ExpressVPN Cashback Deal: How I Made $42 While Testing a Premium VPN Service

You're probably thinking: "Wait, someone's paying me to try a VPN?" Yeah, that's exactly what happened. Through ShopBack's portal, I signed up for ExpressVPN and ended up $42 ahead—before even opening the app. No catches, no weird hoops to jump through. Just a straightforward cashback deal that actually makes sense if you've been curious about trying a premium VPN service anyway.

Here's how it works and why this particular deal caught my attention.

What's Actually Happening Here

ShopBack is running a 120% cashback promotion on ExpressVPN subscriptions. The math is simple: you pay for a subscription, they give you back more than you spent. The longest plan available is 28 months (labeled as "2 years + 4 months") and costs $209.72 with no sales tax. At 120% cashback, that's $251.66 coming back to you—a net gain of $41.94.

I pulled the trigger on this deal myself. My purchase tracked within an hour, and ShopBack sent me an email confirming the pending cashback amount. The actual payout happens in about 90-100 days, which is standard for these shopping portals.

The Safety Net That Makes This Work

ExpressVPN offers a 30-day money-back guarantee. That's your escape hatch if something goes sideways with the tracking. If ShopBack doesn't register your purchase properly, you cancel within 30 days and get your money back. No harm done.

If the tracking looks good (which it did for me almost immediately), you keep the service running and wait for the cashback to process. You can turn off auto-renewal right away if you don't want to think about it again in 28 months. Or just set yourself a calendar reminder to cancel before the subscription renews.

The only real risk? ShopBack tracks everything correctly but somehow doesn't pay out three months later. I figured that was unlikely enough to be worth the shot, especially since 👉 ShopBack has built a reputation for actually delivering cashback on major purchases like this.

What You're Actually Getting

I haven't even downloaded the VPN software yet. That's not required for the cashback to track—the portal pays out based on your purchase, not whether you use the service. But ExpressVPN is one of those names that comes up constantly when people talk about VPNs, so there's a decent chance I'll actually try it out.

The Pro tier plan (the $209.72 one) gives you the full-featured VPN service across multiple devices. Whether that's worth it to you depends on what you need a VPN for—streaming content from other regions, privacy concerns, accessing work networks, whatever. At least with this deal, you're getting paid to find out.

How to Actually Do This

The promotion was live on December 1st, 2025, and these ShopBack deals tend to be short-term. If you're reading this while it's active, here's the simple version:

1. Sign up for ShopBack if you haven't already (new users get a $15 bonus on top of everything else)

2. Go through ShopBack's portal to ExpressVPN's site

3. Pick your subscription plan—the 28-month Pro plan gets you the biggest return

4. Complete your purchase and watch for the tracking confirmation email

Your cashback will show as "pending" almost immediately if everything works right. Then you wait about three months for the actual payout to hit your ShopBack account.

What This Really Costs You

Beyond the purchase price (which you'll get back plus extra), there's an opportunity cost. Your money sits in ExpressVPN's hands for up to 30 days if you decide to cancel, or for three months if you're waiting for the ShopBack payout. For me, tying up $210 for three months to make $42 plus credit card points (I used a 4% card for an extra ~$8) felt worth it.

If you're already thinking about trying a VPN service, this flips the usual equation. Instead of paying to test something out, you're getting compensated for giving it a shot. And if you decide you actually like it, you've locked in 28 months of service at an effective negative cost.

Is This Actually a Good Deal?

Look, I'm not going to tell you ExpressVPN is the best VPN out there—I literally haven't used it yet. What I can tell you is that getting paid $42 to try a well-known service with a 30-day safety net is pretty low-risk. The worst realistic outcome is you spend a few minutes setting this up and then cancel within the month. The best outcome is you discover a VPN you actually like and pocket some cash in the process.

These portal deals pop up regularly, but the percentages vary wildly. When 👉 ShopBack pushes cashback rates above 100%, that's when things get interesting for anyone willing to test out services they were curious about anyway. I treated this as a low-stakes experiment that happened to pay me instead of costing me. That's rare enough to be worth mentioning.