Is OpenVPN free, or do you have to pay for it?
Summary
The open-source OpenVPN software is free. OpenVPN Inc. also sells two business products under the same name: Access Server, which you host yourself and pay for by concurrent connections, and CloudConnexa, which the company runs for you and bills by the seat. Both have a free allowance, two connections on Access Server and five seats on CloudConnexa's Starter plan.
The free part
OpenVPN's site still hosts the open-source community edition. The same page says that businesses use the company's commercial products, Access Server or CloudConnexa. If you only need the protocol, the community edition is the free piece; how the protocol itself works is covered in our article on VPN protocols and encryption.
Access Server: pay for simultaneous connections
Access Server runs on infrastructure you control. OpenVPN lists installing it on Linux, running it as a virtual appliance or container, and deploying it on public clouds including AWS, Google Cloud and Microsoft. The licensing rules on its pricing page:
- Subscriptions are based on concurrent connections. "Don't pay per user."
- You can add as many users and devices as you like; only the subscribed number can be connected at any one time.
- Two connections are free to try.
- Between 2 and 10, there is a 5-connection plan. Packages of 2,000 connections and up are custom.
- You can scale connections up or down and the change takes effect immediately. If you cancel, unused funds stay on your account as credit.
The per-connection price only appears in a JavaScript calculator on that page, so we haven't listed it.
CloudConnexa: pay by the seat
CloudConnexa is OpenVPN's hosted service. It supports both the OpenVPN and IPsec protocols, so the product doesn't lock you into the one its name suggests.
Starter is free, includes 5 seats and needs no credit card. It allows one device per user and two connectors. Essential raises that to three devices per user and 500 connectors, and Premium to five devices and 1,000 connectors; both paid plans come with a 14-day free trial. Enterprise & IoT is custom-priced.
Connectors are the pieces of software OpenVPN describes as "meant to stay always ON." The admin portal counts used seats in two groups, users and connectors, so a team that sizes its plan by headcount alone will come up short. Suspending a user frees their seat, according to OpenVPN's documentation.
We haven't printed the Essential and Premium prices. The pricing page shows them beside an annual-discount toggle ("save up to 20%") and a "billed yearly" total, and it doesn't say whether the per-seat figure is the monthly or the annual rate.
Sources
- https://openvpn.net/community/
- https://openvpn.net/access-server/
- https://openvpn.net/access-server/pricing/
- https://openvpn.net/cloud-vpn/
- https://openvpn.net/cloud-vpn/pricing/
- https://openvpn.net/cloud-docs/owner/status/check-the-number-of-available-and-used-subscribed-seats.html
- https://openvpn.net/cloud-docs/owner/users/users---users/suspend-a-user.html
- https://openvpn.net/cloud-docs/owner/get-started/about-cloudconnexa/cloudconnexa-connectors.html
Related on this site
- What's the difference between a VPN protocol, a cipher, and post-quantum encryption?
- Per user, per device, or per server — the unit is not the same everywhere
- Every business VPN vendor here, and what a user costs
- What a business VPN costs per user, at your team size
- Is VPN as a service just a VPN someone else runs for you?
- Is a free VPN really free, or is there a catch?
Written by Kaz (pen name). Published September 28, 2026. The facts above come from the vendor and standards pages listed under Sources. We have not used these products. Corrections: contact form.