Seven VPN vendors that sell on a quote: nine questions to ask before the call, each one taken from a page that does publish
Appgate, Cato Networks, Cisco Secure Access, Perimeter 81 (now Check Point SASE), SonicWall Cloud Secure Edge, Todyl and Zscaler put no figure on their pricing pages. Cloudflare One was on this list until 2026-10-02, when its $0 and $7 were found on the Access product page (article-44). Who publishes nothing, and why that end of the market works that way, is article-03. This page does something else.
The seventeen vendors that do publish have, between them, printed every item a quote ought to contain: a minimum, a cap, a fixed charge, a term, an overage rate. Each of those printed lines is a question, and if the quote's PDF does not answer it, you ask.
Nine questions on one sheet
| # | Ask | Printed example to hold the answer against |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | What is the billing unit: user, device, connector, site or server? | ZeroTier bills an $18 base covering 10 devices, then $2.00 a device. OpenVPN CloudConnexa bills "seats," and a user and a connector each take one. Pritunl is $10 per server. VyprVPN is a $55 bundle covering 5 users |
| 2 | Is there a minimum? How many users does the first invoice bill for? | NordLayer prints "5 users minimum"; GoodAccess and UTunnel 5; Proton 2 (3 on VPN and Pass); ExpressVPN Teams 5 licenses. NordLayer Enterprise 200, GoodAccess Enterprise 50 |
| 3 | Is there a cap? What plan takes over past it? | Twingate Teams stops at 100 users, UTunnel Basic and Standard at 50, Firezone Team at 500. When the row above the cap reads "Custom," that is where the printed rate ends |
| 4 | How many months is the term? Is annual paid up front? | Only PureVPN (1 and 12 months), ExpressVPN Teams (1 month, 12 months, 2 years) and VyprVPN (monthly, yearly) print a term. ExpressVPN prints the invoice too: "Auto-renews $280.80 annually for 5 licenses" |
| 5 | How far apart are monthly and annual? | Of 12 plans printing both, 11 charge 18% to 29% more for monthly (article-08). ExpressVPN Teams is $4.68 against $9.74, 108% |
| 6 | Is there a required fixed charge outside the per-user rate: gateway, dedicated IP, server, platform fee? | NordLayer Core and Premium: Server with Dedicated IP "+$40/month required." UTunnel: $5.00 a month for a cloud gateway. ZeroTier: $18 and $179 bases. GoodAccess's $49 gateway is optional. ExpressVPN's dedicated IP is $390 a year per location |
| 7 | Is there a free trial? What happens when it ends? | Proton 14 days (terms: you are then "enrolled" in a paid subscription); GoodAccess 14 days, no card; Firezone Enterprise 30 days. Refunds: Proton 30 days, NordLayer 14, Twingate "not refundable (including for any unused portion)" (article-46) |
| 8 | Does the price change at renewal? With how much notice? | Twingate's customer agreement: auto-renewal, non-renewal by written notice 30 days before the date, fee changes on 30 days' notice effective from the next renewal. NordLayer Enterprise: "The price may vary if a higher plan or additional features are selected" |
| 9 | What does one more device, machine or resource cost? | NetBird €0.50 per machine per month; ZeroTier $2.00 per device ($1.80 on Scale); Tailscale $1 a month per tagged resource past 50 (article-39); PureVPN's rate steps $9, $8, $7 as the seat band changes |
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Why 1 and 9 are the same question from two sides
If the unit question gets the answer "user," stop there and you miss what the published pages show happening. OpenVPN looks as if it counts people and counts connectors in the same seat. NetBird bills by user, includes 100 machines plus 10 per user, and charges €0.50 for each machine beyond. ZeroTier does not count people at all. When a quote is one line reading "$X per user," question 9 is: are devices, connectors, sites and gateways inside that $X, or on another line, and if another line, at what rate. Questions 1 and 9 pin the same thing from both ends.
2 and 3 are the headcounts where the bill jumps
On the published pages the bill steps at both the minimum and the cap. GoodAccess Essential bills two people $7 x 5 = $35, or $17.50 each. Twingate Teams bills 100 people $500.00 and 101 people, now on Business, $1,010.00. Quotes often print neither step, so ask for both as headcounts: how many users does the minimum bill, and past how many users does a different price list apply. Zscaler's page describes its Essentials Platform as being "for 5% of users," a band defined as a share of headcount, which is a shape nothing in this site's tables has.
4 and 5 are one number written two ways
An annual rate printed as "$8 a month" may arrive as an invoice for $96 x users once a year. Of the seven publishing vendors that print both terms, only ExpressVPN ("$280.80 annually") writes the invoice amount out. Twingate did ("$51/user annually") until its 2026-10-02 page, which shows only the per-month rate. Ask the quote for the per-month rate and for the amount and frequency that will actually be billed; and if a monthly option exists, its rate. Among the published plans monthly runs 18% to 29% above annual, with one at 108%. A quote whose monthly rate falls outside that band is a reason to ask which of the two numbers is the list price.
6 is the charge that vanishes when you divide
NordLayer's $40 is $20.00 a head for two people and $0.80 for fifty. A fixed charge weighs most on a small team and often sits outside the "$X per user" column. The question: does the total on this quote, divided by our headcount, equal the per-user rate, and if not, what is the difference called. On the published pages the difference was called Server with Dedicated IP, Minimum Gateway Cost or Base plan. The cost guide is the list of charges of that kind.
7 and 8 live outside the pricing page
Not only for these seven: trial and renewal terms are more often in the agreement than on the pricing page. Twingate's pricing page gives no trial length; its customer agreement says "either party may cancel a free trial before it ends by providing written notice." Proton's terms say the trial converts to a paid plan and that after the first term the subscription renews for the same duration. Once a quote arrives, ask for the renewal price (fixed or not), the notice period, and the non-renewal deadline to be written into the quote itself or the attached agreement.
What the seven pages say instead of a number
- Appgate: /pricing and /sdp/pricing both return 404; the homepage offers "Schedule a Demo"
- Cato Networks: /pricing/ returns 404; the homepage has "Contact us" and "Product Demo"
- Cisco Secure Access: no plans on the product page; "Talk to an expert" and "how to buy"
- Perimeter 81 (Check Point SASE): the old pricing URL redirects twice to the Check Point SASE home page, which offers "Book a Demo" and a "TCO Savings Calculator"; no amounts (article-42)
- SonicWall Cloud Secure Edge: "MSP-ready, per-seat licensing" billed through MySonicWall; no amounts
- Todyl: /pricing returns 404 and sends visitors to "Explore Todyl packages," which links to request-pricing
- Zscaler: "Simple subscription pricing," with the Essentials Platform described as "for 5% of users"; no amounts
SonicWall's "per-seat" and Zscaler's "5%" are partial answers to questions 1 and 2 already on the page. The call fills in the rest. For Cloudflare, which left this group on 2026-10-02, article-44 records where its figures are printed.
Who this is not for
These nine questions build a price comparison, not a product choice. Features, supported operating systems, log retention and support hours are not among them. This site has not used any of these products and does not know what any of the seven would quote. If you already hold a quote, the way to use this page is to lay it beside the printed rates in the vendor list and fill in the nine rows.
Sources
- https://www.appgate.com/ — checked 2026-09-07
- https://www.catonetworks.com/pricing/ — checked 2026-09-07
- https://www.cisco.com/site/us/en/products/security/secure-access/index.html — checked 2026-09-07
- https://sase.checkpoint.com/ — checked 2026-10-02
- https://www.sonicwall.com/products/cloud-edge-secure-access — checked 2026-09-07
- https://www.todyl.com/pricing — checked 2026-09-07
- https://www.zscaler.com/pricing — checked 2026-09-07
- https://nordlayer.com/pricing/ — checked 2026-10-02
- https://www.twingate.com/pricing — checked 2026-10-02
- https://www.twingate.com/terms — checked 2026-10-02
- https://www.utunnel.io/vpn-ztna-pricing-plans — checked 2026-09-08
- https://openvpn.net/cloud-vpn/pricing/ — checked 2026-09-07
- https://www.zerotier.com/pricing/ — checked 2026-10-02
- https://netbird.io/pricing — checked 2026-09-07
- https://www.expressvpn.com/teams/pricing — checked 2026-10-02
- https://www.goodaccess.com/pricing — checked 2026-10-02
- https://proton.me/legal/terms — checked 2026-10-02
- https://seatbill.com/vpn-pricing/article-03 — this site's page on the vendors that publish nothing
Related on this site
- [[The vendors that publish nothing]](article-03.html)
- [[Perimeter 81 became Check Point Harmony SASE: what the pricing page still says]](article-42.html)
- [[Cloudflare Zero Trust pricing: the free tier's conditions and what is published]](article-44.html)
- [[Every business VPN vendor here, and what a user costs]](browse.html)
- [[What a business VPN price leaves out]](guide-cost.html)
- [[Business VPN trials, refunds and contract terms]](article-46.html)
- [[Zero-trust costs beyond the seat: connectors, gateways and servers]](article-60.html)
Written by Kaz (pen name). Published October 2, 2026. Prices were checked on the dates given under Sources. We have not used these products. Corrections: contact form.