How much should you trust VPN reviews and Reddit recommendations?
Summary
Trust them for what people ran into, not for prices, refund terms or privacy claims. Some VPN review sites earn a commission when you sign up, and the FTC expects that relationship to be disclosed clearly. For a no-logs claim, a provider's published third-party audit tells you more than any ranking. Refund stories on Reddit often don't carry over, because the same provider can treat an App Store purchase differently from one made on its website.
Start with who gets paid
Some "best VPN" pages are paid by the VPN when a reader clicks through and buys. The FTC's Endorsement Guides say that if an endorser "has been paid or given something of value to tout the product," the connection "should be disclosed clearly and conspicuously." That covers reviewers who got a free subscription too. The FTC's FAQ adds that "even if your review mentions one or more negative points, it's still an endorsement."
The FTC went further with a rule on fake reviews, published in the Federal Register on August 22, 2024 (16 CFR Part 465). It bars a business from misrepresenting that a website it controls "provides independent reviews or opinions" about a category that includes its own products. Reviews written by a company's officers or managers without a clear disclosure are also covered. On the internet, a disclosure "must be unavoidable," and one you have to click a link or hover over an icon to see doesn't count.
So look for the disclosure at the top of the article or right beside the signup link. Why an averaged star score can't answer a pricing question is covered in our article on star ratings.
What Reddit threads are good for
Reddit is where people describe what actually happened on their own device and setup, the kind of detail a provider's help pages leave out. You don't learn who, if anyone, is paying the poster. Reddit's spam rules ban mass-posting "for the purpose of exposure or financial gain," bots that keep promoting products, and using multiple accounts to inflate numbers. That help page doesn't require anyone to disclose an affiliate or paid relationship.
Anything about price or terms in a thread is a snapshot from the day it was posted. Without the date, the plan and where it was bought, it can't be compared with your situation.
Why "I got my refund" may not apply to you
Refund terms depend on how you paid, not only on which VPN you chose. ExpressVPN's 30-day money-back guarantee "is for first-time users only," and subscriptions billed as in-app purchases through Google Play or the Apple App Store "do not have access" to it. A poster who bought on the website and a reader who subscribed inside the iPhone app are under different rules. How the major providers' refund conditions compare is in our guide to choosing a personal VPN.
Checking a no-logs claim
You can't observe a provider's logging from the outside. What you can read is an audit report, and several providers publish them:
- Proton VPN says it has passed five consecutive annual no-logs audits by Securitum, whose staff "spent several days on site reviewing our VPN configuration files and server configurations," assessed procedures and interviewed employees.
- Mullvad hired Cure53 to audit its VPN infrastructure from June 3 to June 14, 2024, its fourth infrastructure audit and second with Cure53.
- ExpressVPN lists a KPMG audit of its no-logs policy from September 2022 and a third KPMG audit of its privacy commitments from June 2025.
An audit speaks only to what was examined, and when. Proton's 2026 conclusion is careful on exactly this point: the auditors found nothing indicating that "the examined Proton VPN server infrastructure" logs browsing activity or DNS queries.
Sources
- https://www.ftc.gov/business-guidance/resources/ftcs-endorsement-guides-what-people-are-asking
- https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2024/08/federal-trade-commission-announces-final-rule-banning-fake-reviews-testimonials
- https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-16/chapter-I/subchapter-D/part-465
- https://support.reddithelp.com/hc/en-us/articles/360043504051
- https://www.expressvpn.com/support/manage-account/what-is-expressvpns-refund-policy/
- https://protonvpn.com/blog/no-logs-audit
- https://mullvad.net/en/blog/tag/audits
- https://www.expressvpn.com/trust
Related on this site
- What a star rating is not
- How do you choose a VPN for personal use?
- What does ExpressVPN charge after the first 28 months, and how is Teams priced?
- Does Mullvad really charge €5 a month whether you pay for one month or ten years?
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.