--- title: "VPN buyer-intent study 2026: what 10,907 VPN shoppers want" description: "10,907 visitors to VPN.com's VPN finder quiz said what they want from a VPN. Speed ranks first and more than half can't name a budget. Citable figures and the full dataset." url: "https://www.vpn.com/vpn/research/vpn-buyer-intent-2026/" lang: "en" updated: 2026-10-26 --- What do VPN.com visitors say they want from a VPN: what they would use it for, what matters most to them and what they would spend? - **Status:** Industry research with open data; not peer reviewed. - **Publisher:** VPN.com Editorial Team. Published October 19, 2026; updated October 26, 2026. - **Data window and sample:** Jul 29, 2026 to Oct 18, 2026. 14,792 distinct visitors started the quiz and 10,907 (74%) answered all three questions. - **Scope:** visitors to VPN.com who chose to use VPN.com's VPN finder quiz. Not a census of all VPN users. ## Contents 1. [Key findings](#key-statistics) 2. [Why they want a VPN](#use-case) 3. [What matters most](#priority) 4. [What they would spend](#budget) 5. [How answers connect](#combinations) 6. [Where visitors were](#countries) 7. [Completion](#dropoff) 8. [What happened next](#after) 9. [Methodology](#method) 10. [Limitations](#limitations) 11. [Cite and download](#cite) ## Key findings - **Three in four finish the quiz.** 14,792 people started VPN.com's VPN finder quiz and 10,907 (74%) answered all three questions. (n = 14,792; Jul 29, 2026 to Oct 18, 2026.) Counts only visitors who answered the first question. - **One in five can't say what they'd use a VPN for.** 20.5% of 14,792 visitors chose "I'm not sure" when asked what they would use a VPN for. (n = 14,792; Jul 29, 2026 to Oct 18, 2026.) The share depends partly on how prominent the "not sure" option is. - **Speed is the #1 priority.** 32.5% of the 10,907 visitors who finished put Speed first, ahead of Privacy (18.3%) and Price (17.0%). (n = 10,907; Jul 29, 2026 to Oct 18, 2026.) Priorities differ sharply by country; a pooled share reflects the biggest audiences. - **More than half aren't sure what to spend.** 53.9% of 10,907 finishers answered "I'm not sure" when asked for a monthly budget; 34.7% picked the cheapest option. (n = 10,907; Jul 29, 2026 to Oct 18, 2026.) The budget options carry no dollar amounts, so "Balanced" and "The best" are relative. - **Price-first shoppers want the cheapest plan.** Visitors who ranked Price first were 2.2 times as likely as the average visitor to choose the cheapest budget (76.0% vs 34.7%). (n = 1,851; Jul 29, 2026 to Oct 18, 2026.) An association between answers, not a cause. - **Privacy shoppers put Privacy first.** Visitors who wanted a VPN for privacy were 2.3 times as likely as average to rank Privacy their top priority (41.3% vs 18.3%). (n = 2,083; Jul 29, 2026 to Oct 18, 2026.) An association between answers, not a cause. - **Gamers lean toward speed.** Gamers were 1.4 times as likely as the average visitor to put Speed first (46.7% vs 32.5%). (n = 1,538; Jul 29, 2026 to Oct 18, 2026.) An association between answers, not a cause. - **Doubt on one question carries to the next.** Visitors unsure what matters most were 1.6 times as likely as average to be unsure about budget too (83.8% vs 53.9%). (n = 2,152; Jul 29, 2026 to Oct 18, 2026.) An association between answers, not a cause. - **Budget confidence swings by country.** The share unsure of their budget ranged from 21% in Hong Kong to 73% in Pakistan, across countries with 200 or more finishers. (n = 1,373; Jul 29, 2026 to Oct 18, 2026.) Countries differ in language, device and the pages that send them traffic. - **A dedicated page more than doubles provider clicks.** In a randomised test, visitors sent to a dedicated "best VPN for" page clicked out to a provider 2.27 times as often as those sent to the general VPN page (41.9% vs 18.5%). (n = 1,230; Jul 29, 2026 to Sep 7, 2026.) A click-out is a click to a provider, not a purchase. - **Almost a third visit a provider within a week.** 31.2% of visitors who finished the quiz clicked through to a provider's site within seven days. (n = 10,001; Jul 29, 2026 to Oct 18, 2026.) A click-out is interest, not a purchase. - **Streaming shoppers are after shows from abroad.** 68.0% of 206 visitors to our streaming page said their show is only available abroad. (n = 206; Oct 3, 2026 to Oct 19, 2026.) Smaller sample; mostly English- and Chinese-language pages. ## The questions Quoted as visitors saw them, in order, with every answer option: 1. "What will you use a VPN for?" - Security - Privacy - Streaming - Gaming - Speed - Business - I'm not sure 2. "What matters most in a VPN?" - Price - Speed - Privacy - Simplicity - Overall best - I'm not sure 3. "What's your monthly budget?" - Cheapest - Balanced - The best - I'm not sure ## Method Each visitor's first valid response is counted once. Shares carry 95% Wilson confidence intervals; counts under 10 are withheld and cells under 100 are marked directional. Test and automated traffic is removed with the same rules VPN.com uses for its own reporting. The full cleaning table, the versions of the quiz and the statistics are on the web page (section: Methodology). ## Limitations - Visitors chose to visit VPN.com and chose to open the quiz, so shares describe those visitors, not VPN buyers in general. - Answers differ sharply by country, so a pooled share mostly reflects the largest audiences. - A click-out is a click on a tracked link to a provider within seven days. It is interest, not a purchase. - Answers given by one visitor are related, not caused by each other. The randomised page test is the only causal claim. ## Disclosure, ethics and reproducibility - **Conflict of interest.** VPN.com earns an affiliate commission when visitors buy through our links, including some of the clicks this study measures. The study publishes only aggregated answers and click-out rates, and it ranks no provider. No provider paid for the study. - **Ethics and consent.** The quiz asks three questions and nothing else: no name, email address or free text. A response is linked to a first-party visitor cookie so that repeat takers and later provider clicks can be matched. That identifier is not published: the files contain aggregates only, with no visitor, session or response identifiers, no individual timestamps and every count under 10 withheld. - **Reproducibility.** The aggregates and the method are public in the dataset; the raw answers stay private to protect visitors' privacy. The analysis script that regenerates every number is in our repository. Command: `node scripts/analysis/advisor-research.mjs --until 2026-10-19` ## Changes to this page - 2026-10-26: Added the research question, status and conflict-of-interest disclosure, the three questions with every answer option as visitors saw them, an ethics and reproducibility note and this change log. No figure changed. - 2026-10-19: Version 1.0 published with the dataset. ## Cite and download VPN.com. (2026). VPN buyer-intent study 2026: what 10,907 VPN shoppers told VPN.com's VPN finder quiz. https://www.vpn.com/vpn/research/vpn-buyer-intent-2026/ (data Jul 29, 2026 to Oct 18, 2026; dataset https://www.vpn.com/vpn/research/vpn-buyer-intent-2026/dataset.json) - Dataset (JSON, aggregates only): https://www.vpn.com/vpn/research/vpn-buyer-intent-2026/dataset.json- Licence: Use is subject to the [VPN.com terms](https://www.vpn.com/terms/). - Web page with tables and figures: https://www.vpn.com/vpn/research/vpn-buyer-intent-2026/