ExpressVPN for Teams Takes on NordLayer [2025]

Express VPN for Teams: The Business VPN That Finally Puts Consumer Simplicity First

For years, the business VPN market has been dominated by complex, enterprise-focused solutions. You've got your Nord Layer, your heavyweight players with features so dense they require weeks of training. And then you've got small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) left juggling individual consumer licenses, managing spreadsheets of renewal dates, and hoping nobody forgets to connect before accessing company data on the coffee shop Wi-Fi.

Express VPN just changed the game.

The company announced Express VPN for Teams in late 2024, and it's not trying to out-enterprise the enterprise solutions. It's doing something more dangerous: it's taking the consumer VPN that millions of people already trust and wrapping it in the management layer that businesses actually need. No needless complexity. No excessive features nobody will use. Just straightforward VPN security that deploys in minutes instead of weeks.

Here's the thing. When you're running a distributed team across multiple cities (or countries), security isn't optional. Your employees are connecting from hotels, coworking spaces, home networks that definitely aren't enterprise-grade. But most business VPNs treat security like it has to be complicated to be serious. Express VPN for Teams takes the opposite approach. It assumes that simple, well-executed security is better than feature-bloated security that 80% of teams never configure properly.

The business VPN market has been growing steadily, but it's remained surprisingly stratified. You either get enterprise solutions that cost thousands per month and require dedicated security teams, or you bolt together consumer licenses and hope for the best. Express VPN for Teams slots directly into the middle, and it's targeting the exact segment that's been underserved: organizations with 5 to 500 employees that need security without the enterprise tax.

Let's dig into what this launch actually means for businesses, why the timing matters, and how it compares to what the competition is offering.

TL; DR

• Express VPN for Teams launches centralized admin dashboards allowing bulk user management in minutes instead of hours
• Pricing starts at 25% volume discounts, scaling to 50% for larger deployments, making it competitive with consumer VPN annual plans
• Dedicated IP addresses available for teams needing allowlisting access to internal servers and cloud resources
• Minimum 5 licenses required to access the business tier, removing friction from the consumer-individual model
• Direct competition with Nord Layer and other B2B VPN providers, but emphasizing ease-of-use over enterprise complexity

What Exactly Is Express VPN for Teams?

Express VPN for Teams is a business-focused evolution of what the company previously called its Volume Licensing program. But calling it an "upgrade" undersells what's actually happened here. This is more like taking a proven consumer product and deliberately building exactly what small business managers kept asking for in support tickets.

At the most basic level, the service starts with a minimum of five licenses. This isn't arbitrary. Express VPN clearly decided that five employees is the inflection point where ad-hoc license management becomes genuinely painful. Below five, you probably don't need centralized administration. At five and above, you absolutely do.

The core differentiator—and the feature that makes this a real business product—is the centralized admin dashboard. This is where the product philosophy becomes obvious. Instead of administrators logging into five, fifty, or a hundred separate accounts to manage renewals and assign licenses, there's now a single pane of glass. You can bulk-upload users, assign licenses automatically, track expiration dates across your entire org, and provision new employees in minutes.

According to the company's claims, assigning licenses to 100 users now takes just minutes. Compare that to the manual process most SMBs were doing before: creating individual accounts, sending credentials via email (security nightmare), tracking everything in a spreadsheet, manually nudging people whose licenses were expiring. The admin dashboard isn't flashy, but it's transformative for people actually doing this work.

The genius part is that the user experience remains completely unchanged. Your employees still use the standard Express VPN client they probably already know and like. There's no separate "business client" they need to download. Windows, Mac, i OS, Android, Linux—all the same polished interface they'd get as a consumer. This matters more than it sounds. Consumer VPN adoption has been enormous partly because the apps just work and feel good to use. Enterprise VPN adoption often fails because employees actively resist clunky interfaces. Express VPN for Teams sidesteps this entirely.

Shay Peretz, Chief Operating Officer at Express VPN, framed the launch as "an upgrade built from real feedback." The language is telling. This wasn't built by reading industry analyst reports. This was built by listening to actual small business managers struggling with the product in the wild. That's a different design philosophy than what you typically see in the B2B VPN space.

How Teams Licenses Actually Work

Understanding the licensing model is important because it directly impacts your total cost of ownership. Express VPN for Teams operates on a per-seat model, starting at a 25% discount compared to consumer pricing. That baseline 25% is the minimum volume discount, kicking in when you hit five users.

But the discount curve gets more aggressive as you scale. The company hasn't published exact tiers, but the messaging indicates discounts reach as high as 50% for larger deployments. That's substantial. To put it in perspective, a consumer Express VPN subscription typically runs around

There's a minimum 5-license commitment, but there's no maximum. The scaling is flexible. You can add or remove licenses as your team grows or contracts. Critically, you only pay for what you're using. If you provision 20 licenses but only 15 employees are actively using them, you're not paying for the five unused seats. This is different from many enterprise VPN models that charge per-simultaneous-connection or impose seat minimums.

Billing is centralized and handled through a single invoice. This is genuinely useful for SMBs. You're not reconciling 50 separate credit card charges. You're not managing 50 separate renewal dates. It's one relationship with one billing cycle. If you're doing accounting or IT procurement, this simplification is worth something.

The licensing also includes flexibility around contract length. One-year and two-year plans are available, with the longer commitment presumably unlocking additional discounts. This is standard practice in the Saa S world, and it's good that Express VPN isn't forcing everyone into annual commits if they want to test the service first.

The Admin Dashboard That Changed Everything

If you've ever used a business Saa S admin console, you know how wildly inconsistent they can be. Some are intuitive and minimal. Others are overwhelming toolbars masquerading as features. Express VPN's approach here is telling because they clearly spent time thinking about what admins actually do versus what they theoretically could do.

The dashboard handles the core administrative tasks in a streamlined way. Bulk user provisioning means you can upload a CSV of employee names and emails, and the system automatically creates accounts and assigns licenses. This is table stakes in 2025, but a lot of older business VPN solutions still require manual user creation. You can assign licenses to existing users in bulk, revoke access instantly for departing employees, and see an at-a-glance view of your entire fleet's license status.

Expiration tracking is built into the dashboard. You can see which users' licenses are expiring when, and the system can send automated renewal reminders. This prevents the common scenario where a critical employee's VPN access lapses because nobody realized the renewal date had passed.

The dashboard also provides basic usage tracking and reporting. Not in an invasive, surveillance-heavy way. More like: we can tell you which users connected via VPN in the last 30 days, and which users never connected at all. For IT teams, this is useful information. You can identify dead-weight licenses and reallocate them. You can also catch situations where an employee claims they need VPN access but clearly doesn't actually use it.

Authentication options include single sign-on (SSO) integration with common identity providers like Okta, Azure AD, and Google Workspace. This is critical infrastructure. IT teams don't want to manage yet another set of credentials. They want VPN access to be tied to their existing identity system. Express VPN supports this, which means when someone gets onboarded to your company Okta instance, they automatically get VPN access through the same credentials.

One thing the dashboard explicitly does NOT do is monitor or log user traffic. Express VPN's architecture is designed such that the admin dashboard manages users and licenses, but the VPN traffic itself remains encrypted and unlogged. The company could theoretically see "did this user connect," but they can't see "what did this user download or which sites did they visit." This is important for privacy-conscious organizations that want VPN security without the Big Brother concerns.

ExpressVPN for Teams significantly enhances VPN management with a centralized admin dashboard and rapid license assignment, while maintaining a consistent user experience. (Estimated data)

Dedicated IPs and Security Architecture

One of the more technically significant features Express VPN for Teams introduced is Dedicated IP for Teams. This sounds like a technical detail, but it's actually the feature that opens up entire use cases for businesses that previously couldn't use Express VPN's consumer product.

Here's why this matters. Many companies restrict access to their internal servers and critical resources to specific, whitelisted IP addresses. This is a legitimate security practice. If you're hosting a database or API that's sensitive, you don't want the whole internet trying to access it. You only want your own employees connecting from known IP addresses.

Consumer VPNs typically use dynamic IP pools. Every time you connect, you might get assigned a different IP address from a large shared pool. This is great for privacy because it makes you harder to track. It's terrible if your company has whitelisted a specific set of IPs for database access. Your employee connects via consumer Express VPN, gets assigned IP 203.0.113.45, but that IP isn't whitelisted. Access denied. VPN becomes useless for the job it needs to do.

Dedicated IP for Teams solves this. Instead of drawing from a dynamic pool, your organization gets assigned a specific IP address (or small range of addresses) that remains constant. When your employee connects via Express VPN for Teams, they're always connecting from one of those whitelisted addresses. Your internal systems see the same IP every time. Access granted.

This feature is available for teams on one- or two-year plans, which suggests Express VPN treats dedicated IPs as something requiring a longer commitment. The company also mentions a "custom-provisioning approach," which is corporate speak for "talk to our sales team and we'll figure out exactly what you need." This is fine. Dedicated IPs require more infrastructure coordination, so it makes sense they're not self-serve.

Under the hood, the security architecture of Express VPN for Teams is identical to the consumer product. This is actually a huge advantage. Express VPN has audited its infrastructure extensively for the consumer VPN market. Those audits don't disappear just because you're using a business license.

The technical foundation includes:

Lightway Protocol - Express VPN's custom-built VPN protocol designed for speed and reliability. This is a genuine differentiator. Most VPNs use Open VPN or Wire Guard, which are great, but they're also commodity protocols everyone else is using. Lightway is Express VPN's answer to "what if we designed a protocol from scratch with modern priorities in mind?" It's faster and more responsive than traditional protocols, which matters when your employees are trying to get actual work done through a VPN tunnel.

Trusted Server Technology - Express VPN's servers run entirely in RAM. There's no persistent storage. Every time the server reboots, all data wipes completely. This is security theater of the best kind. Even if someone physically compromised a server, there'd be nothing to steal. The server wipes itself. This is a technical feature that most users never think about, but it's the kind of infrastructure design that separates serious security providers from companies just slapping a VPN interface on generic code.

AES-256 Encryption - The industry standard for encrypting data. This is table stakes. Everyone uses AES-256 these days. It's not a differentiator, but it's necessary.

Network Segmentation - Users can be assigned to different organizational groups with different security policies. This is lighter weight than enterprise Zero Trust Network Access (ZTNA) implementations, but it provides segmentation for teams that need it. Marketing can be in one group, engineering in another, with different VPN behavior for each.

The security posture is reinforced by the fact that Express VPN is incorporated in the British Virgin Islands and explicitly not subject to US domestic surveillance laws. For companies concerned about US government access to their communications, this jurisdiction matters. It's also why Express VPN conducts regular independent security audits. They're proving to the market that they're serious about what they claim.

ExpressVPN for Teams offers enhanced features for businesses, including superior license management, user provisioning, and integration capabilities. Estimated data based on service descriptions.

Why Now? The Context of Remote Work

Timing in product launches is everything. Express VPN could have launched a business VPN product five years ago. The technology existed. The demand was there. But the urgency wasn't quite right.

That's changed dramatically. The shift to distributed work has become permanent. Data from multiple sources shows that 60-70% of the global workforce now has access to remote work options, and 30-40% work hybrid or fully remote. This isn't temporary pandemic adjustment anymore. It's how work operates.

With that shift comes a security problem that scales with employee count. In an office, you control the network. Everyone's on your company Wi-Fi with your firewall and your monitoring. In a distributed team, employees are connecting from Starbucks, Airbnb apartments, coworking spaces, home networks they didn't set up. Each of those connection points is a potential security vulnerability.

Most SMBs didn't have a good answer to this problem. Enterprise companies had budgets for sophisticated VPN and Zero Trust infrastructure. Consumer VPN users had tools for privacy, but those weren't designed for business use. The middle market was underserved.

Express VPN for Teams fills that gap right when the gap is most painful. Companies are hiring distributed teams. They're scaling operations. They suddenly need network security that actually works for a geographically dispersed workforce. The alternative—doing nothing and hoping nothing bad happens—is increasingly untenable.

Data breaches have also gotten more expensive. The average cost of a data breach in 2024 was approximately $4.45 million according to IBM's annual report. For an SMB, that's an existential threat. A single compromised employee account could trigger that kind of damage. Implementing basic VPN protection becomes an obvious risk mitigation move. And if you're going to implement VPN, you might as well do it in a way that's manageable.

There's also the compliance angle. Certain industries (healthcare, finance, legal) have regulatory requirements around network access and data protection. Many of these regulations don't specifically require VPNs, but they require confidentiality and access controls. A properly deployed business VPN helps satisfy those requirements. Express VPN for Teams, with its user management and audit logging capabilities, makes compliance documentation easier.

Third, the COVID acceleration of cloud-first architecture has created new urgency. Companies are increasingly storing data in AWS, Azure, Google Cloud, and Salesforce. These cloud resources are accessible from anywhere with internet. You can lock down the services themselves with authentication requirements, but a VPN adds a layer of protection. Your employee can't even reach the cloud service without being on the VPN tunnel. That's meaningful security for distributed teams.

Head-to-Head: Express VPN for Teams vs. Nord Layer

Nord Layer is the obvious comparison. Nord Security (the parent company behind Nord VPN) launched Nord Layer back in 2019 as their business VPN solution. Five years of development gave them a significant head start. They've built out sophisticated features, extensive integrations, and a mature product. If you're evaluating business VPN solutions, Nord Layer is probably on your shortlist.

So how do the two stack up?

Feature Complexity: This is where the philosophical difference between the products becomes most obvious. Nord Layer's product roadmap has evolved to include sophisticated features like network segmentation, Zero Trust Network Access (ZTNA), advanced threat protection, and integration with SIEM systems. These are powerful capabilities for enterprises managing complex network architectures.

Express VPN for Teams is deliberately simpler. It's VPN with admin management. It's not trying to be a comprehensive network security platform. You get what you need to deploy VPN to your team quickly, not a feature encyclopedia that requires months to configure properly.

Neither approach is objectively better. Nord Layer is better if you have complex network requirements and dedicated security staff to manage them. Express VPN for Teams is better if you want something deployed in a week that your IT manager can maintain without becoming a specialist in VPN architecture.

Ease of Deployment: This is where Express VPN likely has an advantage. The company built the product explicitly to minimize deployment friction. Admin dashboard with bulk provisioning, single sign-on integration, and sensible defaults that work out of the box. The ideal scenario for Express VPN is: sign up Monday, implement Tuesday, fully deployed Wednesday.

Nord Layer's implementation typically requires more coordination. There's more to configure. There are more decisions to make. If you're a sophisticated organization with dedicated IT staff, that's fine. If you're a 20-person startup and the CEO is doing IT procurement, that's a problem.

Pricing Models: This is worth looking at carefully because it impacts TCO significantly. Express VPN for Teams pricing starts at a 25% discount and scales to 50% for larger deployments. The exact per-seat cost depends on your contract length and team size.

Nord Layer's pricing is more complex. They offer multiple tiers (Essential, Professional, Complete) with different feature sets at different price points. The Essential tier is cheaper but has limited features. As you add features, the cost goes up. This is typical Saa S tiering, but it means you need to evaluate which features you actually need and are willing to pay for.

For a small team just wanting basic VPN protection, Express VPN for Teams is probably cheaper. For a larger team wanting advanced network segmentation and threat protection, Nord Layer might be the better value.

Geographic Presence: Both companies operate VPN servers in dozens of countries. Express VPN has servers in 94+ countries. Nord Layer has servers in 50+ countries. Both are sufficient for most use cases. The specific list of countries matters if your team has operations in specific regions. Verify both have presence where you need it.

Support and SLAs: Nord Layer, as an enterprise-focused product, offers dedicated support and customizable SLAs. Express VPN for Teams is rolling out with standard support (likely email-based with published response time expectations). For a startup, standard support is probably fine. For a critical business function, you might need Nord Layer's SLA guarantees.

User Experience: This is where Express VPN's background as a consumer product becomes obvious. The client applications are polished, responsive, and intuitive. They don't require training. Nord Layer's clients are more feature-rich but also more complex. Again, this depends on your team's technical sophistication and risk tolerance for learning new tools.

Integration Ecosystem: Nord Layer has had five years to build integrations with enterprise tools like Okta, Azure AD, Slack, and various SIEM platforms. Express VPN for Teams is launching with essential integrations (Okta, Azure, Google) but will likely expand over time. If you need integrations with niche enterprise tools, Nord Layer probably has them. If you use standard identity platforms, Express VPN probably has you covered.

The practical takeaway: If you're a small team wanting straightforward VPN protection deployed quickly, Express VPN for Teams is probably the better choice. If you're a larger organization with complex network requirements and dedicated IT staff, Nord Layer might justify the additional complexity. Both are legitimate products solving real problems.

This chart compares the implementation of ExpressVPN for Teams across different organizational scenarios. The Remote-First SaaS Startup and the Hybrid Consulting Firm have different team sizes and costs, but both take approximately a week to set up.

Security, Privacy, and Compliance Considerations

When evaluating a business VPN, you need to think beyond just "does it encrypt the data." You need to consider the legal framework, privacy implications, compliance requirements, and trustworthiness of the provider.

Express VPN's jurisdiction is the British Virgin Islands. This is deliberate. US-based VPN companies are subject to US government data requests under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) and other legal frameworks. BVI jurisdiction means Express VPN is outside US legal reach. For companies concerned about US government access to their communications, this matters.

Isn't this suspicious? Some people argue that you should be skeptical of any company claiming to not have backdoors. That's fair. That's why independent audits matter. Express VPN has undergone multiple independent security audits by firms like Cure 53. These audits confirm that the company's infrastructure matches their claims. The company's no-log policy (the VPN provider doesn't log what you do, just that you connected) has been independently verified.

This is different from enterprise security products where you have to trust the vendor's claims. Express VPN has put its money where its mouth is through independent verification.

Compliance frameworks matter if you're in regulated industries. HIPAA (healthcare), PCI-DSS (payment processing), SOC 2 Type II (data security and privacy) are common requirements. Express VPN claims SOC 2 Type II compliance. For a startup in healthcare, that's important. You need to verify the compliance certifications actually exist and are current.

Data residency might matter if you operate in regions with specific requirements. EU regulations (GDPR) have strict data residency requirements. If your team is in Europe, you want to verify that the VPN infrastructure has servers within EU borders and that they comply with GDPR. Express VPN operates servers across Europe, and their data handling practices claim GDPR compliance. Again, verify this with your legal team before committing.

One thing to be clear about: deploying a business VPN doesn't mean you have zero visibility into what employees are doing. The VPN encrypts the traffic between the employee and the company's resources. But once traffic reaches company systems, those systems can still log and monitor activity. The VPN is one layer of security, not the entire security stack.

Many companies use VPN as part of a broader security architecture that includes firewalls, intrusion detection, endpoint security, and SIEM systems that aggregate logs. Express VPN for Teams is a component in that architecture, not a complete solution by itself. Don't position it as such to leadership.

Implementation and Deployment Timeline

Here's what actual deployment typically looks like for a 20-person team:

Week 1: Planning and Procurement

You've made the decision to implement Express VPN for Teams. First step is to actually purchase it. This involves signing up through the website, providing payment information, selecting your contract length (1-year or 2-year), and choosing your initial seat count. For a 20-person team, you'd provision 20+ licenses with buffer for growth.

Simultaneously, you need to think about your identity architecture. Are you using Okta? Azure AD? Google Workspace? Express VPN supports all three. Identify which one you're using so you can configure SSO integration. This isn't complicated, but it requires coordination between your IT team and Express VPN's implementation team.

You should also document your specific requirements. Do you need dedicated IPs for allowlisting? Which geographic locations do your employees work from? Do you need specific compliance certifications? Getting answers to these questions before you start implementation saves time later.

Week 2: Initial Setup and Configuration

Express VPN's team will provision your account, set up the admin dashboard, and configure SSO integration. This is largely on their side. Your role is to provide information when they request it and make sure your identity provider (Okta, Azure, etc.) is configured correctly to trust Express VPN.

You'll get admin dashboard access. Spend a few hours familiarizing yourself with the interface. Create a test user account, assign a license, and verify that the license activation works. Get comfortable with the bulk user upload process before you try it with your actual employee list.

Set up billing alerts and renewal tracking. You don't want a scenario where someone's license expires because nobody remembered when renewal was coming up.

Week 3: Pilot Deployment

Instead of rolling out to the entire team at once, start with a pilot group. Choose 5-10 people who are technically sophisticated and willing to give you feedback. This might be your engineers, your product managers, or your remote workers.

Send them installation instructions and have them install the Express VPN client on their personal and company devices. Have them test connecting to the VPN and accessing your internal resources (if any). Document what works and what doesn't.

Common issues at this stage: SSO integration not working correctly (misconfiguration in the identity provider), client not connecting (firewall rules), slow performance when connecting through certain geographic servers (give it a few days, sometimes it's just the test environment being weird). Resolve these issues with the pilot group.

Week 4: Full Rollout

Once the pilot group gives you a thumbs up, roll out to the rest of your team. Use the bulk user upload in the admin dashboard to create accounts for everyone. If you're using SSO, accounts will be auto-created from your identity provider. Send instructions to the team about how to install the client.

Expect a few support requests in the first week. Some people won't read instructions. Some people will have network setup that conflicts with VPN. Answer these questions patiently.

After a week, check back with the team. Are people actually using it? Are they connecting regularly? Are there systematic issues you need to address? This is your canary in the coal mine moment. If people aren't using it, the problem might be that they don't understand why they need it. You might need to communicate more clearly about why VPN is important.

Ongoing: Maintenance and Monitoring

After full rollout, Express VPN for Teams becomes part of your regular IT operations. Check the admin dashboard monthly to see which licenses are unused. Consider reallocating unused licenses to new hires. Monitor license renewal dates and make sure you're not surprised by surprise expirations.

Every quarter, review your VPN usage patterns. Are all teams using it equally, or are some departments not using it at all? This might indicate a training gap or a legitimate use case where VPN isn't needed.

Be prepared for version updates. Express VPN releases updates to its client applications regularly. These typically update automatically, but you should understand what's changing. Breaking changes are rare, but you want to know about them before they happen.

Estimated data shows that 60-70% of the global workforce has remote work options, with 30-40% working hybrid or fully remote.

Cost Analysis and ROI for Teams

Let's talk actual numbers. What's this going to cost, and is it worth it?

For a 20-person team on a 1-year plan with the base 25% discount, you're looking at approximately

For a 50-person team that qualifies for a larger discount (let's say 40%), you're looking at

What's the ROI on this? It's partly tangible, partly intangible.

Tangible Benefits:

Reduced data breach risk: A single prevented breach (even a small one) pays for years of VPN protection. If a data breach costs your company $100,000 in incident response, legal, notification, and reputation damage, and you prevent even a 1% probability of that happening, you've justified the expense multiple times over.

Admin time savings: If you were previously managing individual VPN licenses manually, the admin dashboard saves you 4-6 hours per month. At an IT salary of

Compliance documentation: If you're in a regulated industry and VPN is part of your compliance posture, the audit trail and user management provided by the admin dashboard reduces the cost of your annual compliance audit.

Intangible Benefits:

Employee security awareness: Implementing VPN sends a signal that security matters. Employees who are forced to use VPN every time they work remotely start thinking about security more carefully. They're less likely to use public Wi-Fi without protection. They're more cautious about sharing company information.

Reduced support burden: When employees work outside secure networks without VPN, they sometimes access company resources incorrectly. They might screenshot sensitive data and send it via email. They might save credentials in browser autofill. VPN creates a more controlled environment that reduces these kinds of mistakes.

Peace of mind: For non-technical leadership, knowing that your team is using VPN when working remotely provides genuine peace of mind. You're doing something concrete to protect company data. That's worth something even if it's hard to quantify.

The bottom line: For most SMBs, the cost of Express VPN for Teams is low relative to the risk reduction. The ROI calculation isn't complicated. It's good security practice at a reasonable cost.

Common Implementation Mistakes to Avoid

Before you implement, here are the pitfalls to watch out for:

Mistake 1: Making VPN Optional

If VPN is optional and not required to access company resources, a significant portion of your team won't use it. They'll see it as extra friction. Your employees won't go through the setup process just because IT told them to. Make VPN mandatory for accessing company data, and suddenly everyone uses it.

This might mean configuring your firewall or cloud resources to only accept connections from VPN IP ranges. It might mean blocking certain resources (database, internal apps, file servers) for non-VPN connections. This creates gentle friction that encourages VPN adoption without being heavy-handed.

Mistake 2: Poor Communication about Why It's Important

If you deploy VPN without explaining why, employees wonder if it's security theater. They'll grumble about the extra step of connecting before starting work. Explain the actual threat model. Your employee is working from a coffee shop. Hundreds of people are on the same Wi-Fi. A determined attacker can intercept unencrypted traffic. The VPN prevents that. Real threat, real solution.

Make this concrete. Don't just say "security best practice." Say "your password for the company database is encrypted and protected when you use VPN. Without it, that data travels in the clear." Concrete threat, concrete protection.

Mistake 3: Not Providing Support

When someone has trouble connecting, they need to be able to get help quickly. Assign someone on your team to be the point person for VPN questions. Have them test the installation process themselves so they understand common failure modes. Document the most common issues and their solutions.

Without good support, people stop using VPN because "it doesn't work on my Mac" or "it slows down my internet too much." These are usually configuration issues that take 10 minutes to fix. But if nobody helps people fix them, adoption falls apart.

Mistake 4: Choosing the Wrong VPN Solution for Your Use Case

Express VPN for Teams is great for SMBs wanting simple VPN. But if your organization has complex network requirements (multiple offices with different security policies, SIEM integration, advanced threat protection), you might need Nord Layer or a more enterprise-focused solution.

Choosing the wrong tool means implementation takes twice as long, costs twice as much, and users hate it because it's oversized for what they need. Evaluate your actual requirements before committing.

Mistake 5: Forgetting about License Management

You provision 20 licenses for your 20-person team. One person leaves. You forget to revoke their license. Six months later, someone new starts, and you realize you've run out of licenses. Set a calendar reminder to audit license usage quarterly. Identify unused licenses. Reallocate or remove them.

Mistake 6: Not Testing with Real Work Scenarios

During the pilot phase, test VPN with actual work scenarios. If your team uses AWS, actually connect via VPN and verify that AWS resources are accessible. If you use Salesforce, test that. Don't just test "can we connect to the VPN." Test "can we do our actual jobs through the VPN."

ExpressVPN for Teams excels in ease of deployment, while NordLayer offers more complex features. Estimated data based on product descriptions.

The Competitive Landscape in 2025

Express VPN for Teams isn't operating in a vacuum. The business VPN market is getting more competitive every year. Let's look at who else is playing in this space and how the overall landscape is evolving.

Established Enterprise Players

Cisco Any Connect, Palo Alto Networks (through its acquisition of Globalprotect), and Fortinet all offer business VPN solutions. These are enterprise-grade tools with extensive features, high price tags, and long implementation cycles. If you're a Fortune 500 company with thousands of employees and dedicated security staff, these are probably your options. For SMBs, they're overkill.

Business-Focused VPN Providers

Nord Layer is the most obvious competitor, but there's also Surfshark for Teams and Mullvad for Teams. Mullvad is particularly interesting because of its privacy-first design. These companies are all trying to capture the same SMB market that Express VPN is targeting. Mullvad is notably cheaper but has a smaller server network. Surfshark is similar to Express VPN in positioning but launched their Teams product more recently.

Zero Trust Network Access (ZTNA) Providers

Companies like Cloudflare (Cloudflare One), Okta (Okta Identity Cloud), and Zscaler are shifting the conversation away from traditional VPNs toward Zero Trust architecture. The premise is that VPNs are 1990s technology. Modern security should be about verifying every access request regardless of network location, not just giving people a tunnel into the company network.

This is a real conversation worth having for larger organizations. But ZTNA implementation is complex and expensive. For a 20-50 person team, it's probably overkill. VPN is simpler, cheaper, and easier to deploy.

Cloud Providers Offering VPN

AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud all offer built-in VPN capabilities. If your entire infrastructure is in one cloud provider, using their native VPN can make sense. It's tightly integrated with your IAM, it's part of your cloud bill, and there's no vendor to manage separately.

The downside is that cloud VPN typically has less consumer-friendly clients and more limited geographic options. It works great for teams entirely within one cloud ecosystem. It's awkward if you have hybrid infrastructure or use multiple clouds.

The Consolidation Trend

The business VPN market is consolidating. Smaller players are being acquired by larger ones. Nord Security acquired three other VPN companies in the past five years. The market is moving toward winner-take-most dynamics in the enterprise space and increased competition in the SMB space.

For SMBs, that's actually good news. Competition means better products and lower prices. Express VPN entering the market with a focus on simplicity is healthy competition that pushes the entire market to be more user-friendly.

The Future of Business VPN

Where is this market going? What's the trajectory?

Prediction 1: Mobile Will Become the Primary Use Case

Right now, most business VPN usage is laptops and desktops. But as work becomes more mobile (people working from their phones, traveling, using collaborative tools), mobile VPN becomes more critical. Express VPN's advantage here is that their consumer product already has excellent mobile clients. Teams on Android and i OS just work. They'll benefit from this more than competitors whose mobile clients lag behind desktop.

Prediction 2: Integration with Identity Systems Will Be Standard, Not Optional

Express VPN for Teams already supports Okta, Azure, and Google Workspace integration. But as companies consolidate identity management into single platforms, VPN needs to be tightly integrated there. The trend will be toward VPN access being provisioned automatically as part of onboarding and revoked automatically as part of offboarding. You won't manually manage VPN access because you don't need to.

Prediction 3: VPN Will Merge with Broader Network Security

In five years, "VPN" might not be a separate product category. It'll be part of a broader "secure network access" platform that includes firewalls, intrusion detection, threat prevention, and encrypted tunnels. VPN will become a commodity transport layer within a larger security architecture.

Express VPN for Teams, by keeping things simple, is positioned well for this future. They're not trying to be everything. They're VPN plus basic access management. As the market evolves, that focus might be an advantage or a disadvantage depending on how the ecosystem develops.

Prediction 4: Regulatory Requirements Will Drive Adoption

As data privacy regulations become more stringent globally (GDPR in Europe, similar regulations in other regions), organizations will face regulatory requirements to use encrypted tunnels for sensitive data access. This will drive broader adoption of business VPN solutions across industries. Express VPN's timing with this product launch is good—they're entering the market right as regulatory pressure to implement VPN is increasing.

Prediction 5: Performance Will Become the Differentiator

As VPN becomes more standard, the technical implementation will become more commoditized. All business VPN solutions will provide similar security and features. The differentiator will be performance and user experience. Which VPN is fastest? Which VPN is least intrusive? Which VPN doesn't make work feel slower?

Express VPN's focus on Lightway protocol and optimized clients positions them well for this future. They've built a product that doesn't feel like a performance penalty. That's becoming more important as VPN adoption becomes mandatory rather than optional.

ExpressVPN for Teams offers a high ease of use rating, making it ideal for SMBs seeking simplicity without sacrificing security. Estimated data.

Real-World Implementation Stories

Let me walk through some realistic scenarios of how different types of teams might use Express VPN for Teams:

Scenario 1: The Remote-First Saa S Startup

Twenty-five person company. Fully distributed. Employees spread across four countries. They use AWS for infrastructure, Salesforce for sales, Git Hub for code, Slack for communication. No internal servers.

Why VPN matters: Even though their applications are cloud-based, a VPN provides a security baseline. Employees accessing these cloud services over insecure networks without VPN means credentials and data could be intercepted. VPN creates a baseline of protection.

How they use it: They'd set up Express VPN for Teams, integrate it with their Azure AD, and make VPN a requirement for accessing company resources. The setup takes a week. Cost is roughly $200/month. The ROI is that they can say to customers and investors, "Yes, we have encryption of all data in transit. No, we don't have data stored in homes or coffee shops without VPN protection."

Scenario 2: The Hybrid Consulting Firm

Forty-person consulting firm with offices in three cities. About 30% of people work in offices, 70% work remotely or travel to client sites. They need to access internal systems: project management software, time tracking, internal file servers.

Why VPN matters: Consultants working from client offices need secure access to internal systems. They can't have their credentials intercepted or company data exposed. They need to present a security-conscious posture to clients.

How they use it: They'd deploy Express VPN for Teams with dedicated IPs for allowlisting their internal file server. All remote employees required to use VPN to access internal systems. Partners with one-year contracts. Cost is roughly $300/month. The payoff is that employees can securely access internal systems from anywhere, and the IT manager doesn't need to spend hours managing individual licenses.

Scenario 3: The Regulated Financial Services Company

Fifty-person investment advisory firm. Heavily regulated. Needs to maintain audit trails and demonstrate compliance with securities regulations. Employees access sensitive client data constantly.

Why VPN matters: Compliance and security are the same thing here. They need to demonstrate that access to sensitive data is controlled and encrypted. Regulators want to see proof that data in transit is protected.

How they use it: They'd deploy Express VPN for Teams, integrate with Okta for identity management, and configure their internal systems to log VPN usage. The admin dashboard provides audit trails of who accessed VPN when. During compliance audits, they can pull reports showing that all access was through encrypted tunnels. Cost is roughly $400/month. The ROI is avoiding regulatory fines, which can be substantial.

Scenario 4: The Hardware Company with Field Teams

Thirty-person hardware startup. Some people in the office, some in the lab, some traveling to trade shows and customer sites. Need to access CAD files, bill of materials, supplier information, customer communications.

Why VPN matters: CAD files are intellectual property. If someone's laptop gets stolen at an airport and they were accessing CAD files without VPN, the data could be accessed by whoever stole the laptop. VPN prevents this.

How they use it: They'd deploy Express VPN for Teams, make it mandatory before accessing sensitive systems, and make it convenient (one-click setup, automatic connection). Cost is roughly $250/month. The payoff is that they can honestly say to investors and partners that intellectual property is protected during transit.

Migration Guide: Moving from Manual Management to Express VPN for Teams

If you're currently using individual Express VPN consumer licenses for your team, migrating to the Teams tier is straightforward. Here's how to do it without disrupting your team:

Phase 1: Planning (1 week)

Make the decision to migrate. Calculate your projected cost savings. Determine your contract length preference (1-year or 2-year). Create a migration timeline.

Phase 2: Purchase and Setup (1 week)

Sign up for Express VPN for Teams. Provide your organization information. Set up the admin dashboard. Invite your team members to set SSO credentials if you're using Okta or Azure.

Phase 3: Parallel Running (2-3 weeks)

During this period, people are using both old individual licenses and new Teams licenses. They've set up Teams licenses on one device and kept individual licenses on another. This lets you verify that everything works before fully cutting over.

Have people test Teams licenses with their actual work scenarios. Database access, API calls, cloud resources, whatever their daily work involves. Document any issues.

Phase 4: Full Cutover (1 week)

Once everyone confirms that Teams licenses work as expected, you stop renewing individual licenses. People uninstall the individual license client and use Teams licenses exclusively. Existing individual licenses can expire naturally.

Phase 5: Cleanup (Ongoing)

Cancel any remaining individual licenses. Update your password manager and credential documentation to reflect the Teams tier setup. Archive any documentation about the individual license setup for historical reference.

Total migration timeline: 4-6 weeks. The risk is minimal because you run parallel licenses for a few weeks, so there's no disruption if something goes wrong.

Quick Comparison Table: Business VPN Options

Frequently Asked Questions

What is Express VPN for Teams?

Express VPN for Teams is a business-focused VPN service that provides centralized license management, admin dashboards, and volume discounts to small and medium-sized teams. Unlike the consumer version, it includes team administration features like bulk user provisioning, single sign-on integration, and dedicated IP options for organizations requiring specific IP allowlisting. The service starts with a minimum of five licenses and can scale to organizations of any size.

How does Express VPN for Teams differ from the consumer VPN?

The core VPN technology is identical, but the business version adds administrative features specifically designed for teams. The consumer version requires each user to have a separate account and manage their own license. The Teams version gives one administrator control over all licenses, can provision users in bulk from a CSV file, integrates with identity systems like Okta and Azure AD, and provides usage reporting. Employees still use the same polished consumer client, so there's no new software to learn.

What security features does Express VPN for Teams provide?

The service includes AES-256 encryption (industry standard for data protection), Lightway protocol (Express VPN's custom-built protocol optimized for speed and reliability), and Trusted Server technology (servers that run entirely in RAM and wipe all data on reboot). The company operates in the British Virgin Islands jurisdiction, which places it outside US domestic surveillance frameworks. The service has undergone independent security audits by third parties like Cure 53, which verify that the infrastructure matches the company's claims about security and privacy.

Is Express VPN for Teams compliant with regulations like GDPR and HIPAA?

Express VPN for Teams claims to be compliant with GDPR and SOC 2 Type II standards. However, specific compliance certifications depend on your use case. HIPAA compliance is possible but requires additional configuration and agreements beyond the base service. Healthcare organizations should contact Express VPN's sales team to discuss specific compliance requirements. Financial services organizations with PCI-DSS requirements should similarly verify that the service meets those standards. Always have your legal and compliance teams review the service before deploying it in regulated industries.

How much does Express VPN for Teams cost?

Volume discounts start at 25% for teams of five and scale to 50% for larger deployments. At the base 25% discount, you're looking at approximately

Can we migrate from individual Express VPN licenses to the Teams plan?

Yes, migration is straightforward. You can run parallel licenses for a transition period where employees use both individual licenses and Teams licenses simultaneously. This allows you to verify that Teams licenses work correctly before fully migrating. Once you're confident everything works, you stop renewing individual licenses and use Teams licenses exclusively. The migration timeline is typically 4-6 weeks, with minimal disruption.

How long does it take to implement Express VPN for Teams?

For a typical small team, implementation takes 2-4 weeks. Setup of the admin dashboard and SSO integration takes 3-5 days. Pilot deployment with a subset of employees takes 1-2 weeks. Full rollout to the entire team takes 3-5 days. Ongoing maintenance and license management becomes routine thereafter. Larger organizations or those with complex requirements may need more time, but the service is designed for rapid deployment.

What happens if an employee leaves the company?

You revoke their license through the admin dashboard. This immediately prevents them from connecting to the VPN. The license becomes available to reassign to new employees. This process is instant and takes seconds to perform. You don't need to reset any infrastructure or change passwords.

Does Express VPN for Teams log what I'm doing on the internet?

No. Express VPN's architecture is designed such that the company can see that you connected to VPN and when you connected, but they cannot see what websites you visited or what data you transferred. The traffic is encrypted end-to-end, so even Express VPN can't see what's inside. This is different from some corporate VPN solutions that intercept and monitor traffic. Express VPN specifically avoids this architectural pattern for privacy reasons.

Does Express VPN for Teams support SSO integration?

Yes, it integrates with Okta, Azure Active Directory, and Google Workspace for single sign-on. This means your employees use their existing company credentials to access VPN, and you don't need to manage a separate set of VPN credentials. When someone is onboarded to your identity system, they automatically get VPN access. When they're offboarded, they automatically lose VPN access. This integration significantly reduces administrative overhead.

What devices does Express VPN for Teams support?

The client is available for Windows, mac OS, i OS, Android, and Linux. This covers essentially all devices your team might use. Installation is straightforward on each platform. The client interface is consistent across platforms, so people using the same device types have identical experiences. Bring-your-own-device (BYOD) scenarios are supported as long as employees are running one of these operating systems.

Conclusion: Is Express VPN for Teams Right for Your Team?

Express VPN for Teams enters a market that's been waiting for exactly this product. Small and medium-sized businesses have needed a VPN solution that's serious about security, simple to deploy, and affordable to operate. The company's philosophy of starting with what works (its consumer VPN) and adding only the specific features businesses need is the right approach.

The competitive comparison is clear: Express VPN for Teams is simpler and cheaper than enterprise solutions like Cisco Any Connect. It has a cleaner user experience than alternatives like Nord Layer that are trying to be everything to everyone. For teams that want straightforward VPN protection without months of implementation, it's the obvious choice.

The real question is whether your team actually needs VPN. If your employees work entirely on company-provided computers within company offices, VPN adds security but isn't critical. If your employees are distributed, work remotely, travel to client sites, or access sensitive data, VPN becomes essential infrastructure. The cost is low enough that the decision should be yes if there's any doubt.

The implementation is straightforward. The product works. The company has a track record of taking privacy seriously. For most SMBs, this solves a real problem at a reasonable cost.

The one caveat: this product is optimized for simplicity. If your organization has complex network architecture, multiple offices with different security policies, or integration needs with specialized enterprise tools, you might outgrow Express VPN for Teams. But that's a good problem to have. You can always migrate to a more complex solution later if you need to.

For now, Express VPN for Teams represents a meaningful shift in the business VPN market. It's proof that you don't need to choose between security and simplicity. You can have both. That's worth paying attention to.

Key Takeaways

• ExpressVPN for Teams brings the company's consumer VPN into the business market with centralized admin features, starting at 25% volume discounts and scaling to 50%
• Minimum 5-license requirement and bulk user provisioning eliminate the overhead of managing individual consumer licenses
• Direct competition with NordLayer, but positioned for simplicity and rapid deployment rather than enterprise complexity
• Dedicated IP addresses available for teams needing allowlisting to internal servers and cloud resources
• Implementation timeline typically 4-6 weeks from purchase to full team deployment with minimal disruption

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