IPVanish Review Australia

Reviewed by Laurence Deer, founder and reviewer in Melbourne, testing VPNs since 2019 · How we test · How we earn money

IPVanish

Number 4 of 14 in our calculated order

Good for households with many devices

IPVanish suits a household with a pile of devices: it sets no device limit and lists servers in five Australian cities. It bills in US dollars, and we last tested it ourselves in August 2021.

From US$2.19 (about A$3.13) a month

Essential plan, paying for 2 years, US$52.56 upfront. Renewal price not shown on its pricing page. Lowest plan of each VPN we track: A$2.86 to A$17.89.

Visit IPVanishFrom US$2.19/mo · checked 20 Oct (Lowest monthly price (about A$3.13), on the Essential plan paid upfront for 2 years; read from ipvanish.com on 20 October 2026)

Checked 20 Oct 2026 Price and plan details read from www.ipvanish.com.

IPVanish: key facts

Money-back

30 daysVPNs we track: 14 to 45 days

Free trial

YesiPhone and Android apps. Compare VPN free trials

Devices at once

UnlimitedVPNs we track: 5 to unlimited

Server countries

Not checked

Australian cities

5Adelaide, Brisbane, Melbourne, Perth, Sydney

Protocols and features

Protocols

IKEv2, OpenVPN, WireGuard

Features

Ad and tracker blocker, Kill switch, Multi-hop (two servers), Obfuscation, RAM-only servers, Split tunnelling

As IPVanish's own site lists them, read 19 Oct 2026.

IPVanish: our tests

Speed, Australian server

77% keptOf our download speed with the VPN off. Tested August 2021

DNS leaks

LeakedTested August 2021

Streaming

Played Netflix US, the one service we tried to playTested August 2021

Speed kept by the VPNs we have tested (2021 to 2026 rounds): 44% to 100% or more.

See our results in full

IPVanish: what has changed

• 18 Oct 2026 Review text last edited
• 16 Oct 2026 Price down: Advanced plan (2 years), US$3.59 to US$3.29 a month
• 16 Oct 2026 Price down: Complete plan (2 years), US$3.09 to US$2.79 a month
• 16 Oct 2026 Price down: Essential plan (2 years), US$2.39 to US$2.19 a month

Prices are read from IPVanish's website every morning (last read 20 Oct 2026) and its feature pages weekly; we record every change we see.

The short version

In August 2021, an Australian server kept 77% of our download speed. In the same test, American Netflix played on a US server, but BBC iPlayer and Prime Video turned us away, and DNS lookups leaked to our internet provider until we changed a setting by hand.

The main catch is that our streaming and leak results are five years old, so treat them as a dated record; our NordVPN review has results we measured in October 2026. Security.org also reports that IPVanish is a US company, which puts it inside the Five Eyes intelligence alliance.

Our August 2021 tests from Melbourne

This section is an archive of our hands-on test in August 2021, on a Melbourne home connection. We have not repeated them in 2026. Apps, servers and streaming services have all changed since, so read them as a dated record, not today’s picture.

Speed: fine at home, a battler overseas

In August 2021 a Sydney server cost us about a quarter of our download speed, a bigger drop than most of the VPNs we tested in 2021 and 2022. Uploads barely moved. On a fast NBN plan that still leaves plenty for 4K streaming and video calls.

Overseas was harder going in that test. The United States and India kept about two-fifths of our line and the United Kingdom under a third. Brazil managed about an eighth, too slow for 4K video. The table above has every figure.

Streaming: US Netflix only

American Netflix played Untold: Malice at the Palace on a US server (August 2021). That was where the good news stopped. BBC iPlayer and Prime Video both turned us away, and IPVanish struggled with every other service we tried.

That was one round of tests in August 2021. Streaming services block VPN addresses all the time, so it says little certain about today.

Torrenting: the second slowest we measured

In August 2021 a torrent download averaged 6.2 MiB/s. Only PrivateVPN was slower among the ten VPNs we tested in 2021 and 2022. NordVPN and Surfshark managed about twice that in the same round, so large downloads take noticeably longer here.

Leaks: DNS went to our internet provider until we fixed it

In August 2021, out of the box, IPVanish hid our IP address but sent DNS lookups to our internet provider. That let our provider see which sites we visited, the very thing a VPN should stop. The fix was to enter IPVanish’s DNS server addresses by hand in the computer’s network settings. After that, the leak test came back clean.

The app also let us pick a city, not just “Australia”, which helps if you want the closest server.

Support: a person through chat

IPVanish’s chat opened with a bot, and we reached a person through chat (August 2021).

Still to test

We have not yet run IPVanish on our 2026 test bench: speed from Melbourne, DNS leaks with the current app, the kill switch, and Australian and overseas streaming services. We will add each result here, dated, when we do. Until then, the independent reviewers below have tested it more recently than we have.

IPVanish deal in Australia (checked 20 Oct 2026)

What IPVanish costs

IPVanish charges in US dollars. The table below is read from its pricing page and updates automatically; the Australian-dollar figure is an approximate conversion. Your bank’s exchange rate and any international transaction fee will change what you pay. Named offers, such as a Black Friday deal, are on our VPN deals in Australia page once we have checked them on the provider’s site.

Checked 20 Oct 2026 Price and plan details read from www.ipvanish.com.

Visit IPVanish

The plans we track are two-year terms, paid upfront. Essential is the VPN on its own; Complete and Advanced add extras beyond the VPN. If you only want a VPN, compare Essential with other providers.

Here is what the cheapest plan adds up to over three years.

Is IPVanish safe? Privacy, audits and ownership

IPVanish says it keeps no logs, and that an independent third party has audited and verified that policy. Its server page does not name the auditor, so you are taking the result on trust. It also says its servers run in RAM only, so nothing is stored once they restart.

Where it is based matters more here than for most rivals. Security.org reports that IPVanish is headquartered in the United States, a member of the Five Eyes intelligence alliance, and owned by Ziff Davis. If a US-based provider worries you, weigh that before the price.

Apps, devices and Australian servers

One IPVanish account covers as many devices as you like, which is the main reason to choose it.

Its server list names Adelaide, Brisbane, Melbourne, Perth and Sydney. A server in your own city adds less delay, which matters if you leave the VPN on all day.

It supports WireGuard, IKEv2 and OpenVPN. Pick WireGuard: Top10VPN found OpenVPN much slower on long connections such as Australia’s. The extras that matter:

• Kill switch blocks your traffic if the VPN connection drops, so nothing leaks out unprotected.
• Split tunnelling lets your banking app or Stan skip the VPN while everything else uses it.
• Multi-hop routes you through two servers for extra privacy, at a speed cost.
• Obfuscation disguises VPN traffic on networks that block VPNs, such as some hotel and office Wi-Fi.
• Ad and tracker blocker stops ads and trackers before they load.

Using IPVanish in Australia

• Australian servers: Adelaide, Brisbane, Melbourne, Perth, Sydney, according to IPVanish's server list.
• Billing: charged in USD, so the Australian-dollar cost moves with the exchange rate.
• Refund period: 30 days.

Australian law requires internet providers to keep customers' metadata for two years. A VPN encrypts the connection between your device and the VPN server, so your internet provider can see that you are using a VPN but not which sites you visit. It does not make you anonymous to the VPN provider itself, which is why the provider's logging policy and audits matter.

Alternatives to IPVanish

Each alternative below is picked for a fact in our data, shown under its name. For the cheapest VPNs in Australia, or to compare every provider, start with the Best VPN for Australia table.

PrivateVPN

Lowest advertised price we track: US$2.00 a month

NordVPN

Servers in 150 countries, the most we track

Visit NordVPN

Surfshark

No limit on devices per account

Visit Surfshark

IPVanish FAQ

How we keep this review current

Prices and plans are read from IPVanish’s own website each morning, with the date of the last check beside each figure. Our own results carry the date they were measured: August 2021 is the latest round for IPVanish, and we will add 2026 results when we test it again. The independent reviews we cite are linked so you can read them in full.

Sources

IPVanish’s own pages: pricing (read 16 October 2026), and servers and server network (read 13 October 2026). Independent reviews, read 13 October 2026: Security.org (July 2026) and Top10VPN. Our own results are from August 2021, Melbourne.