Refund Policy & Money-Back Guarantee

The Core Guarantee: Definition and Operational Mechanics

The Proton VPN offers a 30-day money-back guarantee on all paid subscription plans. This is a unilateral promise to refund the full subscription fee, provided the request is initiated within 30 calendar days of the initial purchase and does not exceed a predefined usage threshold. The policy is not a universal "try before you buy" but a bounded evaluation period.

Invocation Process and Technical Boundaries

To claim the guarantee, a user must submit a request via the dedicated form within the account dashboard or by contacting support directly. The refund is processed to the original payment method. According to the data from typical merchant processors, refunds to credit cards or PayPal accounts in Australia can take 5-10 business days to appear, dependent on the financial institution.

1. Eligibility Window: The 30-day period is strict. A request on day 31 is ineligible. The timer starts on the purchase confirmation date, not the first day of use.
2. Usage Threshold for Long-Term Plans: For annual and biennial plans, refunds are conditional on total data consumption remaining below 500 GB. This threshold, equivalent to roughly 250 hours of high-definition streaming, is designed to deter systematic abuse while allowing for genuine testing.
3. Payment Method Correlation: Refunds are only issued to the original payment source. Gift cards, cryptocurrency payments, or third-party voucher purchases may be subject to alternative credit arrangements rather than a cash refund, as per standard financial reconciliation protocols.

Standard Exclusions and Non-Qualifying Scenarios

• Requests made after the 30-day period has elapsed.
• Subscriptions purchased through third-party platforms (e.g., Apple App Store, Google Play). Refunds for these must be sought through the respective platform's policies, which are outside The Proton VPN's direct transactional control.
• Accounts terminated for violations of the Terms of Service, such as spamming, hacking attempts, or fraudulent payment.
• Subsequent subscription renewals. The guarantee applies solely to the first payment of a new subscription.

Practical Application for Australian Users and Researchers

For the Australian user, the policy translates into a specific set of actions and expectations. It is a tool for de-risking the initial purchase, particularly for long-term commitments where the savings are significant. The practical implications extend beyond mere refund acquisition into areas of digital rights testing and service validation.

Interfacing with Australian Consumer Law

The Australian Consumer Law provides statutory guarantees that cannot be excluded by any company's policy. The Proton VPN's 30-day guarantee is a voluntary commercial promise that exists on top of these mandatory rights. For instance, if the VPN service was advertised as having "Australian servers" but they were consistently unavailable, this could represent a failure to meet a "major failure" criterion under ACL, entitling the consumer to a refund even after 30 days. However, proving such a systemic failure requires documentation. The policy, therefore, provides a clear, no-fault path for 30 days, after which the more complex ACL pathway remains available for legitimate grievances.

1. Documentation is Paramount: Researchers or users intending to test the service against its claims should screenshot advertisements, record speed test results, log connection failures, and note any discrepancies between promised and delivered features (e.g., specific server locations listed on the server locations page being offline).
2. The Auto-Renewal Trigger: The guarantee period is the critical window to cancel before auto-renewal. For a user on a two-year plan, forgetting this window locks them into a long-term financial commitment. The onus is on the user to manage this calendar date.
3. Tax Implications: Refunds of A$82.95 or more (the typical annual plan price) are financial events. For business users, the refund may need to be reconciled in accounting software, and the original GST credit might need adjustment.

Strategic Recommendations and Concluding Analysis

• For Maximum De-risking: Subscribe to a monthly plan first. Although more expensive per month, it carries no data usage caveat for the refund. Use it intensively for 30 days. If satisfied, switch to a long-term plan just before the month ends for the discounted rate. This strategy costs slightly more but provides the purest "trial."
• For Researchers: The policy and its 500 GB clause create a defined testing framework. Design your evaluation to stay under this threshold while stress-testing the core functionalities you're studying—privacy, speed, streaming reliability. The support centre can be a data source for common issues faced by Australian users.
• Future Gazing: As the Australian market matures and regulatory scrutiny increases, I think we'll see more explicit ACL integration in these policies. Maybe a clause acknowledging that the guarantee is without prejudice to statutory rights. Providers with clearer terms will avoid friction with the ACCC. Frankly, the current industry-standard approach of a standalone policy is living on borrowed time in this jurisdiction.

The guarantee is a calculated risk-transfer mechanism. It signals confidence, provides a measurable evaluation corridor, and ultimately serves as a final quality filter. For the informed Australian, it is less a safety net and more a structured audit period—a finite number of days and gigabytes within which to prove the service's worth against its own marketing and the user's specific needs, from streaming to secure travel. The policy's value lies not in its existence, but in the clarity of its boundaries and the ease of its execution.