So in total: $10 + about $12 + $1.5 (30x connections per day) = $23.5 per month
Mullvad is $5.
Using the big 3 for a VPN is suicide. You do not want to host a business based on bandwidth on those.
A cool tech demo but definitely not viable as a business.
Also, why a California LLC?
$10 is your starting prepaid balance - that you consume by using UpVPN.
California LLC because I'm a resident.
For pricing I describe more in detail in these comments: - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36512794 - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36513552 -
I think honestly you should try to phase out the "per hour" pricing, and just somehow make it so that each connection doesn't need a separate server, as it is just routing in the end, I think it would be easier to market just as a "no BS subscription!" VPN service, which I think could have a market.
As for the California LLC, I just asked because the California LLC is kind of known for being a PITA, with the fees, privacy, etc. and from what I know, you don't actually have one unless you have physical presence, but then there's some tax filing implications if you file in e.g. Delaware or Wyoming so I don't know too well.
GL!
- work on minimizing the cost and carve out a margin
- go to VC and say "hey I have this VPN service, people seem to like it"
I know the pricing page says "Prepaid starting at $10" but isn't that just the minimum top up?
$10 is the minium you can add to your account, and then it deducts from there.
There is no per-month cost, opening account is free.
ProtonVPN still allows forwarding and is what quite a few fellow pie-rats are now using.
Mullvad is dead.
Other VPN providers claim to not keep logs and you have to take their word for it. But then whoops it turns out they did keep logs after all.
Mullvad is the only VPN provider that puts its money where its mouth is.
Swedish police recently tried to raid Mullvad, but the tech ensured there were no logs for them to take https://www.theverge.com/2023/4/21/23692580/mullvad-vpn-raid...
Meanwhile ProtonMail was legally forced to reveal one of its users IP logs a few months ago. https://www.privacyaffairs.com/protonmail-surrenders-user-lo... What reason is there to believe that Proton will be in a better position to protect their VPN users, than they were at protecting their Mail users?
That being said, Swiss law is very restrictive, and there are a lot of hurdles that one needs to jump through to get a court order. And even with a court order (and has been proved multiple times in court), there is no way to break Proton Mail's encryption. Privacy is not the same as anonymity, and due to the way the internet works, if anonymity is what you are going after, you have to exercise proper infosec and take preventive measures, such as using Tor or VPN.
Under Swiss law, the treatment of VPNs is different. So VPNs can indeed be no-logs. No-logs VPN, is also possible in other countries as well. What makes Switzerland different, and possibly unique, is that within the current Swiss legal framework, Proton VPN also does not have forced logging obligations. So, a no-logs US VPN could for instance, get a NSL (National Security Letter) to start logging particular users, but that's not possible in Switzerland. In addition to that, VPN is mostly impossible for law enforcement to ask for something reasonable, as there's no "identity" for the traffic going out of our server. There's practically no chance of law enforcement to know what account to ask for.
Finally, it's worth noting that in October 2021 (after the case you mentioned), Proton won in court against the Swiss government and as a result, email services cannot be considered telecommunications providers, and consequently are not subject to the data retention requirements imposed on telecommunications providers. You can find more details here: https://proton.me/blog/court-strengthens-email-privacy.