Buying a VPN: a subscription or a key, and how many devices

“Buy a VPN”, “buy a subscription” and “buy a key” are three different ideas of the same product, and it is worth knowing which one is true before you pay. Below is what is actually sold here, how many devices it covers, and whether one subscription can be bought for a whole family.

A subscription or a key: what is actually sold

The word “key” lives in those searches for a reason: with some services the product really does look like a string or a file sent to you after payment. Here it works differently, and that is written in the document you accept by paying. Section 1 of our payment terms is called “What you are buying”, and the answer in it is one: a subscription to access to the service for a chosen term (1, 3, 6 or 12 months). There is no separate product called “a key” anywhere in that document.

The access belongs to the account. The account is the thing you pay for: it has a nine-digit number (it looks like “472-918-563”), visible both in the app and in the cabinet, and you can sign in with it when the email is out of reach. The paid term sits on the account rather than on the phone, so reinstalling the app or moving to a new phone does not take the access away.

The key is made by the app, and it is made on the phone. On first launch the device creates a key pair for itself; the secret half never leaves the phone, and only the public half goes to the server. So there is nobody to buy a key from — it appears by itself — and forwarding it anywhere is both unnecessary and harmful: why one key on two devices breaks the connection for both, we measured separately.

We do not go into the price and the payment order here — that is the neighbouring article: how much it costs per month, what people pay with from Russia, and what happens after the payment and before the term ends.

How many devices: the plan is the device count

Choosing a plan here answers exactly one question: how many devices should work at the same time. Speed, traffic volume and the list of countries do not depend on the plan at all. Prices as of 20 September 2026:

That is the plan price; the invoice total is shown by the cabinet before you pay, on the same screen where the term is chosen. Terms, auto-renewal and why a year is not cheaper than a month here — in the article about payment.

One subscription serves all your devices at once — a second account for a second phone is not needed. And we count devices rather than addresses: signing in from different networks, different cities and a changing IP is fine, nothing here is tied to an address.

If you guessed the plan wrong. Moving to a plan with more places is possible mid-month, and what is left of the old plan is counted towards it; moving down is an ordinary purchase once the paid period ends. Devices already registered are not switched off quietly — but while there are more of them than places in the new plan, you will not be able to add another one. And if the places of your plan are handed to people close to you, the cabinet refuses the move before the payment and says how many places have to be freed first: taking money for a plan the people no longer fit into would be wrong.

The names of the plans limit nothing: Family is simply five places, and one person can fill them with a phone, a tablet and an Android TV set.

How a device is counted, and changing phones

A place in the plan is taken not by a person and not by a connection, but by a device with its own key. In practice that means this.

• A place is taken when the device has made itself a key — that is, on the first launch of the app under your account, not at the moment of connecting. A switched-off phone still holds its place: it stays in the list.
• The same phone after a reinstall is recognised and does not take a second place. A new phone, however, is a new device and a new place, even if you never use the old one again.
• An old device is removed by hand, in a minute: in the app under Settings → My devices, or in the cabinet. The place is freed straight away, and the key of the removed device stops being served — which is exactly why you should only remove what you really do not use.
• Beyond the limit the connection will not come up: the app says that the maximum number of devices is in use. That is not a fault and not a reason to pay again — it is an invitation to remove something or to take a bigger plan.
• We do not free places by ourselves. A device nobody has used for a long time keeps its place: there is no automatic “reclaim the quiet ones” here, and we would rather not one day cut off a phone that simply spent a month in a drawer. Removing the spare ones is your decision and your button.
• A settings file for a Linux computer is a device too. It is issued in the cabinet inside your subscription and takes one place of the plan; one file per country, and a new one disables the previous (details in the help centre).

Moving to a new phone. The order is simple: sign in to your account on the new phone (email or the nine-digit number, plus the password), check that the connection comes up, and remove the old phone from the list of devices. The paid term goes nowhere: it is on the account.

Can you buy it for a family

Yes, and there is no need to buy a second account for it: the cabinet has “My group”, where the places of your plan are handed to people close to you. Each of them gets their own account with their own sign-in and their own keys on their own devices, while one person keeps paying — it is their device limit that is spent. No password sharing is involved.

Four things worth knowing before buying:

• Nothing happens without the person's consent: the invitation (a one-time link or the account number) has to be accepted by them, and the consent screen states plainly what becomes visible to the payer and what stays invisible to the payer and to us alike. Both halves are listed point by point in the help centre — worth reading before you invite your parents.
• The whole group's access rests on your subscription. When it ends, theirs ends too; each of them sees in their own cabinet whose account they live on and until which date.
• Count devices, not people. A place is spent by every phone, tablet and TV set rather than by every person, and one family member easily turns out to have two or three.
• One person, one group. You can invite someone who is not in another group and does not hand out places themselves; an accepted invitation is one per person as well. Branching further is allowed if you permit it — your relative passes some of their places on, and there can be up to three levels below you.

What the steps look like, and how handing out places differs from giving away your password — set out in the article about access for two, together with the measurement of why a copy of one key on two devices does not work.

“A free subscription”: what we have instead

The question is asked often, and the honest answer is short: there is no free-forever plan here. We live on the subscription rather than on advertising or on selling data, and pretending that “there is a free option too” would be untrue.

What there is instead: a trial — 7 days on one device after you confirm your email, no card. We ask for no payment details for it at all, and when it ends nothing is charged by itself — the access simply stops. One device is a limit worth knowing in advance: trying it “for two” during the trial will not work, the second device already needs a plan.

How a paid service differs from a free one and what those who take no money live on — five questions worth asking any service before you pay.

What you cannot buy here

The list is short, and it is here so you do not go looking for something we do not have.

• A key or a settings file as a separate product. The file for a Linux computer does exist, but it is part of the subscription: issued in the cabinet to someone who already has access, and it takes a place of the plan. Without an account and a subscription there is no file.
• Lifetime access. A subscription is bought for a term — 1, 3, 6 or 12 months. There is no “forever” plan here and none is planned.
• Access without an account. The account is what the payment belongs to, so without one there would be nothing to pay for. It takes a minute and happens right in the app.
• Devices beyond the plan. The number of devices is the plan; “unlimited devices at once” is not sold here. More places means a bigger plan.
• Discounts and promo codes. There are no discounts — not for a longer term, not for volume — and we do not hand out promo codes.
• A separate charge for speed, traffic or the ad filter. There is nothing to buy and no reason to: the volume is not capped, we do not throttle speed, and the ad and tracker filter is part of the plan.

What we checked

• What is being sold — from the document, not from memory. Section 1 of our payment terms is called “What you are buying”, and it names a subscription to access to the service for a chosen term. The word “key” as a product does not appear anywhere in that document.
• The plans — from our own server. On 20 September 2026 we asked the server itself, with the same open request the payment page and the plan cards use: payments are on, and the plans are 300 ₽ at 3 devices, 500 ₽ at 5, 700 ₽ at 10. The same numbers are on the home page, in the help centre and in the payment terms.
• “The plan is devices, not speed.” Checked against the home page (plans differ by the number of devices, not by megabits) and against the help centre, which also carries the second rule — we count devices, not addresses.
• How a key is created and how the same phone is recognised. Taken not from marketing copy but from our own write-up of the app, where it was checked together with the measurement of 13 September 2026.
• The rules about places — read in the code that applies them. That a place is taken by the device record (not by a sign-in and not by an install), that a removed device really stops being served by our nodes, that moving down a plan does not switch off devices already registered while a move with places handed out is refused before any money is taken, and that there is no “reclaim the quiet ones” here at all — checked on 20 September 2026 against the mechanism itself rather than its description.
• The trial — one device and seven days. Both numbers are set where the access is calculated, not only written on the shop window.
• The account number. Nine digits, the last of them a check digit: it is there so that a typo or two swapped digits do not lead into someone else's account.
• How places are handed out in a group, consent and visibility. Retold from the help centre rather than from memory; the “up to three levels” depth and the “one group per person” rule are checked against the code.

What we do not know

We try to make sure nothing more can be read out of our text than is in it.

• How many devices you in particular will need. We do not count people's devices on average and publish no such measurements — counting the phones, tablets and TV sets at home is something only you can do.
• How the product is arranged elsewhere. Whether others sell keys as files, how many devices they allow and at what price — we do not collect that, write no ratings and build no “cheaper than them” comparisons.
• The terms tomorrow. Everything above is as of 20 September 2026. The current plans and device counts are always visible in the cabinet before you pay; if they ever disagree with this article, the cabinet is the truth.
• Whether the service will work for you in particular. That depends on your network and can only be checked on your own phone — which is what the trial is for. Neither the plan nor the number of devices affects it.
• Whether an app of our own for iPhone, Windows and macOS will appear. We name no dates. Today our own app is for Android, while on iPhone the access works through the third-party Happ app with the subscription link from your account — and such a device also takes a slot of the plan. Happ is not in the Russian App Store; there incy (publisher LLC ITDEV) works instead, checked on 22 September 2026. The same Happ app exists for Windows and Mac, but we have not verified it there with a live connection.

Short answers

What am I buying — a subscription or a key? A subscription to access for an account, for a chosen term. The app creates a key for each device itself, and it is not sold separately.

Can I buy a VPN key as a file? Not here. A settings file exists only for a Linux computer, is issued in the cabinet inside a subscription and takes a place of the plan.

Can I buy a subscription without an account? No: the payment belongs to an account. The account itself takes a minute right in the app, and its nine-digit number later works for signing in too.

How many devices does one subscription cover? As many as the plan says: 3, 5 or 10 at the same time. Speed and traffic volume do not depend on the plan.

Can I buy a VPN for a family? Yes, with one subscription: the places of your plan are handed to people close to you in the cabinet, each with their own sign-in, and one person pays. No second account to buy.

Does every family member need their own account? They will get their own account — but for free, together with a place from your plan. Nobody pays twice.

Does reinstalling the app count as a new device? No: the same phone is recognised and does not take a second place. A new phone is a new place.

What should I do when I change phones? Sign in to your account on the new one, check the connection, and remove the old one under Settings → My devices or in the cabinet. The paid term stays on the account.

What happens if there are more devices than the plan allows? The extra one simply will not connect: the app says the maximum number of devices is in use. Remove what you do not need, or take a bigger plan.

Is there a free subscription? There is no free-forever plan. There is a trial on one device — 7 days after you confirm your email, no card.

Can I buy access forever? No. A subscription runs for 1, 3, 6 or 12 months; a “lifetime” plan does not exist here.

Is there a discount or a promo code? There are no discounts, and we do not hand out promo codes. The only thing that makes it cheaper is arithmetic — one plan covering several devices and several people.