Using a VPN is critical to keeping your small business safe and secure. Here are the top 7 VPNs for small businesses.
@CLHauk Updated: January 31, 2023
A small business can be the accountant who does your taxes, the insurance agent down the block, or the information technology firm made up of 30 IT professionals who fix the things that go wrong with your network.
Small businesses need to remain competitive with their larger brethren in order to attract and keep customers. In order to do this, they need to keep costs down, while still requiring access to files, apps, and other vital aspects of their day-to-day operations.
Many small businesses do not have the financial resources to set up their own servers for apps, file storage, and databases. Many of these firms use peer-to-peer file sharing to transfer files between employees. Security is a top concern for all of these activities.
A VPN offers small business users the ability to use an encrypted connection to securely access online resources, protecting their own – and their customers’ – sensitive data from prying eyes.
While file sharing is a valid need for businesses, Internet Service Providers sometimes block peer-to-peer file sharing due to its use by many to share copyrighted content. A VPN encrypts a user’s connection, hiding P2P sharing, ensuring that it isn’t blocked.
VPNs also allow users to access information in other parts of the world that might normally be blocked by geographical restrictions placed by content owners or government agencies.
When businesses have employees on the road, visiting customers, or working off-site for other reasons, a VPN offers an encrypted connection to much-needed online resources. For many small businesses, their “home office” is the nearest Starbucks. A VPN keeps their WiFi hotspot internet connection at the coffee shop safe from prying eyes.
Here are the seven best VPNs for use by small businesses.
I ran my usual group of VPN providers through a battery of rigorous tests. The results proved these seven VPNs provide the best features for use by small businesses. Here’s a summary.
The best VPNs for small businesses:
I evaluated and ranked the top small business VPNs using the following criteria:
WANT TO TRY A TOP BUSINESS VPN RISK-FREE?: The top-notch business VPN service providers on this list all offer no-risk money-back guarantees of 30 to 45 days. If you subscribe to one of these providers and find that it does not meet your needs, you can easily request a full refund before their money-back guarantee period has elapsed.
Here’s my list of the top seven VPNs to enhance and protect your streaming sessions.
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Money-back guarantee: 30 DAYS
Perimeter81 is SaferVPN’s business-focused VPN offering. The service provides numerous features that make it the best choice for small businesses in search of reliable VPN services.
The provider’s global server network includes 400+ servers spread amongst 30+ countries around the globe. While that doesn’t sound impressive, the provider’s network offers business-friendly dedicated servers that solely your company may use, with static IP addresses, which can be vital for some business applications.
The VPN also allows monitoring of all network activity, including activity and bandwidth consumption. Administrators can also manage team member access and team permissions via a single unified portal.
The VPN provides fast connections, meaning it can easily handle large file transfers, streaming video (such as video conferencing), and any other business-related online activity you throw at it. No data caps to worry about here.
This top-tier VPN provider uses banking-grade encryption, a kill switch, DNS leak protection via custom DNS, a split tunneling feature, and more.
The provider does save some connection information, which is accessible through the customer’s management portal. Save information includes the team member, the date of their last activity, their latest activity on the platform, and the server location they connected to.
Payment options that the provider accepts include credit cards, PayPal, Stripe, and wire transfers. They can also work with you if you have specific billing requirements.
The provider offers native app support for the Android, iOS, macOS, and Windows device platforms, covering the big four devices that businesses most often use. Manual configuration instructions are available for all four platforms, as well as Linux and Chromebook.
Pricing is on a per-user basis, so your simultaneous connections allowance is limited only by the number of users you subscribe for.
24/7 chat, email support, a trouble ticket system, and a searchable support library make up the provider’s round-the-clock customer support.
BEST VPN FOR SMALL BUSINESSES: Perimeter81 is my top choice to protect your small business’ online activities. The provider’s dedicated servers offer static IP addresses, which are useful for numerous business applications. A risk-free 30-day money-back guarantee is available.
Read my full review of SaferVPN (Perimeter81’s parent company).
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NordLayer is a network security package from Nord Security, which is the company behind the NordVPN system. NordLayer offers a new type of security system that has recently evolved to meet the needs of businesses that operate multiple sites, have remote workers, and frequently access cloud services.
You might operate a small office network and require your users to log into a desktop computer that gives access to the LAN. You probably also have applications accessible over the network and separate data stores that require logins as well. If you use cloud-based services, such as Microsoft 365, your staff will need to log into your accounts there.
What you have there is a Zero Trust Access system, which challenges your users to keep logging in again for every service. This repeated credentials requirement might just be because you haven’t got an expert on staff to work out how to connect all of your systems together. However, technology has come around in a circle to make your current strategy the right one.
After the Covid lockdown, you probably still have quite a few staff who work from home, and, no doubt, you have provided those people with a VPN to securely access the network and they log into that. Sometimes, they don’t log into the network but log into cloud services instead – such as a Microsoft 365 account.
NordLayer implements security for all of the above. However, the action of logging into the VPN app flows through credentials to all resources, so the user doesn’t have to keep logging in all the time.
The tool that is a VPN app with NordVPN becomes a Single Sign-On access agent with NordLayer. This is what is known as a Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) package. That sounds high-tech, but it’s just an access rights manager built into a VPN service.
Put that NordLayer app on the desktops of your office workers and then everyone is treated the same, whether they are in the office or accessing from home. Users access on-premises and cloud-based services seamlessly without having to re-login to another system.
The price for NordLayer is a subscription per user, which makes the service quite scalable.
Parent company NordVPN’s owned and operated servers keep third-party contractors away from your personal data. The provider also runs all of its servers solely from volatile RAM, writing no data of any kind to a physical storage device, so all data is automatically and completely wiped whenever a server is restarted or powered down.
SECURITY FOR HYBRID SYSTEMS: NordLayer offers a new approach to system security that takes into account that your users and your applications might be on-premises or off-site. This cloud platform ties together access to your business applications. Try it with a 14-day money-back guarantee.
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Surfshark is the best VPN option for small business owners operating on a shoestring thanks to its low subscription price. The provider delivers champagne service on a beer-bottle budget.
Currently, Surfshark has 3,200+ servers based in 100+ countries around the globe. The provider allows P2P traffic on its network. When the service detects P2P activity, it will automatically transfer your connection to a P2P-optimized server.
Users shouldn’t worry about Surfshark slowing their speeds a painful amount. If your ISP-provided connection can handle video conferencing, sharing large files, and gaming (you know your employees will be doing it), Surfshark connections can handle it. Plus, you’ll never have to worry about data caps or bandwidth-throttling with this VPN.
Those speedy connections are well-protected from prying eyes thanks to the provider’s use of banking-grade encryption, kill switch protection, and DNS leak prevention. You can also use Surfshark to block ads and trackers, and benefit from malware and phishing protection.
A MultiHop server option routes your internet activity through two VPN servers for added encryption and anonymity.
The provider also offers dedicated IP addresses. A dedicated IP address is a unique IP address that only your business will use. Every time you connect to your designated VPN server, you will get assigned the same IP address. With a dedicated IP, you won’t have to worry about other users who share an IP address engaging in activities that will result in an IP address being blocked on some services.
Surfshark currently has dedicated IP servers located in the US, the UK, the Netherlands, Germany, France, Australia, Japan, Italy, Canada, South Africa, and Hong Kong.
The provider also offers servers that provide static IP addresses, which, while shared with other users, grabs the same IP address any time you connect to the server.
A strict no-server-logs policy and cryptocurrency subscription payment options provide comprehensive privacy protection. The provider also runs all of its servers 100% from RAM, ensuring that all data is wiped from a Surfshark server whenever it is rebooted or shut down.
No matter which devices you use, there is a good chance Surfshark has you covered. Apps are available for Amazon Fire TV, iOS, Android, Linux, Windows, and macOS (with native Apple Silicon support). Chrome, Edge, and Firefox browser extensions are also available.
The provider also works with numerous router makes and models to provide comprehensive protection for all of your devices through a single point of access.
It doesn’t matter how many VPN connections you need for your workers, as Surfshark offers an unlimited concurrent connections policy, meaning you can connect all of your online devices to Surfshark VPN servers at once, no matter how many devices that might be.
Surfshark customer support is an around-the-clock proposition thanks to 24/7 chat, email support, and a searchable knowledge base.
BEST FOR BUDGET-MINDED BUSINESS OWNERS: Surfshark is an excellent option for small business owners looking for a reasonably-priced way to offer top-notch online security for their employees’ internet activities. Connect as many devices as you need to its servers at once. A 30-day money-back guarantee is available.
