only via tickets/email, with no live chat support.

3. NordLayer: A Simple VPN for Businesses

NordVPN is a known name as a consumer VPN provider, based in a small country, the Republic of Panama. NordLayer(Earlier known as NordVPN Teams) is their business VPN offering, which was launched towards the end of the year 2019. Their business VPN solution is essentially based on their consumer VPN. How it stands out is the ability to set up dedicated VPN gateways and manage multiple users on a single subscription.

--> NordVPN Teams Features:

NordVPN Teams is a very basic business VPN solution out of the box compared to most peers in the business VPN space. It misses on some essential features that most business VPN solutions provide, like the ability to monitor network activity using logs and split-tunneling.

Their basic subscription plan works just like a bundled consumer VPN subscription, where you can manage the VPN subscription for multiple users with a single billing account. You will also be provided with a web console for managing the users. In this case, users will be provided access to public VPN servers, which are shared by the regular NordVPN (the consumer VPN) users across the globe. Using public VPN servers for business use is not exactly an ideal solution. With that in mind, NordVPN Teams do offer Dedicated VPN servers, but not on its basic subscription plan. But, the basic plan still comes with features like Two-factor Authentication, Kill Switch, and Single Sign-On integration with most major providers like Google, Okta, Azure, etc.

If you want to set up Dedicated VPN servers using NordVPN Teams, then you have to go for their advanced subscription plan. Users can deploy their dedicated servers easily using NordVPN’s centralized web console. They have more server locations available compared to the providers discussed before with 21 locations spread across 19 countries: Poland, Spain, Italy, Czech Republic, Hungary, Romania, Norway, Denmark, France, Germany, Netherlands, India, Singapore, UK, Austria, Canada, Belgium, US, Australia. Except for the capability to use dedicated servers, the advanced plan has no other feature additions.

To sum up, NordVPN Teams takes a backseat when it comes to features when compared to other solutions out there. But, it has a larger selection of countries to set up dedicated cloud VPN servers in contrast to most peers.

NordVPN Teams offers VPN clients for most platforms, including Android, iOS, Windows, Linux, and macOS. Apps are simple and easy to use.

--> NordVPN Teams pricing:

It offers two pricing plans out of the box — Basic and Advanced. As we already discussed, the Basic plan does not offer dedicated VPN servers and thus we can pass over it and not consider it a business VPN option. Still, as we are discussing the price, the Basic plan costs $9/user/month with no minimum purchase requirement.

The advanced plan enables you to create custom gateways and assign specific server access to each team member. It costs $11/user/month and each dedicated server will cost you $50/month. There is no minimum purchase requirement in this case as well. So, the minimum cost would be $61/month for a single user and one dedicated server. So, even if you need just 2–3 users, you will still need to pay for a $50 gateway, while you might not be resources worth that price.

While it’s great to see that there are no minimum purchase requirements, $50/month for a dedicated server, irrespective of the number of users, and that too without disclosing the server specifications is not a good thing. Perimeter81 also does the exact same thing and I wonder why. NordVPN Teams also offers around a 20% discount on account and server prices, if you go for annual billing.

--> NordVPN Teams Support:

NordVPN Teams provides live chat support and in my experience, they were prompt with their responses. Some technical questions took some more time to answer as the front-line staff had limited knowledge. I found it odd that the support team did not disclose the specifications of the dedicated servers when asked, and all they said was that they do not share such information.

--> Summary:

Pros

1. Simple and easy to manage business VPN solution. The web console is minimalistic and everything else is self-explanatory.
2. A wider range of countries available for setting up a dedicated VPN server compared to most peers.

Cons

1. Lacks many features that are considered essential for a business VPN, i.e. network access logs and split tunneling. Access logs are essential for network monitoring and split tunneling is necessary to avoid your business VPN network from getting clogged.
2. Though there is no minimum purchase requirement, the dedicated server cost of $50/month makes the solution expensive, especially if you have only got a few users.
3. Non-disclosure of VPN gateway specs. I don’t understand how providers get away with this. A certain level of transparency is required if you are to trust the provider with your business data.

Final Verdict:

It’s your call on which business VPN solution to go for, as the requirements might vary based on your personal or business requirements. But, if I am to choose the best business VPN between the three, I would go for Utunnel VPN as it rightly strikes a balance when it comes to pricing and features. Also, the flexibility to choose your cloud provider or setting up the VPN on-premise is something many businesses might be looking for. Perimeter81 comes second with all the features being offered but gets too expensive for small businesses. NordVPN comes last as the weakest contender out of the three. It’s pricey but still lacks many necessary features a business VPN needs. I feel like it just rides on the name of its widely popular consumer VPN solution. Anyways, to give you a quantitative overview of my business VPN solution comparison please see the chart given below. Choose the solution that fits your needs.

Business VPN FAQ

Why should businesses use a VPN?

Data breaches could cost businesses money and reputation. Businesses of all sizes regularly face cybersecurity threats and hence securing business networks is now a necessity than an option. VPNs are powerful tools that could add an additional layer of protection to your business network resources. Now, with an increasing number of employees working remotely, setting up a business VPN network is necessary even for a small office. A VPN should be used in conjugation with other security tools like antiviruses and firewalls to securely insulate your business network against external attacks.

Do small businesses need a VPN?

Yes, definitely. In reality, small businesses are now getting increasingly targeted by cybercriminals. The reason being the fact they most small businesses might have limited resources causing them to sometimes overlook their network security. This makes such businesses easy targets. So, small businesses should adapt to the changing cyberspace and take precautionary measures to avert potential threats. Now that small business VPN solutions have become more affordable, businesses should take advantage of the added security and protection they could get by implementing a VPN.

What are the essential requirements of a business VPN?

There are many consumer VPN providers out there in the market which pose themselves as business VPN solutions. Such solutions just provide public VPN servers. You should avoid them as all costs. Business VPN solutions will always provide users the option to easily setup dedicated VPN servers, with static IP addresses. Only then businesses would be able to setup secure access to business resources hosted at business premises or on the cloud. So, you should only go for fully features business VPNs like the ones discussed above.