Surfshark costs $2-3 USD/month on the promotional rate. At renewal, that jumps to $5-15 USD/month depending on your plan. If that renewal shock is what brought you here, you're in good company.
Like its sibling NordVPN (Surfshark merged with Nord Security in 2022, though they still operate as separate products), Surfshark doesn't have a "cancel" button in the traditional sense. What you're actually doing is turning off auto-renewal. Your VPN keeps working until your current billing period ends. If you want your money back, that's a separate process through their 30-day money-back guarantee.
How to turn off auto-renewal
On the Surfshark website
- Go to my.surfshark.com and log in
- Click your email address (top right), then Subscription
- Select the Payments section
- Click Cancel auto-renewal
- Confirm the cancellation
Your auto-renewal status switches to "off" and you'll get a confirmation email. The VPN keeps working until your billing period expires.
If you subscribed through an app store
Surfshark can't cancel app store subscriptions for you. You need to cancel through the platform you originally subscribed on:
- iPhone/iPad: Settings > tap your name > Subscriptions > Surfshark > Cancel Subscription
- Android (Google Play): Google Play Store > profile icon > Payments & subscriptions > Subscriptions > Surfshark > Cancel subscription
- Amazon Appstore: Amazon website > Accounts & Lists > Memberships & Subscriptions > Surfshark > Cancel
If you're not sure where you signed up, check your email for the original receipt. That'll tell you whether it was Surfshark directly, Apple, Google, or Amazon.
30-day money-back guarantee
If you signed up within the last 30 days and paid through the Surfshark website, you can get a full refund. This applies to all plans (Starter, One, One+) and there's no usage cap. You could have been streaming, torrenting, and browsing through 100 countries and they'll still refund you.
To claim it:
- Go to support.surfshark.com and start a live chat
- Tell the agent you want to cancel and request a refund
- Provide your account email for verification
- Wait for processing (typically a few hours for the request, up to 10 business days for the money to hit your account)
The 30-day guarantee does not apply to subscriptions purchased through Apple, Google Play, or Amazon. For those, you need to request a refund through the respective platform, and their policies are stingier.
It also doesn't apply to renewals. If your 2-year plan just auto-renewed at the higher rate and you missed the window, the refund path is closed. This is why turning off auto-renewal before it fires matters.
Your VPN stays fully functional until the end of your paid period. After that, your account remains active but you lose VPN access, Surfshark Antivirus, Surfshark Alert, Surfshark Search, and any other bundled features. Your account settings and login are preserved if you decide to resubscribe later.
Current pricing (USD)
Surfshark prices everything in USD. Australian cards get charged in USD and your bank applies its own exchange rate, typically landing 40-50% higher in AUD.
| Plan | Monthly | 1 Year | 2 Years |
|---|---|---|---|
| Starter (VPN + Alternative ID) | ~$15.45 USD/mo | ~$2.99 USD/mo | ~$2.19 USD/mo |
| One (+ Antivirus, Alert, Search) | ~$15.95 USD/mo | ~$3.19 USD/mo | ~$2.69 USD/mo |
| One+ (+ Incogni data removal) | ~$17.95 USD/mo | ~$5.09 USD/mo | ~$3.99 USD/mo |
The 2-year plans include extra free months (typically 3-4) and are the prices Surfshark advertises most heavily. They look cheap. And they are, for the first term.
The renewal price trap
Surfshark's promotional pricing only applies to your first billing cycle. When your 2-year plan expires, auto-renewal kicks in at the standard annual rate, not the promotional rate you signed up for. A plan that cost you ~$2.19 USD/month can renew at $4-5 USD/month or more. That's double the price, and it happens automatically unless you've turned off auto-renewal. Multiple Reddit threads report users being caught off guard by this, sometimes finding charges they didn't expect from a plan they thought was still on the cheap rate.
This is the same pattern NordVPN uses (not surprising given the merger). The play is simple: get you in on a low 2-year rate, then auto-renew at a much higher annual rate and hope you don't notice.
The workaround is equally simple. Turn off auto-renewal before your plan expires. When it runs out, sign up again as a new customer (or use a different email) to grab whatever promotional rate they're advertising at that point. It'll almost always be cheaper than the renewal rate.
Do you actually need Surfshark?
Surfshark's unlimited simultaneous connections is its main selling point over NordVPN and ExpressVPN. If you have a household full of devices, that matters. But if you signed up for a specific reason (overseas travel, accessing a particular streaming library, public Wi-Fi protection) and that reason has passed, there's no point keeping it running.
The Starter plan is VPN-only. The One and One+ plans bundle antivirus, data breach alerts, a private search engine, and data broker removal. If you're paying for One or One+ but only using the VPN, you're overpaying for features that sit unused.
Surfshark dealt with. Now, what other subscriptions are quietly renewing at rates you didn't agree to?
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See what you're paying forChris Raad
Chris is the founder of Subtracker. He built this tool after experiencing the pain of discovering thousands of dollars in unused SaaS sprawl just before tax time.